Elderly Patients Treated by Female Doctors- Lower Mortality

[gerald]

The difference is enough to show there is a definite difference.  Explanation of the "why" is what I would like to read!!


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Elderly Patients Treated by Female Doctors Had Lower Mortality, Readmissions



Female doctors have been shown in some studies to stick closer to clinical guidelines, provide more preventative care and communicate with patients more effectively than their male counterparts.

The gender divide translated into better outcomes for 1.5 million patients hospitalized between 2011 and 2014, according to a new investigation by Harvard doctors published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

The mortality rate for 30 days among the patients, Medicare beneficiaries age 65 and over who were admitted to hospitals, was about 0.43 percent lower for those treated by women.

The readmission rate at 30 days was 0.55 percent lower for the female physicians’ charges.

“The difference in mortality rates surprised us,” said Yusuke Tsugawa, lead author, from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in a school statement. “The gender of the physician appears to be particularly significant for the sickest patients. These findings indicate that potential differences in practice patterns between male and female physicians may have important clinical implications.”

The annual difference in mortality, among this group, was about 32,000 patients. If the male internists were able to improve their outcomes to the level of the females, they concluded, that number of lives nationwide in the Medicare system would survive each year.

Roughly one-third of the physicians in the United States are females, and that was true in this study. The female doctors were an average of six years younger, were more likely to have osteopathic training, and treated a significantly lower number of patients each year. The women doctors were generally skewed toward large, non-profit, major teaching hospitals, which were located in the Northeast.

For the elderly patients, the major conditions causing the hospitalizations were sepsis, pneumonia, congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The Harvard researchers conceded that they could not identify exactly why the females produced better outcomes than their male counterparts. However, they cited a litany of studies comparing male and female doctors stretching back to the 1990s. The studies indicated that females followed the clinical guidelines closer, and were better at communicating with their patients.

But the exact cause was not proven in any of those dozens of studies, the Harvard team added.

“There was ample evidence that male and female physicians practice medicine differently. Our findings suggest that those differences matter and are important to patient health,” said Ashish Jha, senior author and director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “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.”

www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2016/12/elderly-patients-treated-female-doctors-had-lower-mortality-readmissions

[David]

My physician assistance are female. That should count for something

[lavishgail]

Mine too David! And I'm glad.

[lavishgail]

My Doctors are Female too. . All of them. Not all Female doctors are nice , but mine are we will see about my new pulmonary doctor, she is the newest? I only met her for about 10 minutes, so we shall see?

[David]

Dang it Gail, you should live for a very long time

[lavishgail]

David, hope not in pain!!

[Lighthousekeeper]

When my wife and I relocated from Ontario to New Brunswick we obviously had to find new doctor's. The first one we were referred to was an East Indian woman, my first female doctor, we did not stay with her very long as her and I got into a "disagreement" on my 2nd visit and I stormed out of her office! We ended up finding another Doctor that was accepting new patients and it ended up being another woman, she is a nice lady but I find it odd seeing her because she is younger than me...

[lavishgail]

, lighthousekeeper, all my doctors are younger than me and women...But all very Smart!

[gnott]

,

The jury is still out as far as I am concerned.

My major doctors are all male - Cardiologist, Pulmonologist, General Practice, etc. BUT I only see them briefly every 3 to 6 months. It is the APRNs I deal with most often and they are all female. I found them to be judgmental, condescending, argumentative, frown at my humor, provide only minimal answers to my questions, and over-all passively rude. I always left with the feeling they weren't listening, could care less how I was doing, and probably didn't even know who I was.

However, this last year my daughter has delegated herself as my principle caretaker and has attended, without invitation**, my exams and appointments. When she is present these same APRNs are extremely polite, very attentive to my every symptom and comments, laugh at my jokes, enjoy small talk, explain to my daughter in great detail any questions we may have. … I am sitting there wondering who are these people and if they are occupying the original body or cloned.

I would like to see the ratios of Female to Male (Dr to Patient and vice versa). Based on my experience I would guess it is female patients that live longer when treated by female doctors, and the men in the study that survived longer did so only because they had a female relative present.

[** It is probably too late for most of us, but if one lives beyond a certain age, it is best to not have a daughter – only sons. Sons leave you alone and only come around if you need something lifted and when bribed. Daughters busy themselves with every detail and are ever-present, and cannot be bribed or threatened.]

[lavishgail]

Lmao, Gnott! I think Doctors all in which I have do the same to me as far as jokes go and talking to me go treat me the same as you.. but when I bring in my husband, Wow I look at how nice they are and what a liar they make me be! I walk out look at Bob anDylan he will say, Wow, they were nothing as to what you described? Good thing he knows Owsley me and can read people bc that's the kind of work he's done all of his life! Ha. He knows.
Gnott, yes I agree, they are all cloned . So funny but so true. I called my pulmonary doctor 2 day's ago for answers about my sleeping study I did in November, thinking they " would " call me? They never did, nor did they return my phone call? Someone up their needs to change those ring of doctors batteries! It seems none 9f them care about me? None, woman or man!