CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — If you could choose your doctor, would you prefer youth or experience? You might pick the fresh-faced physician if you consider that patients in hospital settings are more likely to die when treated by doctors who are at least 60 years old, according to a recent study.
Researchers at Harvard wanted to know how well physicians perform as they age. They looked at the records of 730,000 Medicare patients treated between 2011 and 2014 by more than 18,800 hospital-based internists (hospitalists).
Patient deaths rose gradually as physicians aged, but the biggest gap —1.3 percentage points —showed up between hospitalists 40 and younger and those 60 and older. This means one additional death for every 77 patients admitted by a doctor who is 60 or older versus a doctor who is 40 or younger.
Study senior investigator Anupam Jena, an associate professor of Health Care Policy at the university and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, says this outcome raises some serious concerns.
“It is comparable to the difference in death rates observed between patients at high risk for heart disease who are treated with proper heart medications and those who receive none,” she explains in a Harvard Medical School release.
There is a bright spot, however, in all this aging gloom and doom. When physicians carry heavy caseloads, physician age is not a factor in patient mortality. Researchers believe that caring for large numbers of patients keeps a doctor’s skill set strong.
Older doctors may have knowledge that can only be gained by experience, but they cannot just rest on their laurels. They have to keep up with the rapid changes that come with new research and technology.
“The results of our study suggest the critical importance of continuing medical education throughout a doctor’s entire career, regardless of age and experience,” Jena says.
Researchers say this study is too limited to draw any final conclusions about how older physicians perform on the job. They would like to look into what else might be influencing the higher mortality rates in patients cared for by older doctors.
Perhaps, in answer to the first question posed, your best bet is to choose the busiest doctor.
The study’s findings were published in The BMJ.
Those old home remedies just does work these days.
how bout some follow up reporting…. Older people usually have older doctors so is it people of similar ages being treated by different aged physicians or the more likely scenario that the older doctors actually have older patients who are more prone to serious illness?
are they good because they’re busy, or busy because they’re good?
As an older person I prefer a doctor closer in age to myself. When I was younger I preferred someone in age closer to myself. I think this is true of most people. Older people are more likely to die. Flawed study.
Absolutely flawed. Could it also be that older doctors are charged with the more difficult cases?
My personal experience so far says they may have something in the study but at the same time I think they’re trying to get the more expensive doctors out of the system.
I personally had a 66 y/o doctor make a note of a marker of a certain type of cancer he felt in me in my file and never told anyone, including me, until the cancer eventually became almost untreatable. a I then had copies of my medical files sent to me and found his note.
Also many retired doctors who serve the elderly homes have no problem with providing euthanasia services.
a) A young doctormught just have easily made that same mistake
b) Young doctors are all being indoctrinated into euthanasia and will be gleefully providing euthanasia services for not just the terminally ill, but for children whose quality of life is considered sub par.
This is all the rage in Europe where child euthanasia was recently legalized.
Progressives are reviving the NAZI’s T4 Program.
Not according to the few younger, same discipline, doctors I questioned nonchalantly without reference to myself. The doctor in question didn’t miss anything, he just didn’t tell anyone but himself and notes that aren’t usually available to the patient but must be asked for. The real point is you need to be your own medical advocate and not take what they say at face value. If a doctor doesn’t like being questioned then find another doctor, after all it is your life.
Population control has been the subject of the Bilderberg group and the G7 for quite some time now and they have been implementing it in a slow step by step progression for quite some time. They are heating the water slowly for the lobsters. 0bamaCare/HillaryCare II was created as a step for the US and let’s not even talk about Planned Parenthood.
The sad part is, they’re right, the earth can’t support it’s human burden, but I don’t see them teaching the right people about the problem, only the ones they can control.
Yes. It could also be that more experienced doctors (older) are in smaller hospitals without all the modern equipment and specialties. Younger doctors could tend to be in larger towns or closer to teaching hospitals. It could also be that older doctors have patients that have been with them for many years (meaning the patients are older). There are many angles to be explored rather than just age.
“Patient deaths rose gradually as physicians aged, but the biggest gap…”
Either a flawed study, or flawed conclusions drawn from the study. Older doctors tend to have older patients. And I’ve yet to see or hear about anyone who has permanently avoided death. I wonder how much the taxpayers paid for this nonsense?
Wonder how much the recipients of the grants donated to the democrat party
Or the 0bammyCare death panels…
You mean everyone dies? Really? 100% mortality rate?
Shocking, isn’t it?
So far, I’ve permanently avoided death. If it becomes temporary, I’ll let you know … or not.
