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SMNTY Classics: Do doctors listen to women? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told to your production of I Heart Radio.
0:18
Speaker 1: So today we're bringing back a classic on on something
0:20
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about, which is doctors not believing women,
0:27
Speaker 1: um not trusting their pain or thinking they're exaggerating. And
0:31
Speaker 1: as we said, um, who knows how many episodes ago,
0:34
Speaker 1: pretty recently, one of the things we want to talk
0:36
Speaker 1: about is the physical health impact of this pandemic and
0:41
Speaker 1: all the stress, and that's something that we are working on.
0:45
Speaker 1: And I know we have discussed this a lot, but Samantha,
0:51
Speaker 1: do you have like's something that comes to mind immediately
0:52
Speaker 1: when you think of a time you went to a
0:54
Speaker 1: doctor or something and they kind of dismissed while you
0:58
Speaker 1: were there. So I can't really I'm trying to think.
1:02
Speaker 1: I don't often go to the doctor because I am
1:06
Speaker 1: that person. I think part of my problem with in
1:10
Speaker 1: general going to doctors, I believed them in thinking that
1:15
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with me and I have to That's
1:18
Speaker 1: part of why I won't go unless I'm absolutely sure
1:21
Speaker 1: I am sick. I will not go like it's an
1:25
Speaker 1: odd thing, like, uh, I think there were several times
1:28
Speaker 1: when people told me they've gone to the hospital because
1:30
Speaker 1: you know they had done this to that a goal
1:31
Speaker 1: they did, I'm like, no, I just didn't like. I literally,
1:35
Speaker 1: I think, pulled my cab muscle to the point that
1:38
Speaker 1: it blew up. I couldn't stand on it, and my
1:40
Speaker 1: entire leg was purple. I refused to go to the
1:43
Speaker 1: doctor because in my mind it still wasn't bad enough,
1:45
Speaker 1: because it wasn't broken, so why And I'm pretty sure
1:50
Speaker 1: I broke my foot once and I refused to go
1:52
Speaker 1: because I didn't think it was good bad enough. So
1:54
Speaker 1: I am that person that truly does not believe I
1:57
Speaker 1: guess I'm not I'm worth seeing, and I don't know why.
2:00
Speaker 1: So I am overly cautious, even though I'm probably I
2:04
Speaker 1: probably should have on several occasions. The only time I
2:07
Speaker 1: can really think of any kind of mishap like that
2:09
Speaker 1: was trying to explain my anxiety and my mental health stuff.
2:14
Speaker 1: And I had been referred to a male psychiatrist who
2:18
Speaker 1: pretty much dismissed my entire job, saying that because at
2:23
Speaker 1: the time I was working with social work and work
2:24
Speaker 1: with at ristines and kids who have worked in problematic
2:28
Speaker 1: issues with the law, whatever broken, you know, and had
2:30
Speaker 1: gotten arrested, and he was talking about essentially how he
2:34
Speaker 1: worked with the facility and was like, they all need
2:37
Speaker 1: to be just put in jail, put away. And I'm
2:39
Speaker 1: like what because my job was the opposite of that,
2:42
Speaker 1: trying to keeping them out and so dismissing that and
2:45
Speaker 1: say there's nothing they could do to help them, as
2:48
Speaker 1: well as that I am doing too much so that
2:51
Speaker 1: my anxiety was self induced and all these things. And
2:53
Speaker 1: I was like yeah, And I never went back to him,
2:57
Speaker 1: and I reported it back to my therapist. I'm like,
2:59
Speaker 1: he should never recommend this person again, like he was
3:02
Speaker 1: the worst and assumed that was coming in for extra
3:06
Speaker 1: drugs too. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm kind of similar. I
3:10
Speaker 1: don't and I'm not saying this is a healthy mindset
3:12
Speaker 1: at all, um, But I will also like put off
3:15
Speaker 1: going to the doctor until like it's there's no way
3:18
Speaker 1: that they can tell me that I'm exaggerating or it's
3:23
Speaker 1: in my head, or it would be much harder, which
3:25
Speaker 1: is part of this conversation that we feel this way,
3:28
Speaker 1: but I have. When I went to go get I
3:34
Speaker 1: was just having a lot of trouble breathing, which asked
3:37
Speaker 1: Samantha knows. I have a long problem and I have asthma.
3:44
Speaker 1: Had asthma really badly at one point, and this doctor
3:49
Speaker 1: I came in to get all these tests and at
3:50
Speaker 1: the end of it, he said, like, it's hard to
3:53
Speaker 1: get up and work out every now and then, isn't it.
3:55
Speaker 1: And I was like a young, you know, self conscious,
3:59
Speaker 1: in secure, fourteen or fifteen year old, and that just
4:07
Speaker 1: that that cut me. That was bad. That left him
4:09
Speaker 1: mark because I already felt like I was like chubby
4:13
Speaker 1: and all of this like toxic stuff that he was
4:17
Speaker 1: kind of reaffirming that that's all bad and that's on
4:19
Speaker 1: you and it's your fault. And then it turns out
4:22
Speaker 1: like I had a colon ambulance when I collapsed at
4:24
Speaker 1: school because I couldn't breathe the minds went blue. So
4:28
Speaker 1: and then one day we're going to do a Monday
4:31
Speaker 1: mini on this because I really want to talk about it.
