背景介绍：
近年来，多项全球性研究揭示了一个引人注目的医疗现象：由女性医生接诊或治疗的患者，其健康状况和康复情况普遍优于由男性医生接诊的患者。这一发现引发了广泛关注和深入探讨。哈佛大学医学院的研究团队在2017年率先发表了相关研究报告，随后加拿大和美国的研究人员也相继证实了这一趋势。尽管这些研究均属于回顾性研究，存在一定的局限性，但女性医生在医疗领域的出色表现已成为不容忽视的事实。
Do women make
better doctors than men?
女性比男性更适合当医生?
Research suggests yes
研究表明是的
Many factors can influence whether a patient lives or dies. The quality of the drugs they receive, for example, the rigour with which their symptoms are monitored, or—more surprisingly—the gender of the attending physician.
许多因素都会对患者的生死产生深远影响。例如，他们所获得药物的质量、症状监测的严格程度，或者更为出人意料的是，主治医生的性别。
In data from a host of different countries, patients seen by female doctors seem to do better than those seen by male ones. Why, though, remains mysterious.
来自全球各地的数据揭示了一个现象：由女性医生接诊的患者，其状况似乎普遍优于由男性医生接诊的患者。然而，这一差异背后的原因至今仍是一个未解之谜。
One of the first studies to examine the issue was published in 2017 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine by Yusuke Tsugawa of Harvard Medical School, and colleagues based in Boston. The authors analysed the medical records of around 1.5m older adults who had been hospitalised in America between 2011 and 2014.
哈佛大学医学院的Yusuke Tsugawa及其波士顿的同事在2017年《美国医学会杂志·内科学》上发表了首篇针对此问题的研究报告。作者深入剖析了2011年至2014年间，在美国住院的大约150万名老年人的医疗记录。
They found that patients whose primary treatment had been performed by a female doctor were roughly 4% less likely to die, and 4% less likely to be readmitted to hospital in the following 30 days, than those whose primary doctor was a man.
研究结果显示，与主要由男性医生负责治疗的患者相比，由女性医生主导治疗的患者，其死亡概率降低了约4%，在未来30天内再次住院的概率也相应减少了约4%。
The beneficial effect on mortality is comparable to that of being hospitalised in 2013 rather than 2003, with all the accompanying improvements in treatments and technology.
这一对死亡率的积极影响，与2013年（而非2003年）住院时伴随的所有治疗和技术进步所带来的影响相当。
Later in 2017 another study, published in BMJby a separate group of Canadian and American researchers, searched for similar trends following surgery.
2017年晚些时候，另一项由加拿大和美国研究人员组成的独立团队，在《英国医学杂志》上发表了一项研究，探索了手术后的类似趋势。
They examined the outcomes of 100,000 patients who had operations in Ontario between 2007 and 2015, and found that those with female surgeons were, again, around 4% less likely to die, be readmitted or have complications in the 30 days after surgery.
他们针对2007年至2015年间在安大略省接受手术的10万名患者进行了深入分析，发现由女性外科医生主刀的患者，在手术后30天内死亡、再入院或出现并发症的概率再次降低了约4%。
Since then, other studies have made similar claims. In the past 12 months alone two examinations of roughly 1m surgery patients in Ontario; another of 2.7m gastroenterology patients in the province; and one of 770,000 older Americans with medical conditions have all found that patients do better, according to various measures, after being treated by female doctors or surgeons, or by teams of anaesthetists and surgeons that have more women.
自那以后，其他研究也纷纷提出了类似的主张。仅在过去的12个月里，就有两项针对安大略省约100万手术患者的研究问世；另一项则聚焦于该省270万胃肠病学患者；还有一项研究涉及77万患有疾病的美国老年人。所有这些研究均发现，根据各种评估指标，由女性医生或外科医生，或由女性占比较高的麻醉师和外科医生团队治疗的患者，其状况更为理想。
One drawback with the studies is that they are all retrospective, looking back at naturally occurring data rather than randomised-controlled experiments.
这些研究的一个共同缺陷在于它们均属于回顾性研究，即基于自然发生的数据进行分析，而非通过随机对照实验得出。
This could conceal any underlying factors which might be really driving the effect, says Gavin Stewart, an expert in evidence synthesis at Newcastle University. It could be, for example, that female doctors tend to be assigned healthier patients than their male colleagues. In an experiment where patients were randomly assigned doctors, any such links would be broken.
纽卡斯尔大学的证据综合专家加文·斯图尔特指出，这可能会掩盖真正驱动这一效果的潜在因素。例如，女性医生可能更倾向于被分配到健康状况优于男性同事的患者。在患者被随机分配给医生的实验中，任何此类关联性都不复存在。
To control for such effects, most studies try to account for the impact of different hospitals and procedures in their analysis, with some comparing across groups of patients who are matched for age, sex and illness severity, as well as groups of surgeons matched by age and surgical experience. However the data are sliced, female doctors seem to do better.
为了控制这一潜在影响，大多数研究都试图在分析中纳入不同医院和手术程序的影响因素，部分研究还对比了年龄、性别和疾病严重程度相匹配的患者群体，以及年龄和手术经验相匹配的外科医生群体。然而，无论数据如何划分，女性医生的表现似乎总是更为出色。
Researchers say the next step is to work out why. “I don’t think it’s the presence or absence of a Y chromosome,” says Dr Christopher Wallis, the lead author on several of the Canadian papers. “I think it’s a series of behaviours that are linked with gender.”
研究人员表示，下一步的关键在于找出这一现象的根本原因。加拿大几篇重要论文的主要作者克里斯托弗·沃利斯博士说道：“我不认为这是由于Y染色体的存在或缺失所致，我认为这是一系列与性别相关的行为差异造成的。”
Past research has found that female doctors tend to spend more time with patients, are more likely to provide preventive care and tend to stick more closely to clinical guidelines than their male colleagues do. This could minimise the risk of preventable deaths.
过去的研究已经发现，女性医生往往花费更多时间与患者沟通，更有可能提供预防性护理，并且比男性同事更严格地遵循临床指南。这些行为可能会显著降低可预防性死亡的风险。
重难点词汇：
rigour [ˈrɪɡə] n. 严格；严谨；谨慎
surgeon [ˈsɜːrdʒən] n. 外科医生；外科医师
preventable[prɪˈventəbl] adj. 可阻止的；可预防的
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