Women make better doctors than men, says top surgeon

WOMEN are better doctors than men because they are less competitive and better communicators, an eminent British neurosurgeon has said.

Dr Henry Marsh, a pioneering surgeon and author, said male doctors were too “driven by testosterone” to be good at teamwork.

Speaking at the Stratford-upon-avon Literary Festival, he said that earlier in his career he had believed women would not fare as well as men in the medical profession. But he said a long career had shifted his position.

Dr Marsh, 69, said: “I was a bit chauvinistic about it 20 years ago, when I started having women trainees.

“In the sense that I thought, ‘Well they’re just too nice’, because it’s such a horrible job in many ways.

“It’s so distressing and you have to be a bit ruthless.

“And I thought my women trainees were all too nice to be neurosurgeons, but I was completely wrong.

“Many of them now are consultants, they are all very successful and very good, so that represents a bit of rather old-fashioned, chauvinistic thinking on my part.”

He added: “Although it’s a reverse sexist comment, in my experience and opinion, the average woman makes a better doctor than the average man.

“But there’s lots of bad woman doctors and lots of good men doctors.

“But given that such an important part of medicine is communication and teamwork, on the whole, it’s a sexist generalisation but women tend to do it a bit better than men.

“[Male doctors] are all competitive and driven by testosterone.”

The consultant – who was made a CBE in 2010 – is a pioneer of “awake” brain surgery, where the patient is given a local anaesthetic.