When it comes to your health, it’s best to have a female doctor on your side, according to a new study.
Researchers analyzed interactions between more than 200,000 patients and more than 200 surgeons and found that women provide better care to their patients.
Among surgeons across 14 specialties, female physicians on average spent more time documenting their time with patients, wrote longer care notes, and spent more time reviewing electronic patient records.
The study is part of a growing body of research suggesting that female doctors are more compassionate and more likely to save their patients’ lives.
A study suggests that female surgeons spend more time writing notes on patients’ progress and reviewing medical records than their male counterparts
And while male surgeons logged into electronic health systems more days per month, women did so more frequently on their days off.
According to a survey by the Association of American Medical Colleges, only 38 percent of doctors in the United States are women.
The researchers evaluated 222,539 patient encounters performed by 224 surgeons at a single hospital.
The majority of doctors, 70 percent, were men, while the rest were women.
In their analysis, the team examined 171,812 patient progress notes, 252,883 documents and 2.1 million minutes spent in the electronic medical records system.
Surgeons were trained in 14 specialties, the most common being general surgery.
Orthopedic surgery had the highest proportion of male surgeons (84 percent), while general surgery had the highest number of female surgeons (51 percent).
Male surgeons also tended to have more experience, averaging 17 years versus nine years for women.
On average, patients treated by both sexes were between 57 and 59 years old.
Male surgeons scheduled 12 percent more appointments per day and 26 percent more per week than their female counterparts.
They also logged into electronic health systems about 18 times a month, compared with women, who logged into them 16 times a month.
However, female surgeons spent up to 158 percent more time in the system outside of their working hours compared to their male counterparts.
And while male surgeons wrote about 32 percent more medical notes than female surgeons, women wrote progress notes that were about 40 percent longer and took almost twice as long to write.
Women were also more likely to write their notes manually rather than using AI or a transcription tool.
“These findings are consistent with previous studies showing gender disparities in[electronic medical record]use among health care professionals,” the researchers wrote.
‘The reasons behind the differences in patient volume and charting between male and female surgeons merit further investigation. It is possible that variations in career choices and preferences may contribute to these disparities.’
‘For example, female surgeons may opt for lighter schedules to balance their personal and professional responsibilities.’
The team also suggested that having fewer patients may leave women with more time to devote to administrative tasks, such as manually writing patient notes.
The main limitation of the study was including only surgeons from one institution, which resulted in a less diverse sample.
Another was that the study did not actually look at the quality of care provided or the health outcomes of patients.
The research was published on Tuesday in JAMA Network Open.
