Women treated by female doctors had a lower 30-day mortality rate than women treated by male doctors, according to a large U.S. study of older Medicare patients. The research examined more than 776,000 hospitalized patients and found that women treated by female physicians had an adjusted mortality rate of 8.15%, compared with 8.38% for women treated by male physicians. Researchers also found lower readmission rates among women treated by female physicians. The findings do not prove that a doctor’s sex directly causes better outcomes, but they add to a growing body of research examining how physician-patient interactions may influence medical care and outcomes.
What the New Study Found
The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in April 2024, analyzed a 20% random sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries who were hospitalized for medical conditions between 2016 and 2019. The analysis included 458,108 female patients and 318,819 male patients, all of whom were treated by hospital-based physicians. Researchers compared outcomes according to whether patients were treated by female or male physicians while adjusting for patient characteristics, physician characteristics and hospital-level factors.
Among female patients, the adjusted 30-day mortality rate was 8.15% when the treating physician was female and 8.38% when the physician was male. That represents a difference of about 0.24 percentage points. Researchers described the difference as clinically meaningful, although the absolute gap was relatively small for an individual patient. The study also found a similar pattern for hospital readmissions, with female patients treated by female physicians having a lower adjusted 30-day readmission rate.
Why This Matters Now
The findings are important because they raise a broader question about whether differences in communication, diagnosis, treatment decisions and patient interactions can affect health outcomes. Women and men do not always experience illness in exactly the same way, and researchers have increasingly examined whether differences in medical care can contribute to differences in outcomes.
The study does not mean that women should avoid male doctors or that female doctors are universally better physicians. Medicine is team-based, and outcomes depend on many factors, including the patient’s underlying illness, hospital resources, nursing care, treatment decisions, timing of diagnosis and the experience of the entire clinical team. Researchers therefore caution against interpreting the findings as a simple male-versus-female comparison.
How Big Was the Difference for Women?
The difference becomes clearer when the study’s adjusted numbers are placed side by side. Female patients treated by female physicians had an estimated 30-day mortality rate of 8.15%, compared with 8.38% among those treated by male physicians. The researchers calculated an average marginal effect of -0.24 percentage points, with a 95% confidence interval from -0.41 to -0.07 percentage points.
The readmission results showed a similar pattern. For female patients, the adjusted 30-day readmission rate was 15.51% with female physicians compared with 16.01% with male physicians, a difference of approximately 0.48 percentage points. For male patients, the difference in readmission rates between female and male physicians was considerably smaller and was not statistically significant.
These numbers are worth understanding carefully. A difference of a fraction of a percentage point can appear modest when looking at one patient, but researchers studying very large populations can detect relatively small differences with statistical precision. At the same time, statistical significance should not be confused with proof of causation or with a guarantee that a particular patient will have a better outcome with a female physician.
What Happened to Male Patients?
The researchers also examined male patients, and the results were more complicated. Men treated by female physicians had a 30-day mortality rate of 10.15%, compared with 10.23% for men treated by male physicians. The estimated difference was -0.08 percentage points, with a confidence interval that included no meaningful difference.
That distinction is one of the most important details in the study. The research did not show a large, statistically reliable mortality advantage for male patients treated by female physicians. Instead, the stronger association appeared among female patients. Researchers found that the difference in outcomes between female and male patients was greater for women, suggesting that the interaction between patient sex and physician sex may deserve additional research.
Why Could Female Patients Benefit More?
The study cannot establish exactly why female patients appeared to benefit more from treatment by female physicians. Several possible explanations deserve investigation, including communication, whether patients feel more comfortable describing symptoms, differences in how symptoms are interpreted and differences in clinical decision-making. These are possible explanations, not conclusions proven by this study.
Previous research provides some context. A large 2017 study of more than 1.5 million hospitalizations found that patients treated by female physicians had lower adjusted 30-day mortality and readmission rates than patients treated by male physicians. After adjustment for physician characteristics, the mortality difference remained about 0.43 percentage points in that earlier research.
Another Canadian study involving more than 171,000 hospitalized general medicine patients also found lower unadjusted mortality among patients treated by female physicians. However, the difference was no longer statistically significant after additional adjustment for physician characteristics. That finding illustrates why researchers are cautious about claiming that physician sex itself is responsible for differences in patient outcomes.
What the Study Does—and Does Not—Prove
One of the biggest takeaways is that the study was retrospective and observational. Researchers analyzed existing Medicare claims rather than randomly assigning patients to male or female doctors. That means the study can identify an association between physician sex and patient outcomes, but it cannot definitively demonstrate that having a female physician caused a patient’s lower risk of death or readmission.
The researchers also noted an important limitation: the patients were older adults, meaning the results may not apply in the same way to younger patients. The study used Medicare fee-for-service data and focused on hospitalizations for medical conditions, so the findings should not automatically be extended to every medical specialty, outpatient visit or surgical procedure.
Why this matters for patients
For patients, the most practical lesson is not to choose a doctor solely according to sex. Instead, patients should consider factors such as qualifications, specialty, experience, communication, access, trust and whether the physician listens carefully to their concerns.
The research does, however, highlight the importance of understanding how patients and doctors communicate. If differences in communication or clinical decision-making contribute even modestly to outcomes, improving those areas across the entire healthcare system could benefit patients regardless of whether their physician is male or female.
The bigger picture
The study adds another piece to a larger scientific discussion about physician diversity and patient care. UCLA researchers involved in the work emphasized that female physicians provide high-quality medical care and that increasing the number of female physicians could have broader implications for healthcare.
At the same time, the evidence should be interpreted without turning it into a competition between male and female doctors. Hospitals rely on physicians, nurses, pharmacists, technicians and many other healthcare professionals working together. One physician’s sex is only one characteristic within a much larger system that determines whether a patient recovers.
For now, the strongest conclusion is relatively straightforward: this large U.S. study found that older women hospitalized with medical conditions had lower 30-day mortality and readmission rates when treated by female physicians, while the difference was smaller and less certain among male patients. The finding is significant enough to warrant further research, particularly into communication, diagnosis, treatment decisions and the patient-physician relationship.
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