4:33
Speaker 1: But I had a really, really, really bad experienced my
4:36
Speaker 1: first time at a gynecologist, and he essentially like, looking back,
4:41
Speaker 1: I'm really not sure what was going on here, but
4:44
Speaker 1: he kind of like threatened to tell my dad that
4:46
Speaker 1: I was basically sexually promiscuous or something which oh my god,
4:50
Speaker 1: there's so much from pack there, but that it scared
4:53
Speaker 1: me and it traumatized me um to this day. I
4:57
Speaker 1: think about I think about it. Uh and again yeah,
5:01
Speaker 1: I think it was fifteen fourteen or fifteen. So yes, Well,
5:06
Speaker 1: with all of that in mind, and with all of
5:08
Speaker 1: these ideas that we're planning on returning to in a
5:10
Speaker 1: future episodes, please enjoy this classic episode. Welcome to Stuff
5:17
Speaker 1: Mom Never Told You from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello,
5:25
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen.
5:29
Speaker 1: There seems to be a lot of questions floating around
5:32
Speaker 1: the Internet about women and their doctors, and I'm just
5:36
Speaker 1: getting the impression generally that women feel that doctors don't
5:40
Speaker 1: listen to them. I came across two big questions on
5:44
Speaker 1: said internet regarding women and doctors. One is whether or
5:50
Speaker 1: not male doctors come on to female patients and where
5:54
Speaker 1: the ethical lines are. I did not investigate that one.
5:57
Speaker 1: That's a whole other podcast, yes, and that we probably
6:01
Speaker 1: will never record. And also whether or not doctors listen
6:06
Speaker 1: to female patients. Right, there's a lot of interesting data
6:10
Speaker 1: out there about um just gender interactions, both the gender
6:15
Speaker 1: of the patient and how that affects the doctor patient relationship.
6:17
Speaker 1: And and as you can imagine the gender of the physician,
6:22
Speaker 1: and I, for one, have always thought out female doctors.
6:25
Speaker 1: I feel more comfortable with a female gynecologist and a
6:28
Speaker 1: female internist, my chiropractor, and my acupuncturist. I'm just going
6:31
Speaker 1: to tell you everything about myself right now. Do you
6:34
Speaker 1: want to know my blood type? I don't know it.
6:37
Speaker 1: Oh god, we should figure that out. They're male, So
6:41
Speaker 1: the people, the people who are like cracking my spine
6:44
Speaker 1: and sticking needles and mirror are guys. But you know,
6:47
Speaker 1: I just feel like if I'm going to be doing
6:49
Speaker 1: talking about really personal things and getting medicine prescribed, I
6:53
Speaker 1: just I feel more comfortable with a lady doctor. And
6:56
Speaker 1: this question of the doctor female patient relationship has been
7:02
Speaker 1: snowballing in our minds as we've been doing episodes on
7:06
Speaker 1: underdiagnosed chronic conditions among women, such as wolvedenia, and it
7:11
Speaker 1: also stood out in our podcast we did a while
7:14
Speaker 1: ago on gender differences in anxiety because Taylor Clark over
7:20
Speaker 1: its Slate pointed to the American Psychological Association's Stressed in
7:25
Speaker 1: America survey in two thousand and eight, which found that
7:29
Speaker 1: if a woman goes into a doctor's office uh and
7:34
Speaker 1: complains of symptoms, they are more likely to be dismissed
7:39
Speaker 1: as just the products of female stress, just the product
7:43
Speaker 1: of being a woman, perhaps the change of life, yes,
7:46
Speaker 1: the season's turning u. Whereas male symptoms, the same symptoms
7:52
Speaker 1: presented by a male patient often taken more seriously. And
7:56
Speaker 1: this is specifically in regard to cardiology, and we'll get
8:01
Speaker 1: into that a little bit more. So, we decided to
8:04
Speaker 1: look into whether or not that was true, whether or
8:07
Speaker 1: not women are just complaining more loudly. Are we just
8:10
Speaker 1: pickier about our doctors? Are we all hypochondriacs? What is happening? Yeah?
8:17
Speaker 1: There was a May blog post by Nancy klemus On
8:21
Speaker 1: on the Miss magazine blog and she posed the question
8:26
Speaker 1: that we're going to get into about why don't doctors
8:28
Speaker 1: listen to women? Or do doctors listen to women? And
8:31
Speaker 1: she said, how do we dispel the age old myths
8:34
Speaker 1: that women are emotional, overreactive, and generally unable to describe
8:38
Speaker 1: their own medical conditions? What is up with doctors making
8:42
Speaker 1: up their minds about us when we've uttered three words
8:45
Speaker 1: about what we're suffering. And I believe Klemus also is
8:48
Speaker 1: a medical doctor, So this is a doctor posing this
8:51
Speaker 1: question about other doctors now across the board. Probably because
8:57
Speaker 1: of the limited amount of time that doctors have have
9:00
Speaker 1: to see patients in the exam room, there is some
9:04
Speaker 1: mistrust that goes on between patients and physicians. There was
9:08
Speaker 1: a two thousand eight column in The New York Times
9:11
Speaker 1: by Tara Parker Pope who was citing a Johns Hopkins
9:15
Speaker 1: study finding that about one in four patients, it's pretty high.
