Female patients in Ontario have a 30 per cent greater risk of death after surgery by a male doctor: study

An Ontario-based study has found that female patients have a 30 per cent greater risk of death after a surgery performed by a male physician.

The study, which was published in the medical journal JAMA Surgery in early December, looked at 1.3 million adult patients who underwent one of 21 common surgeries in Ontario between 2007 and 2019. The data showed there was “a small but statistically significant increased likelihood of adverse postoperative outcomes” in patients operated on by doctors of the opposite sex, particularly for female patients.

According to the study, about 15 per cent of those patients experienced one or more adverse outcomes following surgery performed by a doctor of the opposite sex. However, an author of the study specified that the majority of patients who experienced adverse outcomes were females.

“Interestingly, we found that for male patients, it didn't matter whether their surgeon was male or female, they had equivalent outcomes,” Dr. Christopher Wallis, a urologic oncologist at Mount Sinai and the University Health Network, told CTV News Toronto.

“But for female patients, we found that compared to having surgery with a female surgeon, those female patients who were treated by male surgeons had about a 15 per cent increase in adverse outcomes and a 30 per cent increase in the risk of death following surgery.”