Who provides better care: male or female doctors?

Not so many years ago, science was a man’s world. Many women have been able to access it, but not without determination and effort. Commitment and effort that her male counterparts never needed. Over time, they were allowed to enter universities, especially in professions such as Medicine. After all, caring for other people has always been associated with women. If they were going to study science, it would be better. There are still biases in some professions today, but access is completely free. There are both male and female doctors, although depending on the specialty, some genres are more common than others. So, is there a gender that works better in medicine? Doctors?

According to some studies, in people treated by doctors, less likely to die or relapse in their illnesses. This may seem like a bias in the opposite direction. It used to be that men were better at science, including medicine, but now it seems that women are better doctors. Is this true or is this some kind of discrimination again?

The truth is that studies, of which there are quite a lot, rely on data. It is a reality that, as a rule, patients treated by female doctors they develop better. At least in Western countries. In places like Japan or the African continent, the results are different. Not because the doctors are worse, but because the patients they prefer men. Putting this aside and focusing on countries where male doctors are afforded the same opportunities as female doctors, the evidence favors the latter. Let’s figure out what the reasons might be.

Are the doctors better?

A study recently published in the US analyzes how mortality as a probability readmitted to hospital within 30 days after discharge, 800 thousand patients consulted doctors.

All these patients belonged to Medicare, insurance that covers people over 65, younger patients with serious illnesses or patients with end-stage renal disease. After being admitted to the hospital and assisted by intensive care physicians, his development was analyzed and an interesting conclusion was reached.

For female doctors treated by female doctors, the mortality rate was 8.15%, while for male doctors it was 8.38%. In male patients, the mortality rate was 10.15% and 10.23%, respectively. These are not terrible differences, but they are significant. In addition, they note that female patients They benefit even more from the care provided by doctors.

For patients, the likelihood of readmission was 15.5% if they were treated by female doctors and 16.05% if their doctors were male. For patients, the probability of readmission was 15.65% for female physicians and 15.87% for female physicians. Again, this is a significant difference that This benefits women even more.

The results are retained by surgeons.

There are several similar studies in which the evolution of treated patients surgeons and the results are not much different. For example, a study published in 2017 noted that patients who had surgery on women 12% lower risk of death.

Later in 2023, another study found that the likelihood adverse postoperative outcomes It is significantly lower if the operation is led by a female surgeon.

What is this for?

There are several hypotheses that could explain these results. One of them was published in 2002 by a health journalist. Janice Hopkins Tann in a review of 23,000 observational studies involving 900 physicians and more than 3,700 patients.

In these studies, both Attention time How communication skills of doctors. Thus, it has been observed that female doctors tend to care for patients longer and also communicate better with them. There were no differences in diagnoses or medical knowledge. But they began to communicate more with patients, making sure they understood everything well and paying more attention to them. individualized.

This helps patients feel more confident in explaining their symptoms and also follow treatment more correctly. On the other hand, the authors of a recently published study add to this the fact that patients usually less shame when communicating with women.

Doctors downplay the importance of women’s pain

There are many studies that show that some doctors they minimize women’s suffering. This can happen to both men and women, but is more common in the former for obvious reasons. Thus, it can be seen that women benefit the most from female attention.

What if it wasn’t a gender issue?

In 2021, Canadian Health Journalist Greg Buskey published a study similar to the previous ones, in which he discovered another important factor. He observed that, indeed, the outcomes of patients treated by female doctors were better. But he also saw that when differentiating by age, doctors generally had better results. younger.

Many older doctors, even if they have more experience, are not up to date with the latest research. Therefore they can achieve make more mistakes. As we have seen, in the past women had a much more difficult time learning. Medicine was one of the few professions that were not prohibited, but it was still difficult to get into. However, today, when opportunities are equal for everyone, there is a high proportion of female students in this profession. That’s why, many of the youngest doctors are women. According to this study, this indicates that the best outcomes for patients depend not on gender, but on age.

Be that as it may, no one is saying that male or older doctors are bad professionals. It’s just a matter of statistics. But the question of statistics shows that if historically we all had the same opportunities, the greatest benefit would be to society.