A surgeon's gender influences the amount of referrals they receive from a fellow physician, especially after poor surgical outcomes, according to a working paper from Heather Sarsons, PhD candidate at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.
Ms. Sarsons analyzed data on surgical referrals in the U.S. from 2008 to 2012. She examined how referrals changed after the outcome of a specific referral was unusually good or bad. An unusually good outcome involved a patient from the riskiest 1 percent who survived surgery and was not readmitted within a month. An unusually bad outcome entailed the patient dying within one week of his or her surgery.
To assess how gender influenced referrals after these good or bad outcomes, Ms. Sarsons used a statistical matching procedure to pair male and female surgeons. The paired surgeons each had comparable professional characteristics and performed the same surgery on similar patients who exhibited exceptionally good or bad outcomes.
Paired male and female surgeons had nearly equivalent amounts of referrals in the year leading up to the identified successful or failed surgery. However, after an unusually bad surgical outcome, referrals — from both male and female physicians — dropped 34 percent for female surgeons. Male surgeons' referral rates did not decrease.
Ms. Sarsons also found gender bias existed in favor of male surgeons' abilities. After an unusually good surgical outcome, referring physicians more than doubled their referrals if the surgeon was a male. Referrals increased for female surgeons at a lower rate than males — 72 percent.