Written By Kayla Ricker
Photographed by Juliana Garcia and Lizeth Medina
Illustrated By Gabrielle Vidal
Designed By Naya Morgan
Programmed By Gabrielle Vidal
A recent peer-reviewed study about emergency room patients showed that health care professionals are quick to dismiss or ignore women's pain. In some cases, women were left waiting thirty minutes longer than their male counterparts for pain relief.
This is only the latest example of women experiencing inadequate diagnosis, treatment and even safety protections because of their gender. Because of systematic biases, women are more likely than men to be injured in car accidents, to be underdiagnosed for some diseases, and to be overmedicated for some conditions. The more people know about these issues, the more pressure we can put on these systems to make change.
©Gabrielle Vidal
Women's concerns are sometimes brushed aside since health care professionals believe them to be dramatic. Maya Dusenbery, author of “Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick,” writes that doctors like to psychologize women’s problems, assuming it’s all in their heads. Her book discusses two mutually reinforcing reasons why women are mistreated in health care: a knowledge gap and a trust gap.
The knowledge gap is the fact that women were left out of medical trials. The trust gap is the experience women have with their medical providers not believing them or minimizing their symptoms.
There are no longer any federal barriers for women to participate in medical trials. However, there are social and financial barriers. Women might need child care or transportation, which are not offered. Plus, even when women are included in studies, the researchers might not know what to look out for in terms of differences between men and women because of a knowledge gap.
Women were not involved in or taken seriously in medical trials for too long. Experts in the medical field suggest that we should retest every drug on the market with more women and minorities and focus on how these drugs affect people differently.
Women can look at the percentage of women versus men in a medical trial for a medication they are being prescribed. The FDA is making this information more public so people can be more informed about the medication they take. They can continue to advocate for more women to be involved in safety and medical research.
These issues will continue until all research takes women's biology into account.
