> But before you go looking for the oldest doctor you can find, you know, hold on for a second. Turns out that what David and his colleagues found in obstetrics may not apply to all fields of medicine. Let me give you an example. A few years ago, we looked at a similar question among internists who provide care to hospitalized patients. These doctors are called hospitalists and nowadays if you’re hospitalized with a general medical condition like pneumonia or heart failure, chances are you’ll be treated by one of these types of doctors. So, my colleagues and I looked at whether the age of a hospitalist physician was tied to outcomes among elderly patients. We looked at about 730,000 hospital admissions by nearly 19,000 physicians and we found that patients treated by older physicians had a higher rate of mortality within a month of their admission date — it’s called “30-day mortality” — compared to patients treated by younger physicians. More patients died under the watch of doctors who were age 60 or older. And interestingly, doctors who were just five years out from their training lost the fewest patients. That finding appears to contradict David’s data showing that obstetricians continued to improve even 30 years into their career.
From the transcript:
> But before you go looking for the oldest doctor you can find, you know, hold on for a second. Turns out that what David and his colleagues found in obstetrics may not apply to all fields of medicine. Let me give you an example. A few years ago, we looked at a similar question among internists who provide care to hospitalized patients. These doctors are called hospitalists and nowadays if you’re hospitalized with a general medical condition like pneumonia or heart failure, chances are you’ll be treated by one of these types of doctors. So, my colleagues and I looked at whether the age of a hospitalist physician was tied to outcomes among elderly patients. We looked at about 730,000 hospital admissions by nearly 19,000 physicians and we found that patients treated by older physicians had a higher rate of mortality within a month of their admission date — it’s called “30-day mortality” — compared to patients treated by younger physicians. More patients died under the watch of doctors who were age 60 or older. And interestingly, doctors who were just five years out from their training lost the fewest patients. That finding appears to contradict David’s data showing that obstetricians continued to improve even 30 years into their career.