Women Make The Best Doctors: Nobody Does It Better!

Women Make The Best Doctors: Nobody Does It Better!

Today, due to the recent SCOTUS abortion decision, the public square buzz seems solely focused upon the health care provided women, i.e., where, when and to what extent their half of the human equation both qualify for, and actually receive, today.

I decided to explore the reverse: What about the levels of health care that women provide their patients? Is there any marked difference, any advantage or betterment regarding where, when and in what ways they practice medicine?

One of the elements in the current him/her confrontation is how blatantly slanted, how uneven any career playing field is for women, how systemically skewed towards sustaining once-thought-dead, rampant gender discrimination is. Sad to say, but male chauvinism is alive and thriving when it should have been DOA a long time ago. Like out of the gate, when our Constitution was codified.

1/3 of America’s physicians are women, ½ of medical school graduates are women, yet in this field and so many others, women take home ≈ 20-25% less than men for the same job after about 6 years.

Only an idiot (undoubtably male) wouldn’t realize that there IS a correlation between the advent of feminism, the “pill” and Roe v. Wade, all ascendent in the early 70s, hinted at greater evolving levels of freedom, of autonomy and self-determination that men have enjoyed their entire lives. Women are still “Waiting for Godot” (egalitarian reins of power and pay parity) to show up.

The gender pay discrepancies, especially the fiscal injustice of it in medicine, unfortunately creates early post-residency attrition, in many situations drives women from this field after only a handful of years. And that referenced first 6 years of practice?

The wage-earning disparity is 35%. Mounds of debt from medical school, they enter the workplace with a nascent career fetter, a hobbling debit disadvantage. In essence, men get a pre-ordained head start, start out life in scoring position, on second base.

4 years in an undergraduate program, 4 years in medical school, 3-7 years in a residency program means somewhere in the range of 11-14 years to become a fully licensed doctor. An 18-year-old woman will be 30 or nearing that age. If she becomes a life partner and wants to have children, look for the typical societal pressure imposed upon her to BE that nurturing, stressed out companion back in the nest.

Expected, taken for granted. Not just by her spouse but probably by both sets of parents and traditionalist, brainwashed grandparents if still alive. IMO, most of what’s important in child rearing and the maturation process is done by the unheralded and under-appreciated wife. All that and more after the trauma and damage wrought upon her body from pregnancy and childbearing.

50 years later, post-1972, and women’s comparative wages have only gained ≈ .1-.2%/year on men. Which of course defines “at a glacial pace.” Rationally, logically inexplicable, women are basically forced to continually prove themselves equal (no doubt better) if they want to climb any rungs in their career ladders.

Women must have invented “adaptive management” but were simply too busy doing everything at home for the kids and reigning monarch’s domicile to bother giving it a name while their consort king death-clutched the TV remote: “Yes, you can have control but only after you take it from my cold, dead hand.”

Amongst America’s health care system, males are empowered, command and control via sheer majority numbers plus traditional operational mindsets. It shouldn’t surprise anyone then that men’s biases are steering the medical field fleet. First entitled men, placed by men in superior staff positions (acquired not by merit but by gender) try to intimidate and harass them while they’re in school.

Then openly demean them during their 3 years of residency, plus create imbalanced environs and hierarchy rife with sexually explicit and demeaning, exploitive overtones that their male counterparts are never exposed to.

Women are overwhelmingly the dominant caregivers (by choice and/or by classic historical default) in their own homes, so it shouldn’t amaze us that they bring those skills to the workplace. It’s only recently that numerous, highly accredited studies reveal that when it comes to health care, female doctors significantly, demonstrably, out-perform their male counterparts.

Crucial criteria for seniors, knowing that invasive surgical procedures are as inevitable as gravity, going to be required, like earthquakes “not IF but WHEN,” are patient op and post-op mortality rates.

There are a lot of studies and peer review submissions online about male physicians v. female, but the agreed upon differential recon regarding surgical and post-surgical mortality rates is between 4-7%, advantage female.

From an in-depth 2017 investigation I found in an American Medical Association (AMA) publishing arm titled

Comparison of Hospital Mortality and Readmission Rates for Medicare Patients Treated by Male vs Female Physicians

“We found that elderly patients receiving inpatient care from female internists had 30-day lower mortality and readmission rates compared with patients cared for by male internists. This association was consistent across a variety of conditions and across patients’ severity of illness. Taken together with previous evidence, suggesting that male and female physicians may practice differently, our findings indicate that potential differences in practice patterns between male and female physicians may have important clinical implications for patient outcomes.

There is evidence that men and women may practice medicine differently. Literature has shown that female physicians may be more likely to adhere to clinical guidelines, provide preventive care more often, use more patient-centered communication, perform as well or better on standardized examinations, and provide more psycho-social counseling to their patients than do their male peers.”

https://jamanetwork.com/journa...

The report below was based upon over 1.3 million 18+ year-olds, nearly 3,000 surgeons, involving over 20 types of elective or emergent surgical procedures from 2007—2019. It concluded that the worst, most jarring negative outcomes were attributable to male doctors treating female patients.

Association of Surgeon-Patient Sex Concordance With Postoperative Outcomes

“Findings: In this population-based cohort study of 1,320,108 patients treated by 2,937 surgeons, sex discordance between surgeon and patient was associated with a statistically significant increased likelihood of adverse postoperative outcomes. This was driven by worse outcomes for female patients treated by male physicians without a corresponding association among male patients treated by female physicians.”

https://jamanetwork.com/journa...

No Brett and Clarence, women are not inferior, not relegated household utensils, not just chattel, not merely “bodies with vaginas,” nor surrogate Mommy, or personal maids, cooks and convenient nannies for the benefit of YOUR bloodline.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/0...

Aging boomers like me, in my mid-70s, are forced to confront the complex and compounding issues that emerge due to longevity. I need specialists on top of my primary care provider (a woman), now all in my core group of chosen physicians are women.

I started this transition several years ago after realizing that my statistical odds of increased longevity would get substantially better.

Women are disrespected in medicine, are marginalized in that and many other male-dominated, pig-shaped world hierarchies.

As for me? I’m now a “traitor,” no more aloof, uncaring, assembly line, indifferent male doctors for me.

My personal trust and health care money is now on women. To win.