"Do you suffer from stress?" This is how women are discriminated against by the doctor
It is such a corrosive, depressing experience: after a lot of back and forth, we overcome ourselves to go to the doctor. Still with doubts and uncertainty, we sit in the waiting room and consider what we best answer when he asks us what we are missing.
"I have such pain in my stomach that I just can not handle my everyday life"? Yes, that's it. So let's try that. But when we sit in the consulting room and describe our suffering, our doctor only asks, "Is this so bad for you every month or are you currently suffering from particular stress?"
"Women also have children" - why doctors think we are pain resistant
Unfortunately, many women know this. Many find that doctors do not take their menstrual problems seriously. Pain is dismissed as psychosomatic or under "that belongs to being a woman". Although 90 percent of women suffer from at least one symptom of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), this phenomenon does not appear to be of much interest to scientists: there are five times as many studies on erectile dysfunction as PMS.
Maybe this is also related to a widespread prejudice among medical professionals: that women are inherently less sensitive when it comes to pain. After all, women also give birth to children and therefore have built-in, body-own mechanisms to endure pain, according to many physicians. (That is, the fact that doctors often believe in it, NOT that it is so - for example, in a 2001 study in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.)
Really, ladies, what are we doing this way ?! We also squeeze children happily out of our vagina. Since a few abdominal cramps once a month but still be well to cope, without cries ...
Women wait 16 minutes longer for analgesics than men
In fact, this "so intolerable menstrual problems are not his" mentality of medical professionals also extends to other disease fields. Until they give painkillers to a woman in an emergency room, doctors wait an average of 16 minutes longer than a man. The chance that you as a woman Opiate for pain relief gets, is up to 25 percent lower than a man.
The gender of the treating physician plays no role, as Jennifer Wider of the Society for Women's Health Research told Broadly. "Studies show physicians, regardless of gender, are less likely to treat female patients and spend more time administering medication."
Whether the doctors in women are afraid to interfere with the drug administration, the reproductive capacity? One does not know. It would be conceivable, after all, it has tradition, the unborn child? even if it is still a purely hypothetical future music? pay more attention than the wife ...
Misdiagnoses due to gender stereotypes? thanks, sexism!
Two sexually prejudices can lead to complete misdiagnosis in many medical practices? admittedly very special? Cases reported by Broadly: In one case, a woman suffered from jaw pain for years. Her dentist interpreted the pain as a symptom of an anxiety disorder, but attempts to get rid of the complaints about a corresponding therapy failed. At some point, the woman's jaw was finally thoroughly examined and X-rayed? a piece of her wisdom tooth had been embedded in the jaw.
In the second case, a woman sought help from a variety of doctors for severe abdominal pain. Several doctors diagnosed heartburn and recommended a diet change. "I cried in pain and was barely able to eat solid food"Broadly quotes the woman. In the end, it turned out she had a tumor.
These extreme cases show the dire consequences of discrimination against women in health care. But we should not have to cite such extremes at all to justify a discussion about it. PMS is a serious condition and has nothing to do with stress, mental lability or mood. Women suffer from the symptoms of PMS. The medicine should pay as much attention as erectile dysfunction.
But no matter how we are treated in doctors' offices, we should never feel uncomfortable seeking help when we are in trouble!
