Women 32% more likely to die after operation by male surgeon

theguardian.com

7 points·rjmunro··4 comments

> The findings have sparked a debate about the fact that surgery in the UK remains a hugely male-dominated area of medicine

So, my guess is that this is a sampling issue. The title could as easily be: “Study suggests that women in male-dominated fields may be above average performers.” Which wouldn’t surprise me at all.

The paper seems to have found that this was manifest only in male surgeons operating on women. This it probably can’t be explained by women surgeons being more skilled, otherwise men treating men would also have worse results.

I was wondering if it might be something like there are more male surgeons with more experience, therefore they get the more complicated cases, but I don't think that would explain it either.

It might be interesting to see it broken down by different kinds of surgery.

> When a female surgeon operates, patient outcomes are generally better, particularly for women, even after adjusting for differences in chronic health status, age and other factors, when undergoing the same procedures.

There goes my idea of "what about when a woman operates on men?"

Perhaps people are better able to operate on patients of their own sex, and maybe additionally the woman minority of surgeons are better at surgery.

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