9:18
Speaker 1: One in four patients feel that their physicians sometimes exposes
9:22
Speaker 1: them to unnecessary risk, and she quotes a New York
9:27
Speaker 1: doctor saying that nobody's talking to patients. Everyone is so rushed.
9:30
Speaker 1: I don't think doctors are bad. People were just working
9:33
Speaker 1: in a broken system. And on a side note, this
9:37
Speaker 1: is coming from a report in the Wall Street Journal
9:40
Speaker 1: from to two thousand and five, the time my doctor
9:44
Speaker 1: spends with individual patients has actually increased from a whopping
9:49
Speaker 1: eighteen minutes, which was high I thought, to twenty one
9:54
Speaker 1: minutes um. As far as the environment that these doctors
9:58
Speaker 1: are working in, Tara Parker Pope in her post says
10:02
Speaker 1: that dealing with declining reimbursements and rising costs, doctors have
10:07
Speaker 1: only a few minutes to spend with the patient, and
10:09
Speaker 1: sometimes when I cut to the doctor, I feel like
10:11
Speaker 1: it is literally just a few minutes. I mean, I'm
10:13
Speaker 1: really surprised by that twenty one minute figure. Well, the
10:17
Speaker 1: that's averaged out, and the writers suggest that it might
10:20
Speaker 1: be that high number might be due to an aging
10:23
Speaker 1: baby boomer population sort of skew the skew the curve
10:28
Speaker 1: could be could be um. Some things that influenced the
10:31
Speaker 1: trust issues between doctors and patients are news reports about
10:35
Speaker 1: medical mistakes and drug industry influence. So the more you
10:38
Speaker 1: hear about malpractice suits and you know, people leaving medical
10:42
Speaker 1: instruments and someone's spleen after a surgery, maybe you're more
10:47
Speaker 1: likely to worry. Yeah, And because a lot of adults
10:49
Speaker 1: are very attuned to what could possibly be wrong. I
10:53
Speaker 1: don't know about you, Caroline, but I have inadvertently diagnosed
10:59
Speaker 1: myself with a tear will cancer symptoms? Checker have cancer?
11:04
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty dangerous. This was according to a few
11:07
Speaker 1: Internet Project survey uh sixtent of women and percent of
11:13
Speaker 1: men will research what could be ailing them before the
11:17
Speaker 1: even step foot in the doctor's office, right, And that's
11:20
Speaker 1: actually sort of a maybe not a dangerous mistake to make.
11:23
Speaker 1: But if you've done all this research because you're worried
11:25
Speaker 1: about your help, that mean it makes sense. But if
11:28
Speaker 1: you take all of that into your doctor and say, okay, look,
11:30
Speaker 1: here's what this website says, this is what I have. Well,
11:34
Speaker 1: even though your doctor is a very smart individual, he
11:36
Speaker 1: or she might sort of follow you down that path
11:39
Speaker 1: and think, Okay, you're right. And this actually I say this.
11:42
Speaker 1: I say this because it happened to me. I actually
11:45
Speaker 1: had it. It was a minor and a brief dermatological issue,
11:48
Speaker 1: and I looked it up online and I was like, okay, good, well,
11:50
Speaker 1: ay I'm not dying, and be this sounds like what
11:53
Speaker 1: it is. So well, you know, I went to the dermatologist.
11:55
Speaker 1: Wasn't my normal doctor. I went to a new one
11:59
Speaker 1: because I couldn't it in anyway. So I go in
12:02
Speaker 1: with all this information and they're looking at me, and
12:05
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, okay, I'm not gonna say anything. I'm not
12:07
Speaker 1: gonna say anything. I'm gonna let them decide what it is.
12:10
Speaker 1: And finally, you know, they're poking at me. And stuff,
12:12
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know what, I think it's this
12:14
Speaker 1: and they look and they're like, yeah, I hear some
12:16
Speaker 1: Hydrocortisown cream go home. Well then it wouldn't go away.
12:20
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it was nothing bad, but it
12:22
Speaker 1: kept like it just kind of hung around. And so
12:24
Speaker 1: then I went into my my normal dermatology. She's like,
12:27
Speaker 1: oh god, how long have you been using this Hydrocordisown
12:30
Speaker 1: cream And I said, well, really not as much as
12:31
Speaker 1: they told me too. She said, good, because that's not
12:34
Speaker 1: what you have. And if you had used hydrocordisome cream
12:36
Speaker 1: every day between thin and now, your skin might be
12:38
Speaker 1: falling off. Oh my godness. So yeah, it is dangerous
12:42
Speaker 1: to go in with your mind made up already. Well,
12:45
Speaker 1: in addition to women possibly over educating themselves about what
12:50
Speaker 1: could be going on compared two men, we're also more
12:54
Speaker 1: likely to like, you did, take action and make that
12:58
Speaker 1: appointment and go in. This is coming from the Centers
13:01
Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention. This is excluding pregnancy related visits.
