According to a US study published in the BMJ,surgeries performed by older surgeons have lower mortality rates compared to those performed by younger surgeons.
Both male and female surgeons are equally good-patients mortality rates do not differ significantly,whether the surgeon is male or female. ( In fact my own experience tells me that in an well functional OT, everyone is asexual with focus on the patient . A good standby surgeon does not mind changing oxygen cylinder and doing other jobs in case the OT in charge is otherwise busy & I wonder that doctors really do resort to gossip in OT?).
The conclusion was based on an analysis of 8,92,187 patients aged 65 to 99 who had one to 20 emergency surgeries,performed by 45,826 surgeons.
The risk of dying in the month after a surgery steadily decreased as the surgeon's age increased: 6.5 per cent for surgeons aged 40 to 49 : 6.4 per cent for surgeons aged 50 to 59: and 6.3 per cent for surgeons aged 60 and older.
Female surgeons in their fifties had the lowest patient mortality when comparing men and women surgeons across all age groups.
" Our findings that younger surgeons have higher mortality suggests that more oversight and supervision early in surgeons' post-residency career may be useful and warrants further empiric investigation.
Equivalent outcomes between male and female surgeons suggest that patients undergoing surgery receive high quality care irrespective of the sex of the surgeon " the study concluded.