Patients treated by female surgeons suffer fewer adverse postoperative events – including death – both 90 days and one year after the intervention than those operated on by men. This is the conclusion of the study done by a team of doctors from Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto (Canada) based on the medical reports of more than one million patients undergoing common surgeries, both elective and urgent, in the province of Ontario between 2007 and 2019 and which was published yesterday by Jama Surgery.
The researchers assessed the rates of death, readmission, or complications that patients had 90 days and one year after surgery, after weighting for patient type, surgical procedure, surgeon, anesthesiologist, and hospital characteristics. ‘hospital where the intervention was carried out. The results suggest that patients treated by female surgeons have a lower rate of adverse events than those operated on by men. Specifically, 13.9% of patients treated by surgeons had one or more complications 90 days later, compared with 12.5% ??of those treated by female surgeons. And, a year later, the percentages were 25% and 20.7%, respectively. The mortality rate was 0.8% three months later and 2.4% one year later in interventions performed by surgeons, compared to 0.5% and 1.6% in those performed by female surgeons Although all patients treated by female surgeons have fewer complications, the lowest rates are among female patients.
This is the largest observational and multidisciplinary study to conclude that patients treated by female surgeons have fewer long-term complications, but there are more that have evaluated the association between the gender of the surgeon and the results of the intervention. Jama Surgery published another yesterday about the influence of the surgeon’s gender on the results of more than 150,000 cholecystectomies (gall bladder removal) performed in Sweden between 2006 and 2019.
After adjusting for factors such as patient age and sex, previous biliary colic, anesthetist score, or surgeon caseload, the authors linked operations performed by women with a lower risk of serious complications, such as now the injury of the bile duct, and they observe that those operated on by women spent less time in hospital.
In addition, the operating time was longer in the case of female surgeons and male surgeons opted for open surgeries more often than female surgeons in emergency operations.
Both the Canadian and Swedish studies find that the differences in results depending on whether the surgeon is male or female are more significant in elective, planned surgeries than in emergency surgeries. The Mount Sinai doctors suggest that this may be related to the fact that scheduled operations are more influenced by patient selection and preoperative care, and there are studies that have already noted “differences in communication, practice style and the relationship with the patient between male and female doctors”.
Surgeon Martin Almquist, from Skane University Hospital in Lund (Sweden), assures in an article in Jama entitled Are women better surgeons than men? , that “female surgeons are more likely to use patient-centered methods and show more willingness to collaborate, and this could translate into different outcomes.” Because, he points out, “personal attitudes regarding risk-taking, collaboration and decision-making can influence the surgical outcome”, says Almquist.
