On the pervasive idea that doctors only downplay womens symptoms, and take mens health issues seriously.

pearl_harbour1941 · 2023-02-28T15:56:22+00:00

There are a couple of problems with the medical system as it currently exists.

It's blind.
1. By that I mean that doctors have NO way of confirming a symptom and far less its cause. They have to use machines. And the machines can't identify symptoms OR causes, just give some information back. And that complicates matters further.
Doctors are overwhelmed.
1. "Full-time hours" for a GP are in excess of 70 hours a week, with a maximum of 5 minutes per patient. Time constraints and overwork mean that you're never getting the best from any doctor anywhere.
Cures don't exist, and remedies mostly fall into three categories:
1. Block - painkillers, anaesthetic, ignore
2. Cut out - surgery, amputation, transplant
3. Kill - antibiotics, chemo, radiation
It's expensive.
1. Regardless of whether your country has "socialized" healthcare, it's expensive and has been designed that way to make profits for shareholders. The system is designed to get as many people through the door and on as many drugs as practical, rather than keep as many people healthy and off medication as possible.

This doesn't cover basic incompetence either. My school had its own hospital and resident doctor. Plenty of kids used it daily, and we knew that the answer to every ailment was "tubi-grip and a paracetamol". A friend of mine nearly died (was in intensive care for 5 days) after the doctor failed to spot meningitis 3 days in a row.

None of this has anything to do with men or women.

If we move on to that topic, we'll find that around half of GPs in most developed countries are actually female, with 74% female doctors in Latvia and Estonia. It would be a bit odd if female GPs didn't take female patients as seriously as they do their male patients, but the world is an odd place, so we could look into that. I can't find any stats on whether female doctors spend more or less time with male or female patients, nor whether there is a diagnosis differential between genders of patients and doctors.

What we DO know from research is that women have more "health anxiety" (i.e. worrying about their state of health) than men do.

"As hypothesized, mean levels of reassurance-seeking and worry were significantly higher in women compared to men."

So it could be that doctors already know this, are prepared, and as a general rule, reassure women rather than treat self-reported symptoms.

63daddy · 2023-02-28T19:01:16+00:00

Another post mentioned how women in the workforce perceive they are more competent than their bosses and that they are undervalued. Many articles on dating show women feel they aren’t getting the quality men they deserve. You are saying they feel their healthcare needs aren’t listened to as much. These are all perceptions about being victimized or under rated that don’t fit the actual facts. They are perceptions: misperceptions.

We have women only healthcare mandates under Obamacare, we have an office of women’s health, but no office of men’s health, we focus more on women’s cancers than men’s. One country recently passed additional sick leave for menstruation. We bend over backwards for women’s health issues. Any perception we take men’s health more seriously is emotional, not evidence based.

sorebum405 · 2023-02-28T14:50:48+00:00

It may actually be true that misdiagnosis happens to women more often,but it is not necessarily due to sexism.It could possibly be because many disease that are more difficult to diagnose are more prevalent in women.Some examples of these diseases are things like multiple sclerosis,fibromyalgia,and endometriosis.

It could also be because men go to the doctor less due to working more which may lead to them delaying treatment until things get more serious,and easier to diagnose.For example,late stage cancer is easier to detect because it tends to cause obvious symptoms.

Then it could also be because men actually don't complain about there symptoms as much or don't talk about these issues.We already know it is more socially acceptable for women to complain about their pain and their issues.Even the research article people cite as proof that women are discriminated against in healthcare admits this.

So if it is more acceptable for women to complain about their pain it logically makes sense that they probably exaggerate their pain compared to men.I think I wrote a comment about a literature review of this topic once,I will try to find it.in any case,there are many potential reasons for why this ostensible "gender bias in healthcare" exists.However,like many other issues that affect women it gets attributed to sexism.

Edit:I found the comment I was looking for.

g1455ofwater · 2023-03-01T01:26:00+00:00

I had a doctor that wrote in their notes a belittling insult towards me when I went for medical treatment. I had another dismiss a knee injury as just soreness.

Many people don't realize that doctors aren't all knowing and make many mistakes and also lots of them don't have very good "bedside manners" and will be blunt and rude to both men and women.

