Patient gender affects the referral and recommendation for total joint arthroplasty.

Background: Rates of use of total joint arthroplasty among appropriate and willing candidates are lower in women than in men. A number of factors may explain this gender disparity, including patients' preferences for surgery, gender bias influencing physicians' clinical decision-making, and the patient-physician interaction.

Questions/purposes: We propose a framework of how patient gender affects the patient and physician decision-making process of referral and recommendation for total joint arthroplasty and consider potential interventions to close the gender gap in total joint arthroplasty utilization.

Reaching those most in need: a scoping review of interventions to improve health care quality for disadvantaged populations with osteoarthritis.

Objective: To conduct a systematic review to identify and describe the scope and nature of the research evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to improve health care quality or reduce disparities in the care of disadvantaged populations with osteoarthritis (OA) as an example of a common chronic disease.

Methods: We searched electronic databases from 1950 through February 2010 and grey literature for relevant articles using any study design. Studies with interventions designed explicitly to improve health care quality or reduce disparities in the care of disadvantaged adult populations with OA and including an evaluation were eligible.

Patients' gender affected physicians' clinical decisions when presented with standardized patients but not for matching paper patients.

Objective: To compare physicians' treatment and referral decisions for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) for standardized patients with matching paper patients.

Study Design And Setting: Sixty-seven physicians (38 family physicians and 29 orthopedic surgeons) performed blinded assessments of two standardized patients (one man and one woman) with moderate knee osteoarthritis and otherwise identical clinical scenarios differing only in gender, and consented to including their data. Standardized patients recorded physicians' recommendations (yes/no) to refer for, or perform, TKA.