Association of Trainee Gender With Critically-Ill Trauma Patient Outcomes

Introduction

Recent research has shown that female attending surgeons have slightly better outcomes than male attending surgeons. We aimed to evaluate if this gender difference extends to trainees caring for critically-ill trauma patients.

Methods

The trauma registry at a level 1 academic trauma center was reviewed from October 2015 to December 2021. All patients admitted with an injury severity score ≥25 were included. The trauma team members for each patient were determined by the past resident and fellow call schedules. Teams with two female (female/female) or two male (male/male) trainees were included in the analysis. Primary outcome was mortality. Secondary outcomes included hospital and intensive care unit length of stay, return to intensive care unit, readmission, infectious complications, and venous thromboembolism.

Results

1909 patients met inclusion criteria; of which, 625 were on an FF or MM team. Median age was 37 y and 80% were male. The mortality on female/female teams was 22.7%, compared to 25.5% on male/male teams, P = 0.496. There were also no differences between teams for any of the secondary outcomes.

Conclusions

There was no statistically significant difference in mortality rates for severely injured trauma patients based on whether the trainees on their team were men or women. As gender discrimination still exists in the field of surgery, studies like this that demonstrate similar or better outcomes for female surgeons can help to dissipate bias.