Determinants that Play a Critical Role in Treating Patients

Female Physicians Stick to Clinical Guidelines Mostly

Male to female ratio in almost every professional field is dominated by men and doctors are no exceptions-women doctors are only one-third of the total physicians’ population although there are almost equal admission seats sought by boys and girls during college admission. The best twist to this tale is that, elderly people hospitalized for treatment receive better care and cure under a female physician compared to a male physician. That’s something to cheer for the male-dominated female society! Even more, such patients were less likely to be readmitted or die in the 30 days following discharge when treated by a female physician.
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Reversed!!!
Patients often choose the doctor based on the doctor’s gender. But this is the first-of-the-kind research that suggests that a female physician is the most-effective one to treat any patient. Female doctors face discrimination and disparity in the male-dominated medical field on various fronts-pay scale, promotion, recognition and authority. Such research results might help the medical and healthcare sector to value female physicians and look at them as an integral part of the team. Yet another case of discussion is whether obese doctors can help obese patients lose weight? This discussion is a must-know one and for more details on this, please visit the website www.firsteatright.com.

We cannot point out any loopholes and discard this study as unjustifiable or unclear as it was a large one-nearly 1.6 million people were analyzed for death within 30 days and another 1.6 million admissions were analyzed for readmission within 30 days. Although the result shows minor differences they were constantly favorable to female physicians:
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• Almost 11.07% of patients cared by female physicians died within 30 days of admission while the ratio remained 11.49% in the case of male physicians.
• Readmission to hospital within 30 days of discharge happened in 15.02% of patients under the care of a female doctor and 15.57% of patients under the care of a male doctor.
• Even after analyzing several factors such as the patient’s severity of illness, type of illness, age, experience or type of medical training, the results mostly remained constant across all factors.
  
  

Any hospital desperate to establish a name for itself must seriously consider hiring female clinicians to improve the hospital’s overall service rate and decrease mortality rates.

The Big Question of ‘Why?’
Result favors female physicians and serves as an eye-opener for the medical community, but this also brings out the most important question-What is the difference in the practice method of female and male physicians that lead to better outcomes for women doctors? Researchers did think upon some of the most-suited reasons:

• Female physicians stick to clinical guidelines most of the times
• They are better at communication skills and explain the case using simple words understandable by the patient avoiding medical jargons
• Male physicians are ‘less’ deliberate in addressing complicated patients’ problems
• Female doctors spend more time with the patient and are careful listeners too. This helps them know more about their medical history and better understand the patient’s symptoms.
  
  

Some questions that this study leaves in every person’s mind is whether the results would remain the same if the study had included younger patients, if outpatients were included or the study covered other specialization streams of medicines such as surgeons, obstetricians and psychiatrists.

Getting answers to these questions are important. Meanwhile, instead of defending the male population or opposing the study, it is better to observe the behaviors that these female physicians exhibit and motivate all physicians to follow them.