Medical Sexism In Healthcare Is Real … Women Are Sharing Times They Were Misdiagnosed Because Their Doctors Didn't Take Them Seriously

[Booble]

Wow, that was interesting. Surprising. Or maybe not surprising.
And the unconscious biases against black people. Geezus.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Thinking about this topic, some generalizations include that men are viewed as complaining less than women.

Also, men seek medical care less often than women.

These factors combine to increase the status of a male complaint about pain, versus a woman's.

Plus I just found this interesting tidbit.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121551/

No man's land: men, illness, and the NHS
Ian Banks, president

Summary points

• Men do care about health issues but often find it difficult to expresses their fears
• Men tend to attend their general practitioner later in the course of a condition than women and this phenomenon is exacerbated by social class inequalities
• Uptake of health information and health services can be improved by making them male friendly, anonymous, and more convenient
• Better use should be made of services such as NHS Direct, pharmacists, occupational health, and online advice
• The nature of medical school education and medical training may contribute to potential problems in consultations between male doctors and patients

 

[Booble]

I do think there is a bit of the, "men don't go to the doctor unless it's REALLLLY bad" thing. That would lead people to believe that conversely women go to the doctor when it's not so bad...and thus need to be screened out.

 

[andyguitar]

So yeah, it’s a problem.

Here’s more confirmation. Not that most women need it.

So what would be the solution?

 

[Rufous McKinney]

So what would be the solution?

there is a series of excellent writeups with references to studies, about gender bias in medicine: at the link below.

There are a number of suggestions for improving the situation, which is unacceptable for all concerned.

This at least makes me feel hopeful it might improve down the road.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/effects-of-gender-discrimination

 

[Zebra]

I know that this is starting to sound like a broken record (you remember ‘records’, right? Round things, sounds? Usually black?) but this stuff just seems to find me. I don’t google it, I don’t hunt it down, it just …. appears ….

I'm right there with you, Yippee.

Below is a link to an article about a young woman's back pain being repeatedly undervalued.

In regards to the story I'm about to share, I think it's reasonable, and understandable, that a person's first visit to the doctor for back pain begins with conservative treatment, usually pain meds, physical therapy, and lifestyle changes.

However, if the back pain doesn't resolve, and in fact intensifies over months, and is then followed by changes in urination and defecation, that should warrant a a more thorough work up. Sadly, it did not, for the young woman in this story.

https://metro.co.uk/2022/04/29/mum-...ure-had-tumour-size-of-a-babys-head-16556346/

 

[Booble]

So what would be the solution?

Lots of education for medical professionals on unconscious bias and lots of guidance for women to advocate strongly for themselves?

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Here is discussion of how doctors seek to end bias in how they interact and deal with overweight people.

Their pain is not taken seriously, either...its diet and exercise, repeat the chant.

The article notes the limited training in the category: overweight.

Figure that for every topic that requires better training, more training or even covering the topic at all (like ME)....something else will need to be dropped from the curriculum.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heal...weight-patients-rcna29680?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

EXCERPT:

The Association of American Medical Colleges is trying to tackle the problem in two ways.

First, it developed a professional readiness exam for aspiring medical school students, called PREview, designed to assess an applicant’s cultural competence, social skills, and listening skills, as well as their ability to think through situations they may encounter in medical school and clinical settings. “We call them softer skills, but they’re really the harder ones to learn,” said Lisa Howley, an educational psychologist and senior director of strategic initiatives at the association. More than a dozen medical schools now recommend or require that applicants submit their PREview test scores with their Medical College Admission Test scores.

Second, the medical college association will roll out new competency standards for existing medical students, residents, and doctors related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in June. Those standards will address racism, implicit bias, and gender equality and will aim to teach doctors how to talk with people who are overweight.

 

[Booble]

It's a start.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

More than a dozen medical schools now recommend or require that applicants submit their PREview test scores with their Medical College Admission Test scores.

I wandered out and looked at info about this test. Now I forget the number of U.S. medical schools...a dozen is a small sampling. 100s exist.

