Evidence in Women's Health: Are there higher mortality rates in women who have been operated on by male surgeons?

In 2022 a Canadian population based retrospective cohort study hit the headlines in the U.K. by claiming that women were 32% more likely to die if operated on by a male surgeon. The study was led by Christopher Wallace who sought to examine the link between surgeon patient sex discordance and postoperative outcomes. Data was collected for over 1.3 million patients and nearly 3000 surgeons were included. It found that 14.9% of patients had one or more adverse postoperative outcome. But that worse outcomes were seen for female patients operated on by male surgeons, but not for males operated on by female surgeons. Together with Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Professor Carl Heneghan, and EBHC DPhil Director, Dr. Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Dr. Anne Marie Boylan discusses what this means for women, the accuracy of the study and whether it has any relevance here in the U.K. They also speak to Emily McFadden, a Senior Statistical Epidemiologist here at Oxford, Sunil Patel, a Canadian surgeon completing his DPhil in evidence based healthcare and Sharon Dixon, a GP and academic who's researching women's health in the department.Together with Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Professor Carl Heneghan, and EBHC DPhil Director, Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Dr. Anne Marie Boylan discusses what this means for women, the accuracy of the study and whether it has any relevance here in the U.K.

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