Female patients more likely to die if surgeon is male

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A Canadian study has concluded that women are more than 30% more likely to die after being operated on by a male surgeon, rather than by a female surgeon. According to the study women are also more likely to have complications and be readmitted to hospital when their surgeon is male than when a woman performs the procedure. Newsday spoke to two authors of the study, Christopher Wallis, Assistant Professor, Division of Urology, University of Toronto and Dr Angela Jerath, Associate Professor at the University of Toronto: "Male patients had equivalent outcomes irrespective of whether their surgeon was male or female. But women operated on by men had a higher risk of adverse outcomes after surgery." - Dr Jerath. "The wide sample size (1.3 million patients) we've used... means there shouldn't be red herring causes... driving this." - Christopher Wallis. (Pic: Female surgeon in an operating theatre; Credit: Getty Images)