
How Doctors Take Women's Pain Less Seriously - Mz
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/emergency-room-wait-times-sexism/410515/?single_page=true
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brighteyes
The main source in the article is a paper saying

> In general, women report more severe levels of pain, more frequent
> incidences of pain, and pain of longer duration than men, but are
> nonetheless treated for pain less aggressively.

In other words, yes, doctors and nurses take women's pain less seriously. But
since women overreport pain, that might be the rational thing to do. Whether
it is rational or not would depend on the amount of overreporting and the
amount of discounting by doctors and nurses.

Or, to put it in reverse, which might be less gendering: It is possible that
doctors and nurses treat women's pain in a default way. Men, though, are
raised to be stoic and "suck it up", and so men less often report pain.
Doctors and nurses realize that men underreport pain, and therefore when men
_do_ report it, they know it is statistically more likely to be severe, so
they take it more seriously.

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strangecasts
_But since women overreport pain, that might be the rational thing to do._

Not doing a proper diagnosis is _rational_?

