According to a Canadian study, female physicians perform fewer procedures than their male counterparts, but they provide better care.
The feminization of medicine is underway. By 2020, women will be the majority among practicing doctors in France. And that’s good, some will say! Because according to a Canadian study, it seems that women are more attentive than their male colleagues. Results presented a few days ago in Bordeaux at the International Congress on Public Health and Prevention.
More respectful of recommendations
Researchers from the University of Montreal studied the behavior of 870 family physicians, men and women, caring for diabetic patients. 76% of women require their patient to have an ophthalmic check-up every 2 years in accordance with the recommendations, compared to 70% of male doctors. 71% of them correctly prescribe the recommended drugs against 64% of their colleagues, they also provide more encouragement and help to quit smoking. Clearly, for researchers, more quality, when male doctors do in quantity, with a number of invoiced procedures 37% higher than that of women.
More time during consultations
In addition, 60% of female doctors report consultations lasting more than 20 minutes compared to 35% of their male colleagues. We can therefore think that they take more time to listen, that they have a more global vision of the patient with a pedagogy to explain the treatments they prescribe.
Finally to avoid offending male doctors, the authors of the study still largely temper their results. “This is only a preliminary study which must be deepened by integrating other criteria and studying other pathologies “, recognize in the Doctor’s Daily Roxane Borges Da Silva, co-author of the study. “There is another limit to this kind of study,” she adds. We do not know, for example, if the patients really took the drugs that were prescribed to them, even if they took them out at the pharmacy, ”she concludes.
Are women better doctors than men or do they come from a generation sensitized to listening to the patient? A survey of users might have provided some answers.
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