I think evaluation of doctors could certainly be improved in society.

peter_venture · 2023-03-01T02:09:25+00:00

I'm a man like many who doesn't go running to the doctor or filling up on otc medication whenever I'm a little under the weather. So my wife was concerned when I went to the Emergency Room in early 2020. Got sent home, being told to get more rest. Three more visits that year, same result every time. On my fifth visit the doctor did a more comprehensive CT scan. I had cancer. They scheduled surgery for four weeks later and removed a massive tumor, and half my left kidney. Lots of chemotherapy and a few months later I had a second surgery. That's just over a year ago, and things seem fine for now.

I guess I'm not manly enough to have been believed on my first, or even second visit to the ER.

equalRights111 · 2023-03-01T01:38:57+00:00

I find that doctors are often not that great at their job.

This does tend to be a big issue that feminists bring up, women’s health issues etc.

A simple response (to be dismissed and ignored of course) is asking which gender has a massive, internationally recognised, politically supported movement to help address their health issues (along with other issues)?

Calerid · 2023-02-28T22:38:57+00:00

Bro,

I actually, actively, avoid the Doctor. Working in EMS in fire, I got so used to not wanting to waste time with shitty little issues.

So then I decide to make lists when I actually do go in. Not extensive, but the few things that are affecting my QoL. So I create a list of a few things that have had significant impact. In this case, the issue has been pretty chronic fatigue. This started with COVID in 2020.

I explained this to the doctor. When it started, and the impact it's had on my life. Her notes were that it was clearly just my depression acting up.

MarkusX02022 · 2023-02-28T16:37:37+00:00

Lets talk about shitty health care and doctors for a second... Oh and if they can't play and dig into the insurance money..eww

dekadoka · 2023-03-01T00:25:24+00:00

If this was the case, wouldn't the most likely reason be women worrying overly much about minor symptoms? If you are a doctor and see hundreds of patients, some trends would probably start to crop up related to gender.

Fuzzy_Department2799 · 2023-02-28T16:22:01+00:00

Yet there are entire wings, hell even entire buildings dedicated exclusively to women's health. Small women's health centers spread out everywhere. But they aren't given any attention.

AfterRemorse · 2023-02-28T14:42:44+00:00

Yeeeah.... I'm first of all lucky enough to even have a GP but what I've noticed is that they are trying to contend with a massive workload almost like triage.

So if I were to go in and say like "my leg hurts bad" he'd probably do a quick assessment then send me to get "x" testing done, even with the possibility that it wouldn't get results we needed.

It feels harsh because why should I have to suffer? But at the same time when you look at what they deal with you realize it's really like triage and they often need to work with the most obvious answer to problems and have a strong motivation to disregard anomalies.

The unfortunate thing about society is that women do experience sexism all the time just like men and so like racism it becomes seriously hard to tell when you're being discriminated against which when you're enabled to have a victim mentality leads to "everyone who does something I don't like is discriminating against me", and that is a really brutal mental trap to get sucked in to. Painful.

bluefootedpig · 2023-02-28T20:06:42+00:00

First off, most of our research is done on men, mainly because men's bodies tend to be more consistent. Women's bodies change during the month due to different in hormone levels, so testing a drug on a moving target isn't as easy. Therefore there is a tendency to try out drugs on men, confirm they work, etc, but side effects on women and such are downplayed (to get the drug to market)

Second... we have litteral statistics. Like how many epidurals do we give white women compared to black women. Or how often pain meds are prescribed for the same conditions. We have the stats, and it shows that women get fewer pain meds, and that black people also get fewer, with black women getting basically the least pain meds.

And this is for the SAME condition.

How would you explain that for the same diseases, pain meds are prescribed less to women?

And if their pain is not taken as seriously for prescribing pain meds for the same diseases, doesn't that make sense that doctors would be more likely to completely dismiss pain as a symptom and maybe never diagnose the woman?

Again, we have stats on this, you have a "gut feeling" that you are explaining away to justify your belief. Look up the stats.

Title	On the pervasive idea that doctors only downplay womens symptoms, and take mens health issues seriously.
Author	Dismal-Cabinet5321
Upvotes	98
Comments	27
Date	February 28, 2023 2:10 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/11e7an3/on_the_pervasive_idea_that_doctors_only_downplay/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/on-the-pervasive-idea-that-doctors-only-downplay.1154065 https://theredarchive.com/post/1154065

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