Women on hospital teams result in better surgery outcomes for patients, study shows

The number of women medical professionals who are seen in hospital operating theaters has not increased in decades. Men still rule in the field.

In fact, in most countries, female anesthesiologists and surgeons have increased by only about five percent over 10 years.

Now, researchers writing in the British Journal of Surgery published by Oxford University Press under the title “The association between anesthesiology-surgery team sex-diversity and major morbidity” insist this is not good for the patient.

Better surgery team when diverse

They found that care in hospitals with higher surgery team sex diversity was linked with better post-operative outcomes for patients.

In various industries, including business, finance, technology, education, and the law, many observers believe gender and sex-diversity is important not only for equity but also because it enriches the output of teams because members of the team bring a variety of experiences and viewpoints to their jobs. 

However, there is limited evidence for the value of teams’ sex diversity in healthcare. Most published reports have focused on individuals’ characteristics and their associations with outcomes (such as how female patients respond to female physicians). 

There is limited data regarding the role sex diversity on healthcare teams and their outcomes, wrote Prof.  Julie Hendrick-Hallet, the lead author and a general surgeon and the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada.

Team sex-diversity contributes to patient outcomes through the many differences that male and female doctors bring to the workplace, wrote the authors. 

Both sexes possess different skills, knowledge, experiences, beliefs, values, and leadership styles. Despite the benefits of sex and gender diversity on team performance, female doctors in operating rooms remain uncommon. 

Researchers conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study using administrative healthcare data in Ontario, where 14 million residents receive health services through a government-administered single-payer system. 

They investigated adult patients who had major elective inpatient surgeries between 2009 and 2019 to measure postoperative major morbidity. 

They found that of 709,899 surgeries performed at 88 hospitals during the period, 90-day major morbidity occurred in 14.4%. 

The median proportion of female anesthesiologists and surgeons per hospital per year was 28%. Overall, female surgeons performed 47,874 (6.7%) surgeries, and female anesthesiologists treated patients in 192,144 (27.0%) of operations.

The study showed that hospitals with more than 35% female surgeons and anesthesiologists had better postoperative outcomes. 

Operations in such hospitals were associated with a three percent reduction in the odds of 90-day postoperative major morbidity in patients. 

The researchers note that the 35% threshold that they observed echoed findings from research in other industries in various countries, including the US, Italy, Australia, and Japan, that also showed better outcomes once teams had 35% female members. 

“These results are the start of an important shift in understanding the way in which diversity contributes to quality in perioperative care,” said Hendrick-Hallet. “Ensuring a critical mass of female anesthesiologists and surgeons in operative teams isn’t just about equity; it seems necessary to optimize performance. We wanted to challenge the binary discourse of comparing female and male clinicians and rather highlight the importance of diversity as a team asset or bonus in enhancing quality care. Ensuring sex diversity in operative teams will require intentional effort to ensure systematic recruitment and retainment policies for female physicians, structural interventions such as minimum representation on teams, and monitoring and reporting of teams’ composition to build accountability in existing systems.”