“I was right. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
The moment the young male doctor walked into the emergency room, my stomach sank. Not because I assumed all male doctors are bad––my family doctor is a man and he’s fantastic. But I’d been kicked around the healthcare system for many years, and when I see a young male doctor, I instantly worry he’s going to dismiss my pain. It always happens to me. And my friends. And the random woman I met at the doctor’s office. I started to wonder: is this more than just a theme in my life or is there research to back this up?
Doctors can, as Grey’s Anatomy says, “play God.” They save our lives, help manage pain and reassure us and our loved ones. Their knowledge base is varied and impressive, and they can help us in ways that many of us can’t. However, they aren’t God. They don’t know everything––especially the young doctors who haven’t lost a patient or made a fatal mistake. With men it’s worse; unlike their female counterparts, they are respected by just walking into the room. They’re in a position of power and intellect. We’re scared to question them. It’s a recipe to make anyone a little arrogant.
It was my second time at the hospital that month for severe, unexplained pain. The doctor looked at my chart and examined which medicine I took. I knew the first question would be, “I see you’re on antidepressants and anxiety meds. Could you just be anxious?”
I wanted to scream, “No!” I do have severe anxiety, but if I didn’t think I was having a heart attack or a kidney issue, I wouldn’t be at a hospital during COVID-19 in the first place because I’m not ignorant. Or dramatic. Or searching for attention. Or making it all up in my head. Most patients aren’t either.
Instead, I explained that I couldn’t sleep the previous night because of the pain, and as someone who has dealt with chronic pain for over 10 years, this was abnormal. The young doctor poked my body five times asking if it hurt. I felt pain everywhere. I also felt burning in my legs and something stabbing my foot. Head pain. Chest pain. Exhaustion. I was not okay.
His response was, “Wow. Seems like there’s a lot wrong with you.” Yeah, try living it. He then added, “I think it’s a pulled muscle.” I wanted to laugh. Pulled muscles don’t cause this level of pain. How did he come to such a conclusion so quickly? Why was he so quick to assume it wasn’t serious? Did he think I was making it up? Or seeking pain meds?
I said, “This isn’t a pulled muscle.”
I knew he didn’t like me questioning his opinion because his response was, “I’ll bet you on it. You know your body, but I’m just speaking medically.”
Speaking medically? He poked me five times. If that was a medical procedure, then I’d officially lost my faith in healthcare. I was going through hell and here was this doctor standing right in front of me making a joke about betting on my health. He didn’t listen. He silenced my concern only to remind me of his medical degree. I felt defeated and dumb and knew that he wasn’t the answer to my pain. However, I pushed for an ultrasound to make sure my kidney was okay.
After he came back, he said, “I was right. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
He saw mental illness. A young woman. A clear ultrasound. And he wanted it to be a pulled muscle from the start, given his lack of interest in hearing why I didn’t think it was a pulled muscle. I went home and cried, questioning if maybe I was being dramatic or wanted attention. No one had answers.
This is the reality for many women in the healthcare system. I’m just one of the many stories.
The Gender Bias in Healthcare
A study published in the National Library of Medicine found that women wait over 15 minutes longer than men, even when both are suffering from abdominal pain ranked at the same level of severity. The New England Journal of Medicine found that doctors are seven times more likely to discharge women in the middle of a heart attack than men. A heart attack! Wait times can be the difference between an appendix rupture, a deteriorating heart or sepsis travelling through the body. Minutes can be a life or death situation.
Two female professors of pharmacy practice at Northern Ohio University published a journal explaining why there is a gap in the healthcare system. Before clinical trials in the ’90s (when diagnoses was focused on men, by men), there was a massive body of medical evidence with a predominantly male perspective. As a result, women were more likely to have their pain dismissed as anxiety, leading to preventable deaths.
A review originally published in Pain and Research Management, discovered that women’s pain is often thought to be caused by emotional issues, even when tests show their pain is real. It translates to men being prescribed pain medication and women sedatives for the exact same symptoms.
Large portions of the medical system were built under a patriarchy where women weren’t even allowed to vote or be doctors. Without including the female perspective in research, we end up with a diagnoses like “female hysteria”.
Not long ago, real issues, including PTSD, depression or infertility were considered to be “female hysteria”. The idea that women are more likely to have behavioural or mental conditions is dated way further back to the writings of Hippocrates and Plato. In fact, in 1748, a physician thought this hysteria was an illness spreading through the air and mainly affecting women because they were “lazy and irritable in nature”. The ridiculousness of these ideas really show how hysteria wasn’t a well backed-up medical condition, but a word used for everything men didn’t understand about women. While it’s easy to laugh at the stupidity of this term, it’s quite scary how it has affected diagnoses today.
