Catherine Rusoff
A new study suggests that people undergoing certain surgeries may be safer in hospitals where women make up at least a third of their surgical team – adding to an already growing body of research that suggests female doctors may have better outcomes for patients than their male counterparts.
O latest studypublished Wednesday in the British Journal of Surgery, specifically looked at the relationship between gender diversity in hospital settings and the incidence of serious post-operative health complications, including death, in Canadian surgical patients during the first three months of recovery.
Researchers analyzed 709,899 cases between 2009 and 2019 in which people underwent non-urgent but important inpatient procedures at 88 different hospitals. Overall, they found that morbidity – which is generally defined in medical terms as any problem resulting from a procedure or treatment – occurred in 14.4% of these patients during the 90-day period immediately following surgery.
The likelihood of dying or suffering serious post-operative complications in this window was significantly lower in hospitals, where women made up more than 35% of surgeons and anesthetists on staff. According to the study, the odds of serious morbidity decreased by 3% for patients in these settings, compared to hospitals that had fewer women in these roles.
Overall, the average number of female surgeons and anesthetists on hospital staff did not reach the threshold that investigators determined to be optimal for patient success, at just 28% per hospital per year.
The fact that the odds of serious post-operative complications or death in the months following surgery have decreased, especially for patients who underwent procedures with a surgeon or an anesthetist as a direct provider, is something the researchers highlighted as particularly significant.
“These findings are important for optimizing patient outcomes and quality of care by building intentionally diverse teams,” they wrote.
This study is not alone in its findings. Last year, another study published in the journal JAMA Surgery found that patients who underwent emergency or elective operations between 2007 and 2019 were less likely to die, be hospitalized again, or suffer serious health complications within a year of the procedure if they were treated by a surgeon. This study examined more than 1 million cases and its results were consistent, regardless of the individual characteristics of the patients, the type of surgical procedure performed, who the anesthetist was or the hospital they were in during the surgery.
Researchers have been trying for years to unravel the apparent pattern. A group from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health conducted a study between 2011 and 2014, which aimed to address the question of whether treatments carried out by female doctors were more effective for patients’ health.
The Harvard study looked at more than 1 million patients, all Medicaid beneficiaries, who were hospitalized for strokes, heart attacks and other fairly common illnesses, for which they all received treatment by general internists. Patients who received care from a female doctor had a 4% lower risk of dying within 30 days and a 5% lower risk of hospital readmission over the same period, compared to patients who received care from male doctors.
Ashish Jha, now dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and former professor of health policy and director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told CBS News when the study was published in 2016 that its results signaled the need for additional research to Find out what doctors are doing to improve outcomes for their patients. He said the study authors, all men, were “interested in finding out more about why these differences exist, but we don’t yet know why.”
