Researchers Find Women Make Better Surgeons Than Men: "those with female doctors tended to have lower death rates and were less likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days than those with male doctors"

BlockNotDo · 2017-10-25T02:56:23+00:00

Studies also show that women are more risk adverse. Likely that female doctors avoid the most risky procedures and specialties, resulting in higher success rates in their "easier" jobs.

fengpi · 2017-10-25T00:19:50+00:00

You'd better believe that if they'd found the opposite, reporting on the study would never have seen its way into a magazine. It's sexist to suggest that a man might perform better at any activity, except for a criminal activity. Not so if you want to ballyhoo women's superiority at things. In the name of equality, of course.

TicTacToeTitTattoo · 2017-10-25T01:19:57+00:00

I remember the first time this was reported.

IIRC, female doctors see fewer patients, so it's kind of like having an 80% chance of receiving 99% quality care vs. a 99% chance of receiving 95% quality care.

A hypothetical switch to all female doctors would result in more people dying while still waiting for their appointment.

Consilio_et_Animis · 2017-10-25T01:28:58+00:00

Next: "All those African-Americans allowed into Med School with lower test scores make worse surgeons than white folk."

Something tells me they're never going to do that research.

ABC_Florida · 2017-10-25T01:29:42+00:00

So what? Can't it be that sexes aren't the same? On the other hand, I agree with other commenters, saying that reporting positive about men this way, would result in sexism claims. I hope folks around here have a frame not to jump on that train.

paracog · 2017-10-25T02:24:31+00:00

And which of the surgical techniques were pioneered by women? I'm waiting...

aussietoads · 2017-10-25T06:41:12+00:00

Women may make better surgeons. I don't know or care about a surgeon's gender. I'd take the best surgeon recommended to me if I needed one. Woman, man, robot, or even skippy the bush kangaroo. Whom or what ever tilts the odds in favour of successful outcome is the surgeon I'd take.

-manatease · 2017-10-25T16:39:19+00:00

We excluded patients for whom the date of death preceded the date of surgery (n=332). We think these cases represent coding errors as the majority died several years before the date of surgery. A sensitivity analysis including the 10 patients who died one day before surgery did not alter the outcome of the primary analysis (see appendix). http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j4366

Accurate dataset.

2017-10-25T19:03:47+00:00

Actual Study

The methodology:

"Patients undergoing one of 25 surgical procedures performed by a female surgeon were matched by patient age, patient sex, comorbidity, surgeon volume, surgeon age, and hospital to patients undergoing the same operation by a male surgeon."

So, with that methodology, they rule out the generally higher number of patients and procedures most male specialists see, and they rule out the argument that male surgeons will be performing more complex work, too. As noted in the article, the difference was generally put down to greater quality of communication between patient and doctor, so there was greater uptake on medication usage post op, more accurate diagnostic work, etc.

As inflammatory as the headline is, narrowing that gap so we can find out what the actual effect is from might actually improve surgical outcomes. It's almost assuredly something other than raw gender, and will likely come down to greater prep, more conservative techniques, better communication with patients, etc.

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