This doesn’t just contribute to women not receiving help, but also leads to misdiagnosis. J.Crook and E.Tunks found in their 1982 study, “Women with Pain,” published in Chronic Pain: Psychosocial Factors in Rehabilitation, that women with chronic pain conditions are more likely to be wrongly diagnosed with mental health conditions. This is especially prevalent with autoimmune issues or hormone imbalances since they are hard to diagnose or understand.
No one understands these conditions because female issues are often underfunded. Women’s reproductive issues have very little solutions or known causes. There’s not enough research or money. When women’s issues are funded such as breast cancer, the support appeals to the male gaze; the famous campaign, “I love boobies” caught on quickly. We all know there is nothing sexy about cancer or any life threatening condition. Here we are though, sexualizing breast cancer. Or at least telling men they should care about women’s issues because they like looking at our boobs.
Maybe a better slogan is, “Save our future scientists and doctors who can actually properly research conditions affecting millions of women.” Or “Women’s health actually matters.” Just a thought.
Finally getting diagnosed
After being told there’s nothing wrong with me by my hotshot doctor, I learned something was wrong with me. A recent article from New York Times argued that the health care system has depersonalized the doctor-patient relationship and created a kind of “system arrogance” in which the patient is seen merely as a job to be done cost-effectively. This could explain why so many of us feel like younger doctors are more dismissive. Lucky for me, I’ve had the same family doctor for my entire life who listened and diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia.
I have chronic pain that’s considered neuro/immune, depending on who you ask. Every web article, journal and doctor says something different. Mainly because they still don’t know what causes it or how to help it. Fibro overwhelmingly affects women, so it’s not surprising that not much research is done on it. For the longest time, it wasn’t accepted by many doctors, instead dismissed as a mental disorder affecting women- showing the lasting repercussions of the gender gap in the healthcare system.
Though my chronic pain has no cure and is misunderstood, I’m just happy my doctor believed my pain. There was something wrong. I mainly got this diagnosis because I fought the medical gaslighting and trusted myself.
How to stand up to a doctor:
I didn’t stand up to this emergency room doctor because he believed it was a muscle issue. He didn’t like that I initially tried to argue with him, which is why when he gave me the news, he felt like he needed to start with, “I was right.” He wasn’t right. Many doctors, especially young ones, misdiagnose. Here are some tips if this happens to you:
Write down what you want to say
The doctor spoke over me when I was explaining and totally shut me down. If this happens, you can look back at your paper, find your point again and push back. When it comes to more complicated conditions, you also might need to bring it up with them. You can ask, “could it be this?”
Push back
Don’t be afraid to talk back. An interview for The Katz Women’s Health discussed the gender gap in healthcare and asked Dr. Grossman why he believed this happened. He felt social influences contribute to women being gaslighted. Men are more vocal and persistent with their concerns. Women feel like they need to be good patients, which means accepting what their doctors tell them. But by doing so, they’re stripping themselves of their voices.
Women are often pressured to not talk back and be polite. It’s important to continue fighting these beliefs because there’s no scientific reason why a woman can’t speak up. It’s taught to us through patterns of behaviour in society and they can be changed.
Ask for further tests
If they don’t believe you, ask for more tests and bloodwork. Many times, a doctor will run the test because, if by chance they’re wrong, their job could be on the line. If they don’t want to do anything, force them to. It’s your life and health. I pushed for the ultrasound. Though there was nothing wrong with my kidney, at least it was ruled out. When I went to my family doctor, he had the recent ultrasound and could deduce that my organs were fine and my blood work was, too. The difference was that he believed me and could properly diagnose my condition.
Find another doctor
If they don’t take you seriously, go to another doctor. Get a second opinion. If you have a predominantly female issue, then try to find a female doctor. Some male doctors do have a good understanding of the female body, however, a lot of gynaecological issues are being researched by women. Try to find a doctor with a research history of your possible diagnoses.
Medical gaslighting is a real issue. You know yourself better than a doctor does. If something doesn’t feel right, then trust that gut reaction and get a different doctor. It’s your health. Major positive changes are happening, but it’s still slow. Fight for your health and never give up. If you feel pain or any symptom then something is wrong.