As Prescribed: Going to a female doctor could be better for your health

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - Going to a female doctor could be better for your health.

New research from UCSF and UCLA finds people treated by female physicians have lower rates of mortality and readmission to the hospital than those treated by male physicians.

"In particular, the benefit of receiving care from female physicians was larger for female patients than for male patients," Lisa Rotenstein, an internal medicine physician at UCSF Health and the study's co-author, told KCBS Radio's Patti Reising on this week's "As Prescribed."

Female patients treated by a female physician versus a male physician had about a 3% relative difference in both mortality and readmission rates, which is statistically significant, Dr. Rotenstein said.

"While the absolute numbers might seem low, for example, in terms of the percent difference in mortality rates or readmission rates, it's important to remember that with this kind of data, we are looking at information from hundreds of thousands of patients," she said. "So even with a 3% relative difference, that's about one in every 400 patients who has a different outcome. And that's really important when you think about the population as a whole, that's a person who could have a real difference in their trajectory of care when treated by a female physician."

While the study doesn't explain exactly why female physicians have a certain effect on their patients, Dr. Rotenstein said there's evidence elsewhere in the literature that can give us a clue.

"We know that female physicians have different interactions with their patients. They spend more time explaining, they have more patient-centered communication styles, for example, they engage in more partnership and medical decision-making discussions than their male counterparts. I have done research showing that female physicians spend more time on the electronic health record. In the surgical realm, we know that female physicians spend more time on surgical procedures and they have lower rates of post-operative outcomes," Dr. Rotenstein explained. "So it is likely that there are just different ways of practicing medicine and that these ultimately have an impact on patient outcomes."

The study offers several takeaways. While it indicates that the type of person-centered, thoughtful care should be taught and encouraged to all physicians, it also emphasizes that healthcare systems should be appropriately rewarding this behavior.

"For example, one of my colleagues, Ishani Ganguli, did an important study that showed that female physicians spent longer in primary care visits with their patients, both male and female patients, than male physician counterparts. But that also ended up meaning that they saw fewer patients per day and that ended up translating to less revenue," said  Dr. Rotenstein. "In our system, which still for the most part rewards the volume of care delivered, we may not have the right incentives for our physicians to engage in the kinds of behaviors we know result in better outcomes."

Dr. Rotenstein is now preparing to explore how physicians can design their work so that patient-centered care is feasible.

"One of the big questions that many in the field talk about is how to design sort of standards for how many patients a physician should care for, either in the inpatient or the outpatient setting, such that you are getting the best outcomes and the work is sustainable," she said. "And I think those are really still unanswered questions that my team and I want to look into."

Listen to this week's "As Prescribed" to learn more. You can also listen to last week's episode to get familiar with the symptoms of stroke -- since every second counts, here .

DOWNLOAD the Audacy App
SIGN UP and follow KCBS Radio
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

"As Prescribed" is sponsored by UCSF.