I think they mean even younger people have a greater chance of dying if their Doctor is older; The dependent variable is the Doctors age, not patient’s.
No,it was a study with medicare patients!
I had delicate heart surgery correcting a birth defect by a 68 year old doctor fifteen years ago. Come to find out, he was the second best in the world at this type of corrective surgery…second only to a physician in Japan. Even a Saudi crowned prince flew to my city for surgery by this elder doc.
One alternate explanation for the findings may be that older, more experienced doctors are more likely (on average) to be referred sicker patients than younger doctors get. Patients with complex medical needs ARE more likely to die than patients with simpler problems, which might partially explain the difference.
I trust a White doctor over any other 🙂
Most people do because minorities don’t have to make as good of grades as white doctors. This is one area affirmative action hurts minorities. If it wasn’t for that most people wouldn’t care.
Seriouslady: “…don’t have to make as good of grades as white doctors.” ???
!@#$%& . . . . I have a heart attack every time I read that!!!!
Can you write, “…don’t have grades as good as white doctors.”?????
My first choice would be a Jewish doctor , regardless of age. Even wealthy antisemitic Christians only use Jewish doctors. And lawyers too. There’s probably a valid study on that and I’ll post the cites as soon as I find it.
This kind of BS story is dangerous. It is literal baloney, as there is no indication of the seriousness of the illnesses, age groups, the likelihood of very old patients having had the same doctor for decades to naturally have an older doctor, and a younger patient to have a younger doctor as they may be just entering the medical provider services. There are about 100 things these idiots didn’t disclose or didn’t study that could or would explain or further clarify any conclusions. We are drowning in BS studies that prove nothing while spending hard earned dollars – sheer foolish waste, no doubt as a part of government grant (i.e taxpayer funded).
I refused chemotherapy from a 71 year old oncologist–did you know that the frontline chemo used in ALL tumor cancers is 39 years old? They don’t want to cure cancer–they want to TREAT cancer. When I found out he wanted to use this ancient protocol, I refused and walked out. 2 YEARS LATER (after the moron swore I’d die 18 months ago) I’m still here and my cancer has not spread one bit–but my sister who went for the chemo died from it–11 months diagnosis to grave with all the chemo they could pump into her. I’m perfectly healthy with NO chemo and NO radiation. I’ll never trust a doctor again.
While human beings have the same basic structure, each body has differences … it’s why some people can smoke for 80 years and not get cancer. Our individual immune systems vary in performance.
pharmacogenetics is very interesting. wonder when it will be part of standard practice.
Fine, get your care from a chiropractor. You seem to know more than we do anyway. Just don’t call me at 3 in the morning when you start to drool from metastases to the brain. Merry Christmas.
PLEASE sir, DO NOT get me started on that topic! My standard line regarding statins is that the only ones who have side effects are people who get their info from their computers. Oh, and you left out how vaccines cause autism in kids. And the wing nuts in California wonder why there is a whooping cough and hepatitis A epidemic in that state. You can’t cure stupid.
True. I started taking statins 4 years ago, and died in 24 months. It was very sad.
I am missed.
You would have died within 6 months without them.
10 years they wanted me on statins, blood pressure crap,goes on and on. Not so smart Doc.
Statins appear to reduce the chance of a second heart attack but not the first . They can cause muscle inflammation fairly commonly and liver inflammation less commonly
Genetics and inflammation of the arterial inner wall are stronger correlators of risk for heart attack than lipid levels. Uric acid elevations are definitely a risk factor for heart attacks and hypertension as high urate creates an inflammatory response in arteries.
roflmao
What is a “diagnosticians”?
That is kind of bizarre. If I had a gastro complaints, I would go to somebody to get diagnosed first, and then to somebody else to get treated? Can’t stand that scenario.
That was back when physicians could auscultate, percuss, palpate and make diagnoses based on physical exam. Nowadays w/o an u/s, echo. CT or MRI, many of the young Turks are lost bc they are bereft of diagnostic acumen. No kentucky, kentucky, kentucky or mississippi, mississippi, mississsippi for them. No knowing the back of the patient’s hand is an instant IVP monitor.
ESL geniuses at a hospital in Morristown, NJ, diagnosed my MIL who developed seizures on a flight back from Durban as having had a stroke. Kept her several weeks, missing her etoh withdrawal (they were told about her daily 5pm tippler for 50 years multiple times – banana bag and ativan please was totally ignored), loading her with all the latest and greatest anticonvulsants that did not work (the old cheap ones also covered etoh withdrawal unlike the $$$ new drugs), G-tubing her and making certain she was infected with VRE and then shipping down to NC for ‘rehab”. Within one day of arrival in NC she was diagnosed with, not a stroke, but a glioblastoma.
