Dr Rozina Ali is a multi-award-winning consultant reconstructive and aesthetic plastic surgeon with more than 30 years of experience. Internationally respected for her work in reconstruction, regenerative medicine and aesthetic surgery, she is known for combining technical precision with empathy, discretion and long-term patient relationships.
Why Female Surgeons Remain Rare in Private Practice
In the first blog of this two-part reflection, inspired by the documentary 1001 Cuts and recent workforce data, Dr Ali explored why female consultant surgeons remain so rare in private practice. In this second piece, she turns to what that rarity can mean for patients, and why the communication style, continuity of care and quietly exacting standards many female surgeons bring, may offer benefits that are both deeply personal and clinically important.
There is a great deal written these days about women in medicine, women in leadership and women in surgery. Sometimes the conversation can become rather combative, that has never interested me. I have no desire to thump my chest, but I do think it is worth saying, calmly and clearly, that patients may gain something valuable and distinctive from being treated by a female surgeon and that this deserves recognition.
This thought has been on my mind since attending a meeting of female plastic surgeons and watching 1001 Cuts, a documentary exploring the daily realities, microaggressions and cumulative barriers experienced by women in surgery. It was both painful and validating. It also sent me down a research rabbit hole. What I found was deeply interesting.
Do Female Surgeons Achieve Better Patient Outcomes?
In one large 2023 study published in JAMA Surgery, involving more than one million procedures, patients treated by female surgeons had lower rates of complications, readmissions and mortality. Similar findings have emerged from other studies in Canada and Europe. These are not the sorts of things female surgeons tend to broadcast, but aren’t they important?
What the Research Says About Female Surgeons
I suspect the answer to why such data exists is not down to one individual reason, instead many factors may in fact be at play. Communication. Thoroughness. Listening. Detail. Teamworking. Caution where caution is warranted. A tendency to build relationships rather than simply perform procedures. Perhaps also the fact that many women in surgery have had to be not only excellent, but exceptional, in order to be accepted at all. Patients may neither see nor appreciate all of that, but they often feel the effects of it.
The Importance of Communication in Surgery
At the heart of trust is communication and despite my very many years of technical training, listening is probably still my most important clinical skill. In consultation, patients are not just giving me a list of concerns. They are revealing something more significant – if subtle,how they see themselves, what they have lost, what matters to them, what worries them, what would make them feel more like themselves again. Very often, the simple act of being heard fully is therapeutic.
Understanding the Emotional Side of Surgical Care
I think many female surgeons instinctively understand this. We are trained by personal and professional experience to read between the lines. We notice hesitation, micro expressions. We recognise the emotional reality that can sit behind a discussion about breasts, eyelids, neck laxity, body contour, ageing, scars and that understanding has practical value.
It can help patients feel safe enough to disclose what they really want. It can make examination less intimidating. It can allow for more personalised treatment planning. It can improve continuity of care because the relationship itself becomes strong enough to hold a patient over time, not just through one event.
Relationships and continuity are what I value most in my own practice. I have patients I have looked after since I started in private practice in 2008. Patients who return not only for surgery, but for ongoing non-surgical care, guidance and review. Patients who have moved through cancer, childbirth, divorce, menopause, weight change, grief, career pressure and the wear and tear of life. Patients who have travelled from USA, Canada, Switzerland, Pakistan, Argentina, Brazil. We have continued to meet, across time and space because they have continued to want a clinician who knows them, not just their anatomy. They are not travelling simply for a procedure. They are travelling for continuity, trust and judgement.
A More Personalised Approach to Patient Care
That, to me, is one of the great privileges of private practice done properly. It is why I think patients often derive a significant therapeutic benefit from being under my care, as a female surgeon. They may come for an operation, an injectable, a regenerative treatment or a surgical opinion. But what they receive is a space in which they are heard, understood, respected and cared for, they are not rushed, they are not under-valued.
Again, I am not claiming this is exclusive to female clinicians, but the research and lived experience do suggest that female surgeons often bring a style of care that is collaborative, communicative and quietly exacting and patients respond to that.
The wonderful irony is that many of the very things women have historically been upbraided for in surgery, being “too detailed,” “too careful,” “too communicative,” may in fact be some of the very things that improve outcomes and strengthen patient experience.
Why Choice of Surgeon Matters for Patients
So when patients say they are relieved to have found a female surgeon, I understand what they mean. They are not simply expressing a preference. They are recognising a way of being cared for. If the profession is to evolve, we need more women not only entering surgery, but being actively encouraged to stay, progress and flourish, particularly in private practice. When patients have genuine choice, including the choice of a female consultant surgeon who is not being hamstrung or held back, then we are all of us, patient and professional, better served.
