Impact of physician gender on patient survival in hospital: analysis results of American Medicare sample

Improved Survival Rate with Female Physicians for Elderly Patients

According to a study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, elderly patients have a slightly higher survival rate if their treating physician is a woman. Researchers analyzed over 458,000 medical records of women and around 318,000 records of men hospitalized between 2016 and 2019.

Results showed that in the first month post-hospitalization, just over 8% of female patients passed away if the physician was a woman and 8.38% if the physician was a man. Among male patients, the mortality rate was over 10%, with a slightly lower rate when cared for by female physicians.