Risks

This is startling:

Women who are operated on by a male surgeon are much more likely to die, experience complications and be readmitted to hospital than when a woman performs the procedure, research reveals.

Women are 15% more liable to suffer a bad outcome, and 32% more likely to die, when a man rather than a woman carries out the surgery, according to a study of 1.3 million patients.

Yikes. I wonder what would even explain that.

The findings have sparked a debate about the fact that surgery in the UK remains a hugely male-dominated area of medicine and claims that “implicit sex biases” among male surgeons may help explain why women are at such greater risk when they have an operation.

“On a macro level the results are troubling. When a female surgeon operates, patient outcomes are generally better, particularly for women, even after adjusting for differences in chronic health status, age and other factors, when undergoing the same procedures.”

Hmm maybe that hints at an explanation – women have to be better at it to get in the door at all. Good-enough men get to be surgeons but women have to be spectacular. Except no, because it’s only women who have worse outcomes; men do the same no matter what the sex of the surgeon.

Scarlett McNally, who has been a consultant orthopaedic surgeon for 20 years, said there was “increasing evidence of a different experience for women surgeons, with many being put off surgery and reporting historical ‘microaggressions’”. In addition, female patients may feel more at ease talking to a female surgeon before the operation, including steps they should take to improve their chances of a good outcome, such as stopping smoking to help ensure a bone graft takes, she added.

If surgery is one of those occupations that promotes a kind of macho culture, that could make male surgeons that little bit more off-putting to women patients. What a dismal thought.

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