A new analysis has found that if you are on Medicare, it's better to get a female internist than a male. Female internists have lower rates of 30-day mortality and hospital readmission than those patients treated by men.
Obviously it could be a variety of other factors - modern medicine, and its government control, has created a "teach to the protocol environment", and women are more likely to adhere to guidelines -but the authors postulate that female physicians more likely to adhere to clinical guidelines and provide preventive care more often, meaning that even if their careers are interrupted by child-bearing they should be paid more than men.
The paper in JAMA Internal Medicine comes from Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and it is known that there is no health, medical or cultural fad they won't chase.
The study analyzed more than 1.5 million patient hospitalizations for 30-day mortality rates and more than 1.5 million for hospital readmission rates from 2011 through 2014. During the study period, 58,344 internists treated at least one hospitalized Medicare beneficiary and, among those physicians, 18,751 were women (32.1 percent). Female physicians tended to be younger, were more likely to have had osteopathic training and treated fewer patients compared with their male counterparts.
Patients treated by female physicians had lower 30-day mortality rates (11.07 percent vs. 11.49 percent) and lower 30-day hospital readmission rates (15.02 percent vs. 15.57percent), according to the report.
The study cannot identify why female physicians appeared to have better patient outcomes than male physicians, so why would the authors suggest women are better doctors and should be paid more than men even with less experience? Because Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
