Public health researchers at Harvard University waded through three years of records for patients in the US ages 65 and up. They took a random sample of 20 percent of people receiving Medicare who had been hospitalized between January 2011, and December 2014. The researchers discovered that no matter what medical condition landed the patient in the hospital, that patient was more likely to die or be readmitted to the hospital in the following 30 days if they were treated by a male physician — according to results published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
For some conditions, like sepsis, pneumonia, acute kidney failure, and irregular heartbeats, the decrease in deaths after treatment by a female physician was statistically significant. For other conditions, like congestive heart failure, urinary tract infections, and gastrointestinal bleeding, the drop in deaths was more of a trend. But for almost all conditions, readmissions decreased significantly for patients treated by a female physician compared to ones treated by a male physician.
via The Verge
