January 8, 2022 • 35 mins
Do doctors listen to female patients? Women often complain of doctors not taking symptoms seriously, and patient-doctor mistrust is nothing new. Tune in to this classic episode to learn more about this relationship, including how stress influences a female patient's diagnosis.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I've never told to your production of I Heart Radio.
So today we're bringing back a classic on on something
we've talked a lot about, which is doctors not believing women,
(00:27):
um not trusting their pain or thinking they're exaggerating. And
as we said, um, who knows how many episodes ago,
pretty recently, one of the things we want to talk
about is the physical health impact of this pandemic and
all the stress, and that's something that we are working on.
And I know we have discussed this a lot, but Samantha,
(00:51):
do you have like's something that comes to mind immediately
when you think of a time you went to a
doctor or something and they kind of dismissed while you
were there. So I can't really I'm trying to think.
I don't often go to the doctor because I am
that person. I think part of my problem with in
general going to doctors, I believed them in thinking that
(01:15):
there's nothing wrong with me and I have to That's
part of why I won't go unless I'm absolutely sure
I am sick. I will not go like it's an
odd thing, like, uh, I think there were several times
when people told me they've gone to the hospital because
you know they had done this to that a goal
they did, I'm like, no, I just didn't like. I literally,
I think, pulled my cab muscle to the point that
(01:38):
it blew up. I couldn't stand on it, and my
entire leg was purple. I refused to go to the
doctor because in my mind it still wasn't bad enough,
because it wasn't broken, so why And I'm pretty sure
I broke my foot once and I refused to go
because I didn't think it was good bad enough. So
I am that person that truly does not believe I
guess I'm not I'm worth seeing, and I don't know why.
(02:00):
So I am overly cautious, even though I'm probably I
probably should have on several occasions. The only time I
can really think of any kind of mishap like that
was trying to explain my anxiety and my mental health stuff.
And I had been referred to a male psychiatrist who
pretty much dismissed my entire job, saying that because at
(02:23):
the time I was working with social work and work
with at ristines and kids who have worked in problematic
issues with the law, whatever broken, you know, and had
gotten arrested, and he was talking about essentially how he
worked with the facility and was like, they all need
to be just put in jail, put away. And I'm
like what because my job was the opposite of that,
trying to keeping them out and so dismissing that and
(02:45):
say there's nothing they could do to help them, as
well as that I am doing too much so that
my anxiety was self induced and all these things. And
I was like yeah, And I never went back to him,
and I reported it back to my therapist. I'm like,
he should never recommend this person again, like he was
the worst and assumed that was coming in for extra
(03:06):
drugs too. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm kind of similar. I
don't and I'm not saying this is a healthy mindset
at all, um, But I will also like put off
going to the doctor until like it's there's no way
that they can tell me that I'm exaggerating or it's
in my head, or it would be much harder, which
is part of this conversation that we feel this way,
(03:28):
but I have. When I went to go get I
was just having a lot of trouble breathing, which asked
Samantha knows. I have a long problem and I have asthma.
Had asthma really badly at one point, and this doctor
(03:49):
I came in to get all these tests and at
the end of it, he said, like, it's hard to
get up and work out every now and then, isn't it.
And I was like a young, you know, self conscious,
in secure, fourteen or fifteen year old, and that just
that that cut me. That was bad. That left him
(04:09):
mark because I already felt like I was like chubby
and all of this like toxic stuff that he was
kind of reaffirming that that's all bad and that's on
you and it's your fault. And then it turns out
like I had a colon ambulance when I collapsed at
school because I couldn't breathe the minds went blue. So
and then one day we're going to do a Monday
(04:31):
mini on this because I really want to talk about it.