13:07
Speaker 1: Women are thirty three percent more likely than men to
13:10
Speaker 1: visit a doctor. Now that starts to close with age,
13:13
Speaker 1: as we all get old and we're all equally sickly UM,
13:17
Speaker 1: but doctors see our faces more often, right, And according
13:23
Speaker 1: to a meta analysis of data from nineteen sixty seven
13:27
Speaker 1: to two thousand one. This appeared in the Journal of
13:30
Speaker 1: American Medical Association. It found that visits with female doctors
13:35
Speaker 1: last two minutes longer on average as far as gender goes,
13:38
Speaker 1: so as far as women, women are in the doctor's
13:41
Speaker 1: office more. But if you're seeing a woman doctor, you're
13:44
Speaker 1: also going to be seeing her more, a little bit more,
13:46
Speaker 1: a little bit more, twenty seconds more. I wonder if
13:50
Speaker 1: two minutes makes that much of a difference, though, if
13:52
Speaker 1: you have a question, yes it's a brief question, and
13:56
Speaker 1: you mentioned that the pattern is slightly different for umb U,
14:00
Speaker 1: I n's and this is true. It's interesting because all
14:03
Speaker 1: these studies are saying that, you know, female patients go
14:06
Speaker 1: to the doctor more, they spend more time at the doctor. Um.
14:10
Speaker 1: Female physicians are more likely to spend more time with you.
14:12
Speaker 1: But all of that is not the case for male O,
14:15
Speaker 1: b G, I N. They actually demonstrate a higher level
14:18
Speaker 1: of emotionally focused talk with their patients. But maybe that
14:23
Speaker 1: has to do with them tailoring communication styles to their
14:28
Speaker 1: patient population. Because studies have also demonstrated that female patients,
14:35
Speaker 1: unsurprisingly UM tend to communicate more, want to do more
14:40
Speaker 1: of the the whole person analysis how they're feeling um mentally, physically, emotionally, uh,
14:47
Speaker 1: instead of just you know, be sticking more to what
14:51
Speaker 1: is going on, what is my denvergure and my blood pressure?
14:55
Speaker 1: Exactly like male robots. Yes, as you know, men talk
14:59
Speaker 1: like robots. UM. The Journal of Patient Education and Counseling
15:04
Speaker 1: in two thousand six published a study that found that
15:07
Speaker 1: while men tend to be satisfied regardless of the doctor's
15:10
Speaker 1: gender and communication style, US ladies are more particular and
15:14
Speaker 1: we tend to be happiest with female doctors when those
15:17
Speaker 1: doctors expressed great concern, empathy, and reassurance. And I mean
15:21
Speaker 1: that makes sense to me. I want to know that
15:23
Speaker 1: my doctor is listening to me and understands. I don't
15:26
Speaker 1: I don't need her to be like, oh boo, don't worry,
15:29
Speaker 1: but you know, I want to know she's listening and understands.
15:32
Speaker 1: But actually the whole the whole thing flips on its ear.
15:35
Speaker 1: And if those doctors were male, female patients were dissatisfied
15:39
Speaker 1: with overt displays of caring. Ah, we can't be pleased.
15:44
Speaker 1: They just can't. But it makes sense so that women
15:47
Speaker 1: might be more particular about the kind of health care
15:51
Speaker 1: they are receiving. Because we are spending more time in
15:53
Speaker 1: doctor's offices, we're probably seeing more doctors. And again we
15:59
Speaker 1: go in statistically, we go in armed with more knowledge.
16:04
Speaker 1: So maybe we set the bar a little bit higher.
16:06
Speaker 1: And this is not to say by any means that
16:09
Speaker 1: male doctors are somehow not doing their job properly. They're
16:13
Speaker 1: simply a communication difference. Because there was a journal I
16:16
Speaker 1: don't know, Carolina, did you reference as the Journal of
16:19
Speaker 1: Women's Health study from two thousand nine that found that
16:22
Speaker 1: male physicians had a higher component to score, which was
16:26
Speaker 1: understanding the whole person, which is really what it sounds
16:31
Speaker 1: like more what female patients are interested in, right. It
16:35
Speaker 1: seems like we want to get the whole picture, the
16:37
Speaker 1: whole health picture laid out, And from this same study,
16:42
Speaker 1: female physicians had a greater component one score, in other words,
16:46
Speaker 1: exploring both the disease and illness experience. But I'm wondering
16:50
Speaker 1: if maybe this big dissatisfaction has much less to do
16:55
Speaker 1: with the gender of the physician that we're talking to,
17:00
Speaker 1: because again, Um, I don't want to say that that
17:02
Speaker 1: female or male physicians are one is superior to the other.
17:06
Speaker 1: But maybe it's how women present their symptoms and whether
17:11
Speaker 1: or not the word stress comes because a Cornell study
17:17
Speaker 1: presented at the two thousand eight Cardiovascular Research Foundation found
17:22
Speaker 1: that mentioning stress affects a doctor's perception of a woman's symptoms.
17:28
Speaker 1: These researchers examined how doctor's reactions reacted to patient descriptions
17:34
Speaker 1: of cardiovascular problems for male patients versus female patients, and
17:39
Speaker 1: they concluded that quote the inclusion of a stressor precluded
17:44
Speaker 1: doctors from making a coronary heart disease diagnosis in women,
17:47
Speaker 1: but not in men. So there's something about women saying
17:53
Speaker 1: stress that like sets off alarm bills in physicians brains says,
17:57
Speaker 1: oh you know what, Uh, it's probably just your stress levels.
18:03
Speaker 1: Here is something that will take care of that. Yeah,
18:06
Speaker 1: here's an anti anxiety or an antidepressant. Right. Maybe that's why.
