Lifespan of Doctorate and Non-doctorate Physicians in Northrine

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the lifespan of physicians in North Rhine depending on the criterion if they had graduated with a Dr. med. thesis under German law or not. North Rhine is part of the German federal state North Rhine-Westphalia. The date of birth and date of death of 1133 deceased physicians from the journal of the medical association of North Rhine were recorded according to their doctoral degree from January 2013 until June 2016 inclusive. For the calculation of their length of life, the descriptive statistics and for further statistical analysis, the R program 1 was applied. Physicians with a doctoral degree under German law (Dr. med.) reached an average age of 80.9 ± 12.1 years whereas physicians without a dissertation reached an age of 67.6 ± 13.8 years, on average. After correction for year of birth no significant difference between the average lifespan of the two groups could be found. The analysis of the survival data of deceased physicians showed a much longer length of life if they had graduated with a doctoral thesis under German law, which was not significant after a year of birth correction. For every statistical analysis possible confounders need to be considered.