Presumably they would use this test to screen applicants? So highly biased types might be screened out and never get into med school in the first place? thats very unclear.

Make sure they teach doctors how to talk to people. Good luck.

 

[Oliver3]

I know that this is starting to sound like a broken record (you remember ‘records’, right? Round things, sounds? Usually black?) but this stuff just seems to find me. I don’t google it, I don’t hunt it down, it just …. appears ….

One of the things that I went thru with Drs when I was trying to get a diagnosis for what turned out, a little over 2 years and 5 doctors later, to be cancer, was their absolute inability to respond to my claims of extraordinary pain in my lower back. Just crippling. Not like the back pain I’d had since a spinal surgery, which was more or less intermittent and bad, but not bad-bad. The pain I was trying to get them to register and respond to was almost blinding I its searing intensity. Nada. The skeptical look at me over their glasses, like “Yeah, right.”

So yeah, it’s a problem.

Here’s more confirmation. Not that most women need it.


Why Women's Pain Isn't Taken as Seriously as Men's
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-womens-pain-isnt-taken-143900049.html

“Although women are more likely to suffer from chronic pain, studies indicate that stereotypes play into how women are treated in the exam room, and that can affect our care. In one study, when medical students and clinicians saw videos of patients in chronic pain, they estimated women’s pain, on average, as lower than men’s — and were more likely to recommend psychological treatment to women and analgesics to men.”​

Read on ..... there's a lot more where that came from ....

​

When you're an m.e. patient and make, you basically become an honorary woman.
In fact , in some ways I'd say you're actively despised if you're a man. You should " man up". The toxic masculinity gene us triggered in the docs DNA and I've had real scorn poured my way and things said that are just downright cruel.
Only in this way to I say men get a crappy deal with m.e.
The medical establishment is racist, sexist and ageist sadly. It's a cult, just like any other closed ranked power structure

 

[Oliver3]

Lots of education for medical professionals on unconscious bias and lots of guidance for women to advocate strongly for themselves?

I also think medicine, or traditional medicine is underpinned by a default non cooperative, unempathethic " rock stars" t the top type thing. They cant be questioned.
There's arrogance, greed, ego. Nothing to do with care. Sadly some of these fools make good surgeons. But the robot surgeons are coming, thank god.
There's lots of nurses not fit for the job too, who have imbibed every bit of " good practice" their toxic masculine designers of syllabus tight them.
I've had women nurses buse me as well s men.
The thing is, they don't even realise they re causing damage. They think it's good for us.
In general the health care system is sick, it's neurotic, racist , cruel and relies on pharmaceutical s that have no interest in cure.
Before I had m.e., I would never have thought like this.
Now, I actively dislike doctors. I know there are good ones. But your click in clock out doc , they're to be treated with suspicion. Same with nurses.
There's many a nurse attracted to nursing because of the self known deficits they have in empathy. It's like a societal gesture of care, virtue signalling, but inside they're often impatient and nasty.
This whole system attracts people low on empathy , high on austisim ( which can be great for medicine) Nd then just plain old psychos.
The good are few n far between. Men Nd women

 

[Rufous McKinney]

you basically become an honorary woman.
In fact , in some ways I'd say you're actively despised if you're a man. You should " man up".

I can see the system doing all that, too.

Do men even utter the words: "it hurts"? The symptoms of ME are particularly unacceptable - low energy, poor sleep, lots of pain and digestive issues.

The whole system includes all this indoctrinating. Everybody is affected by it.

Example: not sleeping. Somehow, you want to train doctors by running them through multiple shifts and include not sleeping. This is then somehow admired. And then its some special club you've been initiated in.

I'd prefer to visit doctors who are well rested.

This surgeon saved my husbands life. ON the wall is the sign: Cut and Cure.

So when they cannot cut it out, Good Luck.

 

[Oliver3]

You

I can see the system doing all that, too.

Do men even utter the words: "it hurts"? The symptoms of ME are particularly unacceptable - low energy, poor sleep, lots of pain and digestive issues.

