
How gender bias affects healthcare - kunkurus
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180523-how-gender-bias-affects-your-healthcare
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PunchTornado
Meanwhile, men are accorded fewer visits at doctors (GP) in UK. 32% fewer
visits compared to women:

[http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/8/e003320](http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/8/e003320)

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8588686.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8588686.stm)

When I go to the GP she makes me feel like I'm intruding and wasting her time,
like you're a man in your 20s, nothing could be wrong..

~~~
matthewmacleod
Maybe get a better GP?

Seriously, I've never encountered this attitude. Doctors seem to be generally
fairly clinical and professional.

~~~
alibarber
In my experience it's not the doctors, who without exception have always been
pretty good - but the clerical / reception staff. I've rarely been made to
feel so unwelcome anywhere else. It's gotten to the point where I just stump
up the cash and go private, although now I feel things have gotten better with
the introduction of app based consultations via the NHS, which I'm registered
for but haven't needed to try out yet.

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rdlecler1
It’s not clear if gender bias is the right word given that it’s such a loaded
term. Women visit doctors more frequently and as the article states have
higher rates of mood disorders. Given this, it seems obviously that
misdiagnosis would be higher in women than men. It falls out of the Baysean
statistics. If AI we’re doing the evaluation you could remove the gender
parameter, but it could lead to even more frequent misdiagnoses. Alternatively
we could be more exhaustive with diagnosing women but at what cost to the
healthcare system? But then wouldn’t we be biasing against men? There is no
free lunch here.

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tehwebguy
> ...it took another few years to find another set of doctors who would take
> her symptoms seriously. “I had a lot of, ‘You’re just hysterical,’ ” she
> remembers. “One of the more common things, especially in emergency rooms,
> was ‘You’re just drug seeking.’”

> As a woman of colour, Jackie was facing more than gender bias.

A friend of mine (black, female) was shooed away by doctors as "drug seeking"
and later told she had lyme disease, was even put on a treatment for it before
someone listened carefully and discovered the gigantic tumors growing on her
liver!

Meanwhile I (white, male) went in for a 2-week cough that was keeping me up at
night. Never been to this office or met the doc before but was given a script
for codeine (!!) after about 2 minutes in the exam room.

~~~
Spooky23
Your story sounds worse to me -- you sought medical attention for a problem,
received a dangerous drug with no meaningful diagnosis. I'm sure your
insurance company still received a big bill for those 2 minutes.

I (white, male) have had similar experiences to your friend, minus the "drug
seeking" accusation. Things like cysts and tumors are difficult to diagnose
without imaging, and imaging is difficult to justify without symptoms. Lyme
disease is often doctor-speak for "no idea".

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epmaybe
So the way I see it, there's one of two (mostly useless) ways to eliminate
gender bias.

The first is bias training, to get people to recognize and react to their
implicit biases. You see one patient that is rude, non-compliant, etc, and you
implicitly assume that patients that have the same features will act the same,
and you act accordingly. This is usually within the context of racial bias
("the black patient isn't compliant, so all black patients must also not be
compliant and thus I'll not give them the best care"). Not-so-fun-fact: most
people hate going to these sort of training workshops (me included), and so I
don't think these are very effective.

The second is having more women in healthcare. With cultural/racial/ethnic
bias, we have seen a decrease in that bias when physicians of that
culture/ethnicity are involved in that patient's care. Problem is, I don't
believe this has worked all that well when applied to gender bias. You may
argue that women are severely under-represented in areas of healthcare
(surgery for example), and we should strive for there to be more female
surgeons. However, look at obstetrics/gynecology in the US. We have a
predominantly female workforce, and there's still bias against women
during/after pregnancy. Look at how many patients presenting with symptoms of
pre-eclampsia (leading to a potentially fatal condition HELLP) are missed or
disregarded. What about the rates of pulmonary embolism after overlooked deep
vein thrombosis symptoms post-childbirth?

The healthcare industry has in recent times made it hard to spend the time or
resources needed to really "care" for a patient. Doctors have to keep their
visits short to maintain their volume (and job), nurse shortages are
prevalent, and everyone is overworked. I don't know if or when we're going to
end up solving this problem, but maybe starting an honest conversation with
colleagues will help.

Edit: changed some words for clarity.

