Health care costs are lower for patients treated by female surgeons versus those treated by male surgeons, according to a study published online Nov. 29 in JAMA Surgery. Christopher J. D. Wallis, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Toronto, and colleagues examined associations between surgeon sex and costs of surgical care using data from 1.2 million adult patients undergoing one of 25 common elective or emergent surgical procedures from 2007 through 2019. The researchers found that at the procedure-specific level and when adjusting for patient-, surgeon-, anesthesiologist-, and hospital-level covariates, one-year total health care costs were higher for patients treated...