18:10
Speaker 1: According to the CDC, the major classes of drugs doled
18:13
Speaker 1: out to women are pain killers, antidepressants, and estrogena. Oh
18:18
Speaker 1: hey interesting, Um, yeah, as far as as the mental
18:24
Speaker 1: health and anxiety goes, I mean yeah, We did reference
18:26
Speaker 1: that stuff in our anxiety podcast and it was interesting
18:29
Speaker 1: to see how doctors perceive women so differently. But according
18:33
Speaker 1: to the World Health Organization, doctors are more likely to
18:36
Speaker 1: diagnose depression in women compared with men, which we've talked
18:39
Speaker 1: about before, even when they have similar scores on standardized
18:43
Speaker 1: measures of depression or present with identical symptoms. And this
18:46
Speaker 1: is a quote, Uh, you know, you think about predictors
18:50
Speaker 1: for for being diagnosed with the disease, you don't think
18:52
Speaker 1: of your gender. I mean, I I don't know. It's
18:55
Speaker 1: a female. Gender is a significant predictor of being prescribed
18:59
Speaker 1: mood altering psychotropic drugs. So just being a lady, you're
19:04
Speaker 1: more likely to get mood altering drugs. Women also tend
19:07
Speaker 1: to seek more generalized medical assistance for mental health issues,
19:13
Speaker 1: as again coming from the World Health Organization, compared to men,
19:17
Speaker 1: who are a less likely to seek mental health but
19:20
Speaker 1: when they do, they'll go more to specialists, right. And
19:25
Speaker 1: and there's just there's something about gender stereotypes, not only
19:27
Speaker 1: for women, not only doctors thinking oh, she's just hysterical, um,
19:32
Speaker 1: but for men as well, and gender stereotypes regarding proneness
19:36
Speaker 1: to emotional problems and women and alcohol problems and men
19:40
Speaker 1: appear to reinforce social stigma and constrain help seeking along
19:44
Speaker 1: stereotypical lines. That's also from the World Health Organization. So
19:48
Speaker 1: these are barriers, I think too, to get in quality
19:51
Speaker 1: care if you're if maybe if you assume something about
19:55
Speaker 1: your own situation, or if your doctor just assumes something
19:58
Speaker 1: because of your gender. And the fact matter is, uh,
20:01
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking a lot about whether or not
20:03
Speaker 1: women are satisfied with their patient care, but guys, you
20:08
Speaker 1: you also are suffering from a healthcare gap as well.
20:11
Speaker 1: Over the life term. Male healthcare costs far more than
20:17
Speaker 1: women's because you're not investing as much in preventative care
20:20
Speaker 1: and going to the doctor um as often as we are.
20:25
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like, you know, maybe at some
20:28
Speaker 1: point we need to meet in the middle where doctors
20:31
Speaker 1: quit dismissing women's complaints is just the byproduct of everyday stress,
20:36
Speaker 1: and men stopped going in when it's a situation, so
20:40
Speaker 1: that doctors take your you know, symptoms far more seriously, right, Yeah,
20:45
Speaker 1: go from more more checkups along the line instead of
20:49
Speaker 1: waiting until it's just at the tipping point and as
20:53
Speaker 1: far as identifying problems, especially mental health issues along gender lines. UM.
20:58
Speaker 1: There was an interesting interview with doctor Jerome Groupman by NPR.
21:03
Speaker 1: He read a book called How Doctor Stink after he
21:05
Speaker 1: himself had a bad experience about trying to get something diagnosed,
21:08
Speaker 1: and he went to several different doctors and um, finally,
21:12
Speaker 1: I think it was the fifth doctor. Someone finally listened
21:14
Speaker 1: to all of his symptoms and he got the right diagnosis.
21:17
Speaker 1: But so he wrote this book called How Doctor Stink
21:20
Speaker 1: after his experience, and he's talking about how doctors maybe
21:23
Speaker 1: have errors in thinking. It's not that they're bad people,
21:27
Speaker 1: it's that, uh, we use shortcuts. He says, most doctors
21:30
Speaker 1: within the first eighteen seconds of seeing a patient will
21:33
Speaker 1: interrupt him telling his story and also generate an idea
21:36
Speaker 1: in his mind of what's wrong. So they're making this
21:39
Speaker 1: snap judgment. And he calls it an anchoring mistake because
21:42
Speaker 1: once you utter a couple of words about what you're experiencing,
21:45
Speaker 1: what hurts, or what feels bad. Um, some doctors have
21:49
Speaker 1: already made a decision about what you have based on
21:51
Speaker 1: your gender, age, race, whatever, and they kind of stick
21:55
Speaker 1: with it and maybe, uh use everything else you say
21:58
Speaker 1: to confirm what they are pready believe. So as far
22:01
Speaker 1: as having an idea of what someone is already suffering
22:05
Speaker 1: from or not suffering from. UM. An interesting study from
22:09
Speaker 1: the Cardiac and Vascular Institute at New York University Langhorne
22:12
Speaker 1: Medical Center. This was published UH in September. UM. Anywhere
22:17
Speaker 1: from forty to a hundred thousand women every year with
22:20
Speaker 1: arteries that show up is clear on an angiogram suffer
22:24
Speaker 1: from a heart attack. And thirty eight percent of the
22:26
Speaker 1: time they have the kind of plaque that doesn't show
22:28
Speaker 1: up on an angiogram. And so a lot of these
22:31
Speaker 1: doctors are sending women home because they just do this
22:34
Speaker 1: one test and they say, oh, you're fine, it's probably indigestion,
22:38
Speaker 1: you know, here's here's a prole stack or whatever. Go home,
22:41
Speaker 1: lie down, get some rest. But then when the woman
22:43
Speaker 1: comes back and she's going, no, okay, for real, I'm
22:46
Speaker 1: I'm having a heart attack. UM, that's when they realized
22:49
Speaker 1: that something very serious is wrong and and women are symptoms.