You sound like a typical ARROGANT physician, not so “smartdoctor”!
Agree! He should be ashamed of himself.
The fact that you call yourself ‘SmartDoctor’, as though to imply others aren’t, is a good reason not to seek your ‘professional’ care or advice.
Is it any wonder the highest suicide rates and addiction rates of all professionals lay with the doctors? Read Eustace Mullins or Jennifer Daniels. All these “doctor” comments are rather uncaring and mean.
I was misdiagnosed with so many b.s. things in the early 1990s – spent so much money, time and fear taking pills and taking more costly tests for each of them for over 15 years and never got any better. Then I treated Toxoplasmosis gondii and candida infection 10 years ago and everything cleared up, mainly via diet and lifestyle changes.
How come doctors dont question packaged diets and high-risk behavior? How come you wont discuss parasite infections, which are RAMPANT in Americans? I’ve never been ill since. Not once.
Some doctors literally have no online manner.
That was uncalled for.
Hey, you’re the expert.
And, BTW: there is no single agent, 39 years old or not, used in ‘ALL tumor cancers’.
Glad you’re well. Now please, ST*U, mmm’kayyy?
Oh yes there absolutely is you moron It’s called carboplatin. You better get a refund from medical school, unlike you I passed my board exams. You know what else is universally used? Taxanes and paclitaxel.
I don’t know a single MD that would allow themselves to be chemotherapied. Here’s another little tidbit you know the number one side effect of chemo therapy is? More cancer! Look it up do some research instead just running your ignorant mouth. If you’d kept quiet no one would know you’re an idiot. I wrote the book on this.
Please outline the indications for carboplatin in colorectal cancer, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and renal cell carcinoma.
I’ll wait.
Being diagnosed with any of those cancers is all it takes to trigger it. Carboplatin alone or with paclitaxel is the frontline treatment for all solid tumor cancers. Clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about.
This is not about age. it is about the type of doctor who practices what they learned in school versus keeps up with the journals and research. i have done healthcare reengineering and tech for a long time plus been a complex patient and what you need is a doctor (young or old) who connect the dots and thinks out of the box as opposed to practicing anecdotal medicine (what they hear in the news or magazines). sadly, the same people (public health wonks) that likely did this study have an agenda against doctors. In ACA they all thought they were so smart that they set up providers to be overworked, pushed out of business and not allowed to practice medicine the way they want because the insurance wonks were given all the power. makes me sick. its a hard process but keep looking. i had to see multiple orthopedists before i found someone who practiced “current” sports medicine and used current therapies.
excellent post
the term practicing the “art of medicine” is what was removed by those public health wonks who decided that they could put the administration of healthcare into a viable business model… this is what you get….
“best practices” is what they had the temerity to name it
Be sure to take vitamin D3 and get your blood levels tested. Also, turmeric/curcumin, resveratrol, garlic. If you want to get innovative, consider NAD+. And don’t forget your brain. Without it, everything else will shut down. There are plenty of nootropics on the market.
Hooray for Provigil 200mg 2 am and 1 mid-day for OSA !! Except it is now about $55 a tablet at retail. Look at the Orange Book to check the difficulties with the cheap foreign generic versions the health insurers try to push and cost about $1 a pill.
The “pre-authorization” routine to have brand dispensed or new medicines dispensed is also bullshit. A valid Rx should be all it takes to obligate the insurer to pay per the contract.
I and my doctors are sick and tired of Express Scripts unlawful practice of medicine suggesting to me Lisinopril (which I had tried with bad consequences) versus Benicar which has no such side effects .
The dumbasses at ExpressScripts told me it would be equally effective or better but Lisinopril just sucks – a cheap generic instead of the new stuff that works.
Express Scripts also tried to switch me from Pfizer Lipitor to generic claiming it would cost me less, bullshit. Most brands have patient rebate programs. I pay $4 for Lipitor for 3-30 days after the rebate paid as a credit to the retail price at the pharmacy. How is it cheaper to pay Express Scripts $800 a year for Lipitor when I can get it for $48 a year at the pharmacy.
With this in mind, my position is that should I develop Lipitor injury my medical record will clearly lay the blame on Pfizer rather than some bozo in India.