The whole system includes all this indoctrinating. Everybody is affected by it.

Example: not sleeping. Somehow, you want to train doctors by running them through multiple shifts and include not sleeping. This is then somehow admired. And then its some special club you've been initiated in.

I'd prefer to visit doctors who are well rested.

This surgeon saved my husbands life. ON the wall is the sign: Cut and Cure.

So when they cannot cut it out, Good Luck.

Yeh it's like some hazing system.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Yeh it's like some hazing system.

It's called 'internship'. And it's ridiculous, one of those things passed down from days gone by in the spirit of "I had to endure it, so by God, you do, too."

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

There's arrogance, greed, ego. Nothing to do with care.

I've posted so often and so volubly on my general opinions of our medical system and its practitioners that, while I have multiple thoughts on your excellent post, I need to find a new way to express them.

I also have to wait for my brain to kick in, which it seems reluctant to do today, more or less on a pleasant, fuzzy, cruise control setting.

But pending that, just wanted to say " ... you're not alone in your thoughts and opinions ...".

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

This surgeon saved my husbands life. ON the wall is the sign: Cut and Cure.

Generally speaking, I've found that surgeons, particularly orthopedic surgeons, are the only medical practitioners left who focus on the problem at hand, put some effort into understanding and studying it before cutting, and then go to work in an efficient, unemotional, way.

They're pretty much the last bastion of medical 'healers' left in our fractured, ridiculous, pharma-dependent, sort of Fluck You, medical system ....

The last thing I wanted when my husband, DB, shattered his left femur and everything connected to it in a freakish accident, was a surgeon with a great bedside manner and limited other skills.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

I’m back.

I’m not happy about that. For a lot of reasons.

I’m even less happy about a story with a potentially … almost certain … deeply sad ending. For the victim, for her three children, for her husband, for her extended family, for her friends. An ending that was unnecessary that was completely avoidable. An ending that only the victim and her family are paying for.

“Research shows women are more often victims of medical gaslighting,
or when medical professionals dismiss a person's symptoms, deny tests or treatments, and ultimately misdiagnose them.”​

“Women are " .... not being believed, and that's causing significant delays in care,
misdiagnosis, late diagnosis, ineffective treatment, and ineffective triaging .... "
Dr. Garima Shara, an internal medicine physician and cardiologist at
Johns Hopkins previously told Insider.
"Women are paying a very heavy price."​

A mom said her severe pain was dismissed as anxiety for a year. Then, while undergoing a c-section, she learned she had terminal cancer.
https://www.insider.com/moms-severe-pain-dismissed-anxiety-learned-terminal-cancer-c-section-2022-6

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Hi hello. Yup. back again ….

This story has a happy ending, which so many others don’t, and possibly a clue to other issues, like neck compression effects, that may be involved in some member’s issues and symtoms …. it’s a stretch, but it may be one of the dots that connects to other issues ….

Doctors dismissed her symptoms. She was having 10-15 ‘ministrokes’ a day
https://news.yahoo.com/doctors-dismissed-her-symptoms-she-161816985.html

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

And back again. I swear, I dont look for this stuff, it just floats in thru cracks under the door I guess ....

Incredible. Even more so because the woman’s father had died young of colon cancer, which is why she wanted that test earlier tha Drs recommend it ….

But it mirrors my experience with a Dr, my PCP of a decade and a half, who denied me a referral to a gastroenterologist for my extraordinary constipation, which turned out to be HUUUGE lymphatic tumor in my abdomen that was strangling both my colon and my spine, because “…. your insurance won't allow me to ….”.

I later discovered that I had gold standard insurance, which was fortunate, because it cost over $400,000 for my various treatments, procedures, and hospitalizations….

Woman denied a colonoscopy by her doctor died of colon cancer at 39, friend says in viral Twitter thread
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/woman-denied-a-colonoscopy-by-her-doctor-died-of-colon-cancer-at-39-friend-says-in-viral-twitter-thread-11654628369?mod=mw_more_headlines