22:53
Speaker 1: And and this says, I feel common knowledge. I know
22:56
Speaker 1: that women present very different symptoms when they're having a
22:59
Speaker 1: heart attack in men. You UM, and that is something
23:02
Speaker 1: that really needs to be taken into account. If a
23:04
Speaker 1: woman is suffering from the same thing a man is,
23:06
Speaker 1: she just might not present the same symptoms in the
23:09
Speaker 1: same way. And so I think, um, if maybe if
23:13
Speaker 1: we get more time with our doctors, if we go
23:16
Speaker 1: to them with enough time in advance of any problems
23:20
Speaker 1: we have, then maybe we could um be taken more
23:23
Speaker 1: seriously and get these things diagnosed as far as and
23:26
Speaker 1: I mean, instead of waiting until it's almost too late. Well,
23:29
Speaker 1: and if the standard test for things like heart disease
23:32
Speaker 1: and heart attack our tailored to what more commonly manifests
23:37
Speaker 1: and meant, it would make sense that within that eighteen
23:39
Speaker 1: second window that you mentioned from how the book How
23:43
Speaker 1: Doctors Think, it would makes sense that you know, doctors
23:47
Speaker 1: would conclude that yea or nay, this is or is
23:49
Speaker 1: not going on. UM. So it sounds like there's room
23:53
Speaker 1: for more nuanced in the exam room, but also before that,
23:57
Speaker 1: taking more even in med school, training doctors to look
24:02
Speaker 1: more closely for um, for for the gender differences. I
24:05
Speaker 1: have never been to med school. People who have been
24:09
Speaker 1: let me know if that is happy. I'm sure it's
24:11
Speaker 1: happening a lot more than it used to because we've
24:13
Speaker 1: talked about in the podcast before. How with for a
24:16
Speaker 1: lot of prescription medications, for instance, it's only been in
24:20
Speaker 1: recent years, in the past, like twenty years probably that
24:24
Speaker 1: they have started using women in more test groups, whereas
24:29
Speaker 1: everything was tailored to men because men are more stable
24:32
Speaker 1: because they don't have menstrual cycles. And by stable, and
24:36
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about like brain and mood stable, I
24:39
Speaker 1: mean physiologically levels of hormones in their body fable. But
24:45
Speaker 1: to cap things off, let us let us at least
24:50
Speaker 1: verify that it is not just in our heads. Even
24:53
Speaker 1: though women are going to the doctor more often than men.
24:58
Speaker 1: A December two thousand elevens study published in the European
25:01
Speaker 1: Journal of Public Health via the Public Health Agency of
25:04
Speaker 1: Barcelona found that women did indeed report health problems more often,
25:11
Speaker 1: but it's because we are actually suffering from a higher
25:15
Speaker 1: rate of chronic disease, and the lead researcher says, these
25:18
Speaker 1: results suggest that the poor self rated health of women
25:21
Speaker 1: is a reflection of the higher burden of disease they suffer,
25:25
Speaker 1: and it should be the findings should be offered up
25:29
Speaker 1: as support that women are not just a bunch of
25:32
Speaker 1: raving hypochondriacts and of speaking of hypochondria. According to the
25:37
Speaker 1: National Institutes of Health, hypochondria presents itself equally among men
25:42
Speaker 1: and women, especially with websites like web m d read.
25:47
Speaker 1: All you have to do is click on that little
25:48
Speaker 1: body and tell it what hurts. It's always cancer. There's
25:52
Speaker 1: always You could scrape your knee and web MD symptom
25:57
Speaker 1: checker would give you knee cancer. It's like some it's
26:00
Speaker 1: always going to be cancer or a foot fungus. It's
26:02
Speaker 1: something where you're like, how do you how do I
26:05
Speaker 1: have prostate cancer? Would I'm I'm a woman, Come on, um.
26:11
Speaker 1: But okay, so we we've we've come back around to
26:14
Speaker 1: the whole self diagnosis thing, and I think we should
26:17
Speaker 1: talk about some of the mistakes that we do make
26:20
Speaker 1: when we go to the doctor's office. I already told
26:22
Speaker 1: my long story about my hydrocortisome cream. We don't need
26:25
Speaker 1: to revisit it. Um. But Dr Christine Northrop was quoted
26:31
Speaker 1: in a two thousand eight CNN column by medical correspondent
26:35
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Cohen and actor. Northrop said that women make a
26:38
Speaker 1: huge mistake by feeling paralyzed and voiceless in a doctor's office.
26:42
Speaker 1: Although I'm not sure how you can call and something
26:45
Speaker 1: like that a mistake. If you feel paralyzed, you feel paralyzed.