But I had a really, really, really bad experienced my
first time at a gynecologist, and he essentially like, looking back,
I'm really not sure what was going on here, but
he kind of like threatened to tell my dad that
I was basically sexually promiscuous or something which oh my god,
there's so much from pack there, but that it scared
(04:53):
me and it traumatized me um to this day. I
think about I think about it. Uh and again yeah,
I think it was fifteen fourteen or fifteen. So yes, Well,
with all of that in mind, and with all of
these ideas that we're planning on returning to in a
future episodes, please enjoy this classic episode. Welcome to Stuff
(05:17):
Mom Never Told You from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen.
There seems to be a lot of questions floating around
the Internet about women and their doctors, and I'm just
getting the impression generally that women feel that doctors don't
(05:40):
listen to them. I came across two big questions on
said internet regarding women and doctors. One is whether or
not male doctors come on to female patients and where
the ethical lines are. I did not investigate that one.
That's a whole other podcast, yes, and that we probably
(06:01):
will never record. And also whether or not doctors listen
to female patients. Right, there's a lot of interesting data
out there about um just gender interactions, both the gender
of the patient and how that affects the doctor patient relationship.
And and as you can imagine the gender of the physician,
(06:22):
and I, for one, have always thought out female doctors.
I feel more comfortable with a female gynecologist and a
female internist, my chiropractor, and my acupuncturist. I'm just going
to tell you everything about myself right now. Do you
want to know my blood type? I don't know it.
Oh god, we should figure that out. They're male, So
the people, the people who are like cracking my spine
(06:44):
and sticking needles and mirror are guys. But you know,
I just feel like if I'm going to be doing
talking about really personal things and getting medicine prescribed, I
just I feel more comfortable with a lady doctor. And
this question of the doctor female patient relationship has been
snowballing in our minds as we've been doing episodes on
(07:06):
underdiagnosed chronic conditions among women, such as wolvedenia, and it
also stood out in our podcast we did a while
ago on gender differences in anxiety because Taylor Clark over
its Slate pointed to the American Psychological Association's Stressed in
America survey in two thousand and eight, which found that
(07:29):
if a woman goes into a doctor's office uh and
complains of symptoms, they are more likely to be dismissed
as just the products of female stress, just the product
of being a woman, perhaps the change of life, yes,
the season's turning u. Whereas male symptoms, the same symptoms
(07:52):
presented by a male patient often taken more seriously. And
this is specifically in regard to cardiology, and we'll get
into that a little bit more. So, we decided to
look into whether or not that was true, whether or
not women are just complaining more loudly. Are we just
pickier about our doctors? Are we all hypochondriacs? What is happening? Yeah?
(08:17):
There was a May blog post by Nancy klemus On
on the Miss magazine blog and she posed the question
that we're going to get into about why don't doctors
listen to women? Or do doctors listen to women? And
she said, how do we dispel the age old myths
that women are emotional, overreactive, and generally unable to describe
(08:38):
their own medical conditions? What is up with doctors making
up their minds about us when we've uttered three words
about what we're suffering. And I believe Klemus also is
a medical doctor, So this is a doctor posing this
question about other doctors now across the board. Probably because
of the limited amount of time that doctors have have
(09:00):
to see patients in the exam room, there is some
mistrust that goes on between patients and physicians. There was
a two thousand eight column in The New York Times
by Tara Parker Pope who was citing a Johns Hopkins
study finding that about one in four patients, it's pretty high.
One in four patients feel that their physicians sometimes exposes
(09:22):
them to unnecessary risk, and she quotes a New York
doctor saying that nobody's talking to patients. Everyone is so rushed.
