A recent study found female doctors most likely provide better quality care than their male peers, at least when it comes to diabetes.
The researchers looked at billing information for diabetic patients from 870 Canadian healthcare providers, half of which were women, a University of Montreal news release reported.
"Women had significantly higher scores in terms of compliance with practice guidelines. They were more likely than men to prescribe recommended medications and to plan required examinations," lead study author Valérie Martel, said.
The researchers also looked at how well the doctor's care lined up with recommendations from the Canadian Diabetes Association. The guidelines state that all diabetics over the age of 65 must undergo a routine eye exam every two years; they should be prescribed three different drugs including statins, and they should have a yearly medical exam.
Among female middle-aged health care professionals three out of four required the suggested eye exams, 75 percent of males required the test. Seventy-one percent of female doctors prescribed the recommended medication as opposed to only 67 percent of males. Thirty-nine percent of female doctors required a routine health exam compared to 33 percent of males.
On the other hand, Male doctors were found to be more "productive," meaning they performed about 1,000 more procedures a year than their female counterparts.
"The proportion of female in the schools of medicine has been gradually increasing in the past 10-15 years. Female now represent more than half of students (even 60-65% in some schools)," Régis Blais, a Professor at the Department of Health Administration, who co-supervised the study, told Headlines and Global News in an e-mail.
"We wanted to know if this change meant something for the care that will be provided in the future. Just as aging of the population is a factor from the "demand side" to consider when planning healthcare, we wanted to see if a change in the supply side (increased proportion of female doctors) should be taken into consideration for the future of healthcare," he told HNGN.
The team also found that the gap between the quality of care between male and female doctors diminished over time.
"It seemed to me that more and more men are taking time with their patients at the expense of productivity, and more and more women tend to increase their number of procedures. This aspect was shown: the younger the doctors, the less significant the differences," Martel said.
People assume that women doctors spend more time with their patients, but it is difficult to observe in a scientific study. This study does just that," Blais said in the statement.
Blais told HNGN the next steps will be to see if patients of female doctors are in better health than those treated by males. They would also like to perform a study that takes conditions other than diabetes into account.
