The actual results are not quite as dire as the headline suggests:
"patients’ adjusted 30 day mortality rates were 10.8% for physicians aged <40 … and 12.1% for physicians aged ≥60 … Among physicians with a high volume of patients, however, there was no association between physician age and patient mortality."
All of the patients were 65 or older with a medical condition. Perhaps the oldest and sickest are regularly routed to older doctors? As ever, correlation does not imply causation:
"patients’ adjusted 30 day mortality rates were 10.8% for physicians aged <40 … and 12.1% for physicians aged ≥60 … Among physicians with a high volume of patients, however, there was no association between physician age and patient mortality."
All of the patients were 65 or older with a medical condition. Perhaps the oldest and sickest are regularly routed to older doctors? As ever, correlation does not imply causation:
http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
https://xkcd.com/552/