A study on the gender association between surgeons and patients postoperative has been published in Canada and there were shocking finds.

The study included over 1.3 million patients and almost 3,000 surgeons.

Researchers looked at the medical records of patients undergoing common procedures such as a gastric bypass, colon resection, liver resection, lung resection, spinal surgery, knee replacement, and a hip replacement.

What they found was, “…patient sex significantly modified this association, with worse outcomes for female patients treated by male surgeons (compared with female patients treated by female surgeons) but not male patients treated by female surgeons (compared with male patients treated by male surgeons)” (Wallis, Christopher JD, et al).

Specifically, women are 32% more likely to die after a common operation done by a male surgeon than when done by a female surgeon and are 15% more likely to deal with worse postoperative outcomes overall (death, readmission, and complications “including reoperation”).

The study also showed that men had the same outcomes after surgery no matter what the gender of their surgeon was.

When it comes to healthcare, female patients should have the same outcome regardless of surgeon gender – and the same outcomes as male patients. These researchers aren’t exactly sure why these disparities exist, but they do have some hypotheses as to what an underlying issue could be: lack of communication and trust between male surgeons and female patients (Wallis, Christopher JD, et al). Is there a lack of communication and trust due to male surgeons not taking the health concerns of their female patients seriously? Are the implicit biases against women within male surgeons a possible cause for these results? It’s time that gender issues are addressed in the medical field, because results like these are troubling.