26:48
Speaker 1: But anyway, she says, you shouldn't feel paralyzed. And so
26:53
Speaker 1: so she breaks down the five the five mistakes that
26:56
Speaker 1: we make, and one is we don't question our doctors.
27:00
Speaker 1: She compares it to a a child versus parent interaction
27:02
Speaker 1: that we're just like, okay, whatever you say, you're smart.
27:06
Speaker 1: So we're just passive sitting on the the exam table
27:10
Speaker 1: waiting for the terrible prognosis of knee cancer. Exactly, you're
27:15
Speaker 1: going to get letters from people with knee cancer. Um.
27:18
Speaker 1: She suggests taking someone with you who will ask questions,
27:21
Speaker 1: who who maybe isn't afraid to ask questions to the doctor,
27:25
Speaker 1: or just ask the doctor to slow down and say, look,
27:28
Speaker 1: I don't I didn't go to med school. Can you
27:29
Speaker 1: please help me understand this? So that that's one idea,
27:32
Speaker 1: And she also says that instead of just saying the facts,
27:35
Speaker 1: we're offering interpretations which could lead the doctor down the
27:39
Speaker 1: wrong path. In other words, what she's saying is you
27:42
Speaker 1: go and prepared, know that you're going to have a
27:44
Speaker 1: limited amount of time, and know what you want to
27:47
Speaker 1: talk about if there are you know, three things specifically
27:51
Speaker 1: that are happening, be ready to cut to the chase,
27:55
Speaker 1: right and yeah, cutting to the chase, which is what
27:58
Speaker 1: I should have done earlier with my store worry. Um.
28:01
Speaker 1: She says that, you know, don't interpret your systems or
28:04
Speaker 1: your symptoms in the doctor's office. Don't just state the facts,
28:07
Speaker 1: state what you're suffering from. Don't say like, oh, well,
28:10
Speaker 1: so then I was reading that maybe it could be
28:12
Speaker 1: foot fungus. Um, just just let them let them exam,
28:16
Speaker 1: you know, examine you. And I'm not gonna lie. I
28:18
Speaker 1: am totally guilty of going into the doctor for something
28:23
Speaker 1: and not wanting to reveal the fact that I had
28:26
Speaker 1: done the research for fear of seeming like a crazy
28:30
Speaker 1: internet hypochondriac. But so many of us are. I mean,
28:34
Speaker 1: I think they know that. I mean, I think if
28:36
Speaker 1: you're a doctor, you're an internist. Probably, I would say,
28:39
Speaker 1: a huge chunk to be very specific, come in every
28:42
Speaker 1: day just being like, well, I've read this on the internet.
28:45
Speaker 1: It sounds like we just need more honesty in the
28:47
Speaker 1: in the exam room and maybe several follow up appointments.
28:51
Speaker 1: I'm going to prescribe our listeners more honesty and gumption
28:55
Speaker 1: next time they go to the doctor. Put that on
28:57
Speaker 1: a pillow. Um. And one one major issue that she
29:01
Speaker 1: points out is that we don't as women, we don't
29:04
Speaker 1: recognize gender bias. Apparently. She says that our issues are
29:08
Speaker 1: more likely to be interpreted as emotional issues or complaining
29:11
Speaker 1: like we've touched on and uh. Dr Nissa Goldberg, author
29:16
Speaker 1: of the wonderfully titled Women Are Not Small Men. Um,
29:21
Speaker 1: thank you Dr Goldberg. She says, you don't want to
29:25
Speaker 1: go to a doctor who says, now, honey, it's not
29:27
Speaker 1: all that bad, which is true. I mean you want
29:29
Speaker 1: to If you're taking the time to go to the doctor,
29:31
Speaker 1: you're probably taking off work or school or whatever. You
29:33
Speaker 1: want to be taken seriously, so listen to us. And
29:36
Speaker 1: we're not small men, right, Like you said, we have
29:40
Speaker 1: menstrual cycles. So we've been addressing a lot from the
29:44
Speaker 1: patient end of things. What I'm also interested in two things.
29:48
Speaker 1: A for people working in the medical field out there,
29:52
Speaker 1: how do you I mean doctors and nurse practitioners and
29:56
Speaker 1: everybody else cannot be blind to this communication barrier between
30:02
Speaker 1: patients and the physician. So I'm wondering whether or not
30:06
Speaker 1: this is something that is talked about, whether or not
30:09
Speaker 1: it's something that is kind of dismissed. If you if
30:11
Speaker 1: you have those certain patients who it's like, well they
30:16
Speaker 1: stop talking about my mother, get ready for a bunch
30:20
Speaker 1: of complaining um or you know how how you how
30:24
Speaker 1: you manage that UM and also men out there doesn't
30:29
Speaker 1: are are women just complaining more? Or is there a
30:33
Speaker 1: similar disconnect between what you need when you go into
30:37
Speaker 1: the doctor and the kind of care that you are
30:40
Speaker 1: or are not getting. Is this something that we're all experiencing,
30:43
Speaker 1: because I feel like the um, the issues that we're
30:46
Speaker 1: talking about have as much to do with with patient
30:49
Speaker 1: interaction as it does with how doctors are responding. And
30:52
Speaker 1: I want to hear from from women. I know we've
30:54
Speaker 1: heard from a couple already when we did our Volvetenia
30:57
Speaker 1: podcast about what symptoms have you had? What what health is?
