Surgery patients face lower risks when their doctors are women, more research shows

A new study suggests that people undergoing certain surgeries may be safer when women make up at least one-third of their hospital's medical team — adding to an already growing pool of research suggesting female doctors may have better patient outcomes than their male peers.

The latest study, published Wednesday in the British Journal of Surgery, looked specifically at the relationship between gender diversity in hospital settings and the incidence of serious post-operative health complications, including death, in Canadian surgical patients during their first three months of recovery. 

Researchers reviewed 709,899 cases between 2009 and 2019 where people had undergone non-emergency but major inpatient procedures at 88 different hospitals. Overall, they found that morbidity — which is generally defined in medical terms as any problem arising from a procedure or treatment — happened in 14.4% of those patients over the 90-day period immediately following surgery.