Patients of female gastroenterologists are less likely to use medical services than patients of male doctors
Last reviewed: 14.06.2024
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Patients who had an initial consultation with a female gastroenterologist were less likely to use health care services in the emergency room, hospital, or primary care office within two years of the visit compared with patients who initially consulted with male gastroenterologists, according to research presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2024, May 18-21 in Washington, D.C.
“If there really is a difference in the way female and male gastroenterologists provide care that impacts patient outcomes, it will be important to disseminate this knowledge widely among health care providers to improve standards of care for all patients,” said lead author Laura Targovnik, MD, is a clinician-researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and director of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Toronto.
Researchers examined data from more than 2.7 million gastroenterology consultations between 2002 and 2020 from the nationwide Ontario Health IC/ES database, of which 15% of consultations were conducted by female gastroenterologists and 55% of patients were women. p>
Overall, female patients had higher rates of emergency department and primary care visits compared to male patients; however, when the initial consultation was performed by female gastroenterologists, subsequent use of all health care services by all patients, regardless of gender, was lower compared with patients who initially consulted with male gastroenterologists. Lower health care utilization after seeing a female gastroenterologist was more pronounced among female patients than among male patients.
“We need more research to understand what causes this difference in patient outcomes,” said Grace Wang, a gastroenterology resident at the University of Toronto.
“The next step is to examine patient data in more detail, including pre-existing conditions, health care utilization patterns prior to the initial gastroenterology consultation, and diagnoses made during that consultation, to explore whether there are other factors that determine patient utilization behavior for medical help."