Gender biases in medicine: Female surgeons get fewer referrals from male physicians, study finds
CTV
A new Canadian study has found that male physicians disproportionately refer patients to male surgeons over female surgeons despite both genders being equally qualified and experienced.
The study, published Wednesday in JAMA Surgery, analyzed nearly 40 million referrals to 5,660 surgeons in Ontario and found that the differences in referral volumes and types could not be explained by patients’ choices or by characteristics of the surgeon, such as age or experience.
Although male surgeons accounted for 77.5 per cent of all surgeons, they received 79 per cent of referrals sent by female physicians, but 87 per cent of referrals sent by male physicians from 1997 to 2016, according to the study.
The study found that female physicians were 1.6 per cent likelier to refer patients to a female surgeon, and male physicians were 32 per cent likelier to refer patients to a male surgeon, despite having access to equally qualified female surgeons.
As more women entered surgery over the study’s 10-year span, the authors noted that this number did not decrease.
