A study based on clinicians' interactions with diabetic patients found female physicians outperformed their male counterparts on certain metrics of care.
Researchers from the University of Montreal studied 870 physicians based in Quebec — half men, half women — who treat elderly patients with diabetes. They measured physicians' compliance with three parts of standard treatment: prescribing periodic eye exams, scheduling annual physical exams and keeping patients on a mix of three specific medications.
Here are some key findings:
• Approximately 75 percent of women required patients to undergo an exam compared with 70 percent of their counterparts.
• Seventy-one percent of female physicians recommended the three specific medications compared with 67 percent of male physicians.
• Thirty-nine percent of women asked patients to undergo a complete physical exam compared with 33 percent of male physicians.
Although female physicians outperformed men on these quality metrics, male physicians had higher productivity. They reported nearly 1,000 more procedures per year compared with female physicians.
"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," said Régis Blais, PhD, professor at the University of Montreal's Department of Health Administration. "Doctors who take the time to explain problems to their patients may avoid these patients returning after a month because they are worried about a detail. More productive physicians may not be the ones we think."
The researchers also found generational differences in the study outcomes. Interestingly, the younger the physician, the narrower the gender divide was between performance on the metrics.
University of Montreal researchers plan to look at three other manageable conditions next — hypertension, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — to see if gender-based differences carry over to those conditions.
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