Researchers at Harvard Medical School recently went through Medicare data for hundreds of thousands of hospital admissions and correlated the age of the doctors treating them with the mortality rate.

What the researchers found was “the older the doctor, the higher the patient mortality rate.” The difference in mortality rate was not staggering: for doctors under 40 treating patients, it was 10.8%. The rate for doctors in their 40s was 11%. For doctors in their 50s the rate was 11.3%. And for physicians over 60, the rate was above 12%.

The research did find one wrinkle: for doctors of all ages who saw a large number of patients there was no difference in mortality rates. This suggests that doctors who continue to see a high volume of patients don’t lose any skill as they age.

One physician questioned about the study suggested that it wasn’t that clinical skills deteriorate, but that older doctors “are just not as familiar with the new methods. That’s what gives younger doctors the edge. It’s access to newer technology, and knowing the newer drugs.”

You can read an article on the results of this research here:

[Patients fare worse with older doctors, study finds](https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/16/doctor-age-patient-mortality/)