Why you're better off if your doctor is a woman, according to science

When it comes to your health, you're better off with a female doctor, according to a new study. 

Researchers looked at interactions between more than 200,000 patients and over 200 surgeons, finding that women pay better attention to their patients.

Among surgeons in 14 specialties, female doctors on average spent more time documenting their time with patients, wrote longer care notes and took more time looking at electronic patient records. 

The study is part of as mounting pile of research suggesting that female doctors are more compasionate and more likely to save patients' lives. 

Female surgeons spent more time writing patient progress notes and reviewing medical records than their male counterparts, a study suggests

And while male surgeons logged on to electronic health systems more days out of the month, women did so more often on their days off. 

According a survey from the Association of American Medical Colleges, just 38 percent of doctors in the US are women. 

The researchers evaluated 222,539 patient encounters by 224 surgeons at a single hospital. 

The majority, 70 percent, of doctors were male, while the remainder were female. 

In their analysis, the team combed through 171,812 patient progress notes, 252,883 documents, and 2.1million minutes spent in the electronic health records system. 

The surgeons were trained in 14 specialties, with the most common being general surgery. 

Orthopedic surgery had the highest proportion of male surgeons (84 percent), while general surgery had the most female surgeons (51 percent). 

Male surgeons also tended to be more experienced, with an average of 17 years versus nine years for women. 

On average, patients being treated by both genders were 57 to 59 years old. 

Male surgeons scheduled 12 percent more appointments per day and 26 more per week than their female counterparts. 

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They also logged into electronic health systems about 18 times per month compared to women with 16 times per month.

However, female surgeons spent up to 158 percent more time in the system outside of their working hours compared to their male counterparts.   

And though male surgeons wrote about 32 percent more medical notes than female surgeons, women wrote about 40 percent longer progress notes and took nearly twice the time to write them. 

Women also were more likely to write their notes manually instead of using AI or a transcription tool. 

'These findings are consistent with previous studies showing gender disparities in [electronic health record] usage among health care professionals,' the researchers wrote. 

'The reasons behind the differences in patient volume and medical record writing between male and female surgeons warrant further exploration. It is possible that variations in career choices and preferences may conrtibute to these disparities.'

'For instance, women surgeons may opt for lighter schedules to balance personal and professional responsibilities.' 

The team also suggested that having fewer patients may leave women with more time to spend on administrative tasks like manually typing patient notes. 

The study's main limitation was only including surgeons from one institution, leading to a less diverse sample. 

Another was that the study did not actually look at the quality of care provided or the health outcomes of patients. 

The research was published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open.