The battle of the sexes in medicine continues, with results from a study suggesting that hospital patients fare better following discharge if their doctor was female rather than male.

Patients of female doctors had lower 30-day mortality and readmission rates compared with those under the care of male doctors, according to data from nearly 780,000 US patients.

While this effect was greatest in female patients, the US and Japanese authors said the impact of doctors’ sex still had an impact on male patients but it was not statistically significant.

“Treatment by female physicians may help alleviate embarrassment, discomfort, and sociocultural taboos during sensitive examinations and conversations for female patients,” they wrote in the Annals of Internal Medicine.