31:01
Speaker 1: She said you had that doctors have dismissed and that
31:04
Speaker 1: you found out later it was actually something serious. So
31:07
Speaker 1: we just asked for so much from everyone. But but really,
31:12
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very curious to hear from folks. Mom stuff
31:15
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com is the address? Okay, I have
31:22
Speaker 1: a letter from Christina Um. She says, has anyone ever
31:26
Speaker 1: told you this? Before? The movie? Whip It encompasses at
31:28
Speaker 1: least six elements from stuff Mom never told you episodes.
31:32
Speaker 1: Let me explain. First the Roller Derby Show obviously what
31:36
Speaker 1: the movie was about, slightly mentioned. Second, the Women of
31:39
Speaker 1: the Oscar Show. This movie was not up for an
31:41
Speaker 1: Oscar as far as I know, but in mentioning general
31:43
Speaker 1: female directors, Drew Barrymore directed and start in it. Third
31:48
Speaker 1: is Miss America relevant that show? Ellen Page's character Bliss
31:52
Speaker 1: was being pressured by her mother to be a part
31:54
Speaker 1: of a beauty pageant show for feminism, as mentioned in
31:57
Speaker 1: most shows, Bliss lived happily ever after without Oliver, the
32:00
Speaker 1: cheating boyfriend decided not to buy his crap about a
32:03
Speaker 1: girl in a picture wearing a striper shirt she discovered
32:06
Speaker 1: on his band web page. Also, be your Own Hero
32:08
Speaker 1: was a catchy, empowering quote. Fifth, Bullying Show Maven Juliette
32:13
Speaker 1: Lewis's character was bullying Bliss, but earned her respect at
32:16
Speaker 1: the end. Sixth The Girl Scouts show. Herl Scouts was
32:19
Speaker 1: the team name that Bliss played on. Isn't this strange?
32:22
Speaker 1: Or is this someone's favorite movie. The movie was cool,
32:25
Speaker 1: but I love your show and wanted to point this out.
32:28
Speaker 1: So that's something I've never thought about. And I wrote
32:31
Speaker 1: back to tell her that I have never seen Whippett,
32:33
Speaker 1: but now obviously it's really cute. It's really cute, and
32:37
Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't
32:39
Speaker 1: seen it. Kristin your mooths, But the part where you
32:43
Speaker 1: mentioned Christina the whole like living without Oliver the Boyfriend.
32:48
Speaker 1: I love that theme. That's my favorite. I have no
32:51
Speaker 1: idea what you're talking about, So I'm going to talk
32:53
Speaker 1: about grammar. Just from Mary Ellen. She has a piece
32:56
Speaker 1: sheet in linguistics and is writing in response to m
33:00
Speaker 1: A Girl, and she took some issue to some of
33:03
Speaker 1: the things she writes. When answering the question about whether
33:06
Speaker 1: men or women pay more attention to grammar. Grammar Girl
33:09
Speaker 1: mentions that older women tend to be bigger sticklers for
33:11
Speaker 1: grammar because all of the teachers way back when we're women.
33:15
Speaker 1: While this might be true, it's only part of the story.
33:18
Speaker 1: At least in Western culture, language has been a vehicle
33:20
Speaker 1: of upward mobility for women. Think, my fair lady, if
33:24
Speaker 1: women speak properly, they can have white collar jobs such
33:28
Speaker 1: as teachers and secretaries and move out of the lower class. Men,
33:31
Speaker 1: on the other hand, benefit from speaking the vernacular and
33:34
Speaker 1: are mocked if they speak too proper, which brings to
33:38
Speaker 1: mind this the whole kind of elitism argument that crops
33:42
Speaker 1: up often in political seasons as we are in. Finally,
33:46
Speaker 1: I want to comment on if you Will. I disagree
33:48
Speaker 1: with grammar girl. I don't think that it undercuts what
33:50
Speaker 1: you are saying. What if you Will does is ask
33:53
Speaker 1: your audience permission to use a word or phrase that
33:56
Speaker 1: you're acknowledging as inadequate but best fits because you can't
34:00
Speaker 1: think of a better word. I think it's a useful
34:02
Speaker 1: phrase and don't see any reason that you shouldn't use it,
34:05
Speaker 1: you know what. Mary Ellen is one of many who
34:07
Speaker 1: has written in too in support of if you Will.
34:11
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I don't I don't know if
34:13
Speaker 1: I can do it. I feel like I've trained myself
34:15
Speaker 1: to weed it out so thoroughly as you wish, that
34:20
Speaker 1: as you wish will be the only thing that will
34:22
Speaker 1: suffice if you will, So, if you have any questions
34:25
Speaker 1: to send our way, Mom stuff at Discovery dot com
34:28
Speaker 1: is the email address. Facebook dot com, slash stuff Mo've
34:32
Speaker 1: Never Told You is the surprise Facebook place to go,
34:35
Speaker 1: and then at mom Stuff Podcast is how you can
34:38
Speaker 1: reach us on Twitter and of course if you want
34:40
Speaker 1: to find us During the week, we are over at
34:43
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
34:49
Speaker 1: our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
34:52
Speaker 1: Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
34:55
Speaker 1: perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works iPhone app
34:59
Speaker 1: has a right delmot it today on iTunes, brought to
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Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
35:10
Speaker 1: are you