Articles

Women Are Dying Because Doctors Treat Us Like Men

April 1, 2018

Doctors misdiagnose women more often than men.

Excerpts from MarieClaire, Women Are Dying Because Doctors Treat Us Like Men, by Kayla Webley Adler, April 25, 2017:

For years, physicians have assumed they can diagnose and treat both genders the same way.  But it’s costing women their lives. The best-known incidents of medicine gone wrong in female patients are the many tragic stories of women who died after being sent home from emergency rooms while they were having heart attacks. In fact, a 2000 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that women are seven times more likely than men to be misdiagnosed and discharged mid-heart-attack.”  ***

Medical schools use curricula informed by what happens in the body of a 154-pound man, and instructors rarely discuss sex differences in their lessons. It’s also because, until recently, research was overwhelmingly conducted exclusively on male cells, male mice, and men, and what doctors know about preventing, diagnosing, and treating disease continues to be pulled from such studies.  “Women are not just men with boobs and tubes,” says Dr. Janice Werbinski, a gynecologist and executive director of the Sex and Gender Women’s Health Collaborative. “We can actually harm women by not researching them correctly and knowing the differences.”

Studies have shown that female patients’ symptoms are less likely to be taken seriously by doctors, and women are more likely to be misdiagnosed, have their symptoms go unrecognized, or be told what they’re experiencing is psychosomatic. According to one doctor interviewed for the article: “[t]he bottom line is, we don’t do as good of a job taking care of women as we do men.”

If your symptoms were ignored or you suffered harm because a military doctor  did not believe your complaints, we can help.   Contact us at 1-877-695-8757 (24/7), e-mail us at LawHelp@MilitaryMedicalMalpractice.com or fill out the short form on the right side of this page.  Free, confidential, no-risk consultations.  Representing Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine families at military facilities worldwide for over 30 years.

https://www.marieclaire.com/health-fitness/a26741/doctors-treat-women-like-men

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