Want to live longer? Consider a woman doctor

Elderly patients with women doctors are less likely to die within 30 days of hospital admission, new research from Harvard University shows. Researchers analyzed data from more than 1 million Medicare beneficiaries, adjusting for differences in patients and physicians. The difference between men and women doctors was only half a percentage point, but the implications are huge.

If doctors could achieve the same outcomes as their female colleagues, 32,000 fewer Medicare patients alone would die each year. This is comparable to the number of deaths in motor vehicle accidents nationally.

The findings surprised the all-male research team that reported the most-significant difference in the sickest patients.

Previous studies showed differences in how men and women practice. For example, women are more likely to order preventive tests, such as cancer screenings.

This study was the first to look specifically at how these differences affect outcomes.

“There was ample evidence that male and female physicians practice medicine differently,” one of the authors, Ashish Jha, said in a Harvard news release.  “Our findings suggest that those differences matter and are important to patient health. We need to understand why female physicians have lower mortality so that all patients can have the best possible outcomes, irrespective of the gender of their physician.”

Do you believe the gender of your doctor affects the quality of care you receive? Share your story with Voices for Affordable Health.