Patients treated by female doctors fare better than patients treated by male doctors, according to new research published Monday, despite the field struggling to improve female representation in research and among practitioners.
Patients treated by female physicians in the U.S. had lower mortality rates and lower rates of readmission compared to patients treated by male physicians, according to peer reviewed research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The findings come after researchers from the University of Tokyo in Japan analyzed data from the medical records of more than 700,000 Medicare patients aged 65 years or older hospitalized and treated between 2016 and 2019 to assess the differences between patients treated by male and female physicians.