"Study shows differences between male and female surgeons: Canadian study finds fewer complications for female patients operated on by females". I've highlighted below some confounders which could bias the results along with a link to the full text.

wntk · 2022-01-08T01:38:54+00:00

"Close scrutiny of the data from the study shows that female surgeons have fewer patients overall than their male colleagues. Dr McNamara says that internationally there are fewer female surgeons and that this study also acknowledges that women surgeons were younger and treated younger, healthier patients.

“It’s difficult to look at the findings of this study without looking at the overall context, as low risk and high risk operations are bundled together. Surgeons develop a reputation for dealing with complex operations as their career develops.

“Every surgeon is trying to get the best outcomes for their patients, and a lower case load [among female surgeons] could be a possible explanation for the findings,” she says."

AirSailer · 2022-01-08T05:57:29+00:00

female patients fared even better than male patients.

female patients had even lower rates of death and re-admission than male patients when treated by a female surgeon.

Given the previous two statements a rational person would conclude that men are considered disadvantaged and maybe something should be done about it. Unfortunately we live in clown world, and instead below is the conclusion they draw.

we are failing some female patients and that some are unnecessarily falling through the cracks with adverse and sometimes fatal consequences

sorebum405 · 2022-01-08T09:10:51+00:00

The study also shows that men had worse postoperative outcomes then women regardless of the sex of the surgeon(see table 2).I have a feeling that if the results were reversed people would focus on the fact that women have worse post operative outcomes then men, and that would be the headline of these articles.

Also, like you already mentioned the study is not detailed enough for us to know why women have worse outcomes with male surgeons, and to be fair the study is only meant to look at outcomes, but people will probably jump to conclusions based on the results of the study anyways.The data does not show the percentage of elective and emergency surgery by gender of the patient and gender of the surgeon, and it also does not show the average age, and number of comorbidities for male and female patients.I think there are too many factors that are not accounted for in this study.

Frosty-Gate-8094 · 2022-01-08T07:12:58+00:00

Female surgeons often avoid operating complicated cases...
Also, men are over-represented in more demanding surgical fields like neurosurgery, oncosurgery, cardiac surgery.
Whereas women are more represented in gynecological surgery, plastic surgery, etc..

Male surgeons also perform more emergency surgeries than female surgeons.

Idk what was their methodology, but I think when it was published, it was criticized for the same reason.
The surgeries were not matched for severity and emergencies..

The logic is simple, a surgeon who has done 100 appendicectomies will encounter less complications than someone who does 10 brain tumour surgeries..

wntk · 2022-01-08T01:40:02+00:00

"Some studies from primary care have found that so-called sex or gender discordance (when the doctor and patient aren’t the same sex/gender) is associated with worse rapport, lower certainty of diagnosis, lower likelihood of assessing the patient’s condition as being of high severity."

Interesting. I've never heard of research showing this before.

wntk · 2022-01-08T01:40:58+00:00

Here is a link to the abstract. The full text can be accessed for free if one registers:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2786671

AndyBrown65 · 2022-01-09T01:33:30+00:00

A feminist wet dream. As many have pointed out, the female patients fared better than the male ones, and there are a lot more factors. If anything, the study actually shows that women’s health care is better than men, so in fact that study proves there is an underlying gyno-centric bias

Business_Hyena67 · 2022-01-08T17:49:30+00:00

Females are more successful and die less? No problem here, we can move on.

Men are more successful and die less? THE CHAOS

Svenskbtch · 2022-01-11T13:03:09+00:00

I have no doubt the conclusion is selective and biased in several ways. At the very least, had the data led to the opposite conclusion, the study would probably have been tweaked to fit the narrative, remained under the radar screen as a technical publication, or been abandoned and rejected altogether.

But what we know about gender differences do, I think, explain what might be a smaller but nevertheless clear trend along these lines. Surgery is a high-risk occupation: and men are more likely to take risks (such as choosing subfields like neurosurgery and taking on high-risk cases) than women. At the margin, women are more likely to err on the side of caution. I would be surprised if this would not show up somehow in the data.

63daddy · 2022-01-08T23:24:41+00:00

Correlation is not cause-effect.

The article even states female doctors have a lighter case load. I’ve read elsewhere the most difficult surgeries are more often performed by male doctors. Sometimes there is an other variable that correlates to sex rather than sex itself being the causation.

TAPriceCTR · 2022-01-08T05:44:16+00:00

Frankly I'm surprised men can compete with women in surgical and dental work. Their smaller and steadier hands should be as advantageous in those fields as men's strength is in sports.

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