A study found that women are almost three times more likely to die if they have their surgery done by men.
Researchers found that female patients have a higher chance of complications and readmissions and tend to be in the hospital for longer periods when they are operated on by a male.
However, when female surgeons operated on men the outcomes were unchanged, if not improved – suggesting the link is one sided.
Scientists warn that the results are not clear but they should be interpreted as a call for immediate action.
An international team of researchers from Toronto (Canada) examined nearly 3,000 records of patients. A total of 93,000 female patients had a surgeon and 667,000 had one.
Of all the male patients 510,000 were treated with a male surgeon, while only 50,000 received treatment by a woman surgeon.
Research has shown that women are at greater risk for complications and readmissions and stay longer in hospitals when their surgeries are performed by men.
Analysing the data was done in Jama Surgery and revealed that women died 32% more often if a man performed their surgery than when it was performed by a woman.
A 15% higher chance of a poor outcome was seen in these patients.
The researchers found that this was true for 21 different types of common surgery. The chance that a woman who had heart surgery or lung surgery was going to die after it was done by a male surgeon was 1%. The rate rose to 1.4% if the procedure was done by a male surgeon.
The chance of dying in neurosurgery increased to 1.2% with a male surgeon compared with 0.9% for a female surgeon.
Co-author Dr Angela Jerath said that male and female surgeons receive the same training. However, implicit sex biases in which surgeons act on unconscious, deeply ingrained stereotypes, attitudes and biases could explain the differences.
Analysis of data published in Jama Surgery found that women are 32% more likely to die if a man performed their surgery (stock photo).
Studies in the past have shown that physicians, especially men, underestimate severity of symptoms for female patients.
Another analysis suggests that patients are less likely to complain of post-operative pain to male surgeons.
Andrea Riner of the University of Florida College of Medicine said in a statement that she was pleased with the outcome of the current study.
She explained that even though the causes are still not completely understood, immediate action must be taken.
The problem of sex disparity in surgical practice isn’t unique to Ontario. Women need to be recruited into surgery.
The UK has a 41% female surgeon in the early stages, but only 14% of senior ones.
Experts believe this is due to inflexibility of training plans and rotas.