Perhaps the object of the Harvard study was a further attempt to dilute the intellect of America by discrediting established experienced practicioners in attempting to direct patients to younger less experienced doctors who are likely more susceptible to manipulation in Rx matters and routine as well as expensive tests such as CT, MRI, fMRI, PET, etc. I hate insurance companies and their minions.
at least you should have proffered the presumptive diagnosis ma’m. hunch: breast ca in situ. dont treat it? sayonara. fred md
There’s an in-between here. A good experienced doc in their 40’s or 50’s works . . . .
this seems like it would have to be normalized for the patient’s age. it would make sense that a doctor’s patients age just like he does, so an older doctor probably has an older group of patients, who may have a higher death rate because they themselves are older.
The study population was non-self-admit (hence, emergency) patients 65 years of age and older. I’d like to see additional studies before swallowing this author’s shock claims.
For example, “patients in hospital settings are more likely to die when treated by doctors who are at least 60 years old,” is patently false. This was a very limited set of older patients in the hospital for life-threatening emergencies. It is quite possible that older physicians are LESS INCLINED to provide aggressive care to these patients, some of whom may not have wished to be kept alive at all costs.
Again, despite the headline, this single study does not tell us much.
I am a physician, past 60, and to some degree I agree with the assessment. You do NOT want me as your hospital physician. That is a specialty in and of itself, the science changes radically, and I probably could kill you without batting an eyelash. On the other hand, I have extensive clinical experience in dealing with disease, the knowledge of when to ignore your health insurer’s guidelines on how to heal the masses, of which drugs you NEED as opposed to which drugs the 3rd party of the health clinic’s underpaid nurse has been ordered to prescribe. I don’t work on a time card. So the reality is that insurers and the fat nose of government has greatly affected your health care, and very adversely. It is a much more dangerous world out there today than when I was that fresh face. Choose, wisely. And not by cost! Not if you want to live, anyway.
Well said. Also a physician; 50something. Wouldn’t be a hospitalist for any $ in the world. If anything, the study says more about senior physicians who choose to become hospitalists than it does about the other 95% of physicians in practice. Either burned out, slowing down, or not making it in their original specialty.
Bingo.
Good points. I remember when ED doctors were not a specialist too. Medicine has changed and continues to change. We all want the best SPECIALISTS we can have. Keeping up on the latest trends and/ or changes usually falls with the younger physicians, but experience and dedication are hard to quantify in clinical trials.
lol, first of all that difference is not statistically significant. second of all, you’re talking about medicare patients in hospital settings. well, the more experienced physicians (ergo older, a**hats) will get the more difficult cases. this is worthless, and not unexpected coming from a younger, merely associate professor of “health care policy”, lol, she’s a public health wonk, not a medical doctor.
I trust older doctors who have more experience. It’s what you learn after you think you know it all that really counts.
One obvious flaw in this study is that people who go to the same doctor for years will naturally be seeing an older doctor, and will naturally be older themselves. Older patients (say 60+) = higher mortality rate.
wouldnt be so bad, kathy if Medicare wasnt stacking the deck against older patients and older doctors. Many can no longer afford to see Medicare patients, The government implemented pre-Obamacare on seniors (medicare) long before Obamacare came out. Medicare punishes the seniors and doctors and tries to make all seniors poor. if you look at the selection of plans and quality of those plans, it is appalling. With all the attention being paid to overturning Obamacare I notice NO ONE is standing up against Medicare . i always felt like O-care was our punishment for not overturning Medicare. GIVE SENIORS CHOICE.
The establishment of Medicare and enabling insurance companies to dump all 65+ yos was the biggest boon ever to insurance companies. Politicians made their insurance industry pals a pant load many times over with that move and transferred it all onto US taxpayers.
Were the patient populations the same? Or did the older practitioners have older sicker patients?
Waste of taxpayers’ money.
70 yr old urologist at VA hospital almost destroyed my bladder.
That’s not how the hospitalists I know developed. Former internal medicine/intensivist attendings set up private hospitalist practice in our north Seattle hospital in the mid-90s. When I moved across the country I became a hospitalist – easy bc my training was primarily hospital-based and a large portion of time was in the ICUs . My hours were never by the clock – always that last incredibly sick admit after 11 hours and 30 minutes pushing clock out time from 12 to 14 hours. The advantage to me was being paid an hourly rather than getting $57 from Medicare for 2 1/2 hours stabilizing and admitting and meeting with family. Good luck with the younger practioners; their training was limited by admission limits and time restrictions. It is revealed in their willingness to fob off that incredibly sick admit coming in 30 minutes before their clock out time to the incoming rather than man up and get that patient admitted stabilized and cared for. Pick your poison.
The older ones are more likely to hold a hand rather than scuttling to punch a clock but that’ll change over soon enough. Youth is wasted on the young.
Bam
As with most professions acquired the skills and mental acuity peak in the 40s and 50 and decline in the 60s