Gender bias is often discussed in corporate
contexts, but a recent paper
suggests that gender bias can mean
the difference between life and death
for women in hospital settings. Three
researchers recently analyzed data
related to approximately 582,000
heart attack cases at Florida hospitals
between 1991 and 2010. After
accounting for factors such as age
and medical history, they discovered
that female patients were more likely
to survive cardiac events when treated
by female physicians.
Comparing outcomes for
women treated by male
doctors to those for
women treated by female
doctors, the researchers
found that 1,500 more of
the women treated by men
would have lived had their
survival rate been the same as
for those treated by women.
The presence of female doctors
in the emergency room also had a
positive effect. That is, women treated
by male doctors with a significant
number of female colleagues also
survived at higher rates, although
these rates were not as high as for
women treated by female physicians.
Moreover, the more women a male
doctor had treated in the past, the
better his female patients fared.
The paper was co-authored by Brad Greenwood of the University
of Minnesota’s Carlson School of
Management in Minneapolis; Seth
Carnahan of the Olin Business School
at Washington University in St.
Louis, Missouri; and Laura Huang of
Harvard Business School in Boston,
Massachusetts. “Our work corroborates
prior research showing that
female doctors tend to produce better
patient outcomes than male doctors,”
says Carnahan in an Olin Business
School publication. He adds that the
research shows “the benefit of having
a female doctor is particularly
stark for a female patient.”
The researchers note
that “male bias” could
lead some male doctors
to miss important signs
of heart attacks in women.
Such bias could be addressed
through training programs that
show “how men and women might
present symptoms differently,”
says Carnahan. This study also has
lessons for leaders in other organizational
contexts where unconscious
bias could lead to different outcomes
for women and men.
“Patient-Physician Gender Concordance
and Increased Mortality
Among Female Heart Attack Patients”
was published ahead of print
August 6, 2018, in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences.