While for years being a doctor was a male dominated profession, a new report suggests folks may be better off if they sought out a female doctor for their ailments.
A report published in “JAMA Internal Medicine” finds that folks who are sick, elderly and in the hospital have a better chance of surviving if their primary doctor is a woman. And that’s not all, the chances of re-hospitalization is less if your doctor is female as well.
More specifically, the researchers looked at Medicare patients 65 and over, with the average age being 80, and found that only 11.07% of patients died when treated by female internists, while 11.49% died when treated by males. In addition, only 15.02% of patients treated by female doctors had to return to the hospital, while 15.57% of those treated by male doctors did so.
While the difference in outcomes is considered “modest” the number of patients that could be saved by female doctors can be quite significant. In fact, it’s estimated that if male physicians did as well as females an extra 32,000 lives would be saved, and that’s just of Medicare patients.
Source: USA Today