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Patients cared for by female physicians in the hospital were less likely to die or be readmitted than those treated by male physicians, according to a new ICES study led by a University of Toronto researcher. This suggests that care by female physicians may be associated with better short- and long-term outcomes among patients hospitalized with common medical diagnoses.

The study is published in the October issue of JAMA Network Open.

"Past research has largely focused on surgical patients and the admitting physician only. Our findings add to the growing body of research examining the relationship between physician sex and patient outcomes, broadening the evidence beyond surgical care to a wider range of medical conditions and other physicians," says Dr. Angela Jerath, an ICES scientist and associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine at the University of Toronto's Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

The study analyzed ICES data on 958,150 adults hospitalized for one of seven common medical diagnoses, such as acute myocardial infarction and pneumonia, between Jan. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2022.

Of the patients, 259,759 were treated by female physicians and 698,391 by male physicians. As care may be transferred among multiple physicians during a hospital stay, the researchers examined whether patient outcomes varied according to the sex of the most responsible physician and the extent to which patients received care from female physicians during their hospital stay.

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