I don't think doctors are bad. People were just working
in a broken system. And on a side note, this
is coming from a report in the Wall Street Journal
from to two thousand and five, the time my doctor
(09:44):
spends with individual patients has actually increased from a whopping
eighteen minutes, which was high I thought, to twenty one
minutes um. As far as the environment that these doctors
are working in, Tara Parker Pope in her post says
that dealing with declining reimbursements and rising costs, doctors have
(10:07):
only a few minutes to spend with the patient, and
sometimes when I cut to the doctor, I feel like
it is literally just a few minutes. I mean, I'm
really surprised by that twenty one minute figure. Well, the
that's averaged out, and the writers suggest that it might
be that high number might be due to an aging
baby boomer population sort of skew the skew the curve
(10:28):
could be could be um. Some things that influenced the
trust issues between doctors and patients are news reports about
medical mistakes and drug industry influence. So the more you
hear about malpractice suits and you know, people leaving medical
instruments and someone's spleen after a surgery, maybe you're more
likely to worry. Yeah, And because a lot of adults
(10:49):
are very attuned to what could possibly be wrong. I
don't know about you, Caroline, but I have inadvertently diagnosed
myself with a tear will cancer symptoms? Checker have cancer?
It's it's pretty dangerous. This was according to a few
Internet Project survey uh sixtent of women and percent of
(11:13):
men will research what could be ailing them before the
even step foot in the doctor's office, right, And that's
actually sort of a maybe not a dangerous mistake to make.
But if you've done all this research because you're worried
about your help, that mean it makes sense. But if
you take all of that into your doctor and say, okay, look,
here's what this website says, this is what I have. Well,
(11:34):
even though your doctor is a very smart individual, he
or she might sort of follow you down that path
and think, Okay, you're right. And this actually I say this.
I say this because it happened to me. I actually
had it. It was a minor and a brief dermatological issue,
and I looked it up online and I was like, okay, good, well,
ay I'm not dying, and be this sounds like what
it is. So well, you know, I went to the dermatologist.
(11:55):
Wasn't my normal doctor. I went to a new one
because I couldn't it in anyway. So I go in
with all this information and they're looking at me, and
I'm thinking, okay, I'm not gonna say anything. I'm not
gonna say anything. I'm gonna let them decide what it is.
And finally, you know, they're poking at me. And stuff,
and I'm like, you know what, I think it's this
and they look and they're like, yeah, I hear some
(12:16):
Hydrocortisown cream go home. Well then it wouldn't go away.
I mean, you know, it was nothing bad, but it
kept like it just kind of hung around. And so
then I went into my my normal dermatology. She's like,
oh god, how long have you been using this Hydrocordisown
cream And I said, well, really not as much as
they told me too. She said, good, because that's not
what you have. And if you had used hydrocordisome cream
every day between thin and now, your skin might be
(12:38):
falling off. Oh my godness. So yeah, it is dangerous
to go in with your mind made up already. Well,
in addition to women possibly over educating themselves about what
could be going on compared two men, we're also more
likely to like, you did, take action and make that
appointment and go in. This is coming from the Centers
(13:01):
for Disease Control and Prevention. This is excluding pregnancy related visits.
Women are thirty three percent more likely than men to
visit a doctor. Now that starts to close with age,
as we all get old and we're all equally sickly UM,
but doctors see our faces more often, right, And according
(13:23):
to a meta analysis of data from nineteen sixty seven
to two thousand one. This appeared in the Journal of
American Medical Association. It found that visits with female doctors
last two minutes longer on average as far as gender goes,
so as far as women, women are in the doctor's
office more. But if you're seeing a woman doctor, you're
(13:44):
also going to be seeing her more, a little bit more,
a little bit more, twenty seconds more. I wonder if
two minutes makes that much of a difference, though, if
you have a question, yes it's a brief question, and
you mentioned that the pattern is slightly different for umb U,
I n's and this is true. It's interesting because all
these studies are saying that, you know, female patients go
(14:06):
to the doctor more, they spend more time at the doctor. Um.
Female physicians are more likely to spend more time with you.
But all of that is not the case for male O,
b G, I N. They actually demonstrate a higher level
of emotionally focused talk with their patients. But maybe that
has to do with them tailoring communication styles to their
(14:28):
patient population. Because studies have also demonstrated that female patients,
unsurprisingly UM tend to communicate more, want to do more
of the the whole person analysis how they're feeling um mentally, physically, emotionally, uh,
instead of just you know, be sticking more to what
(14:51):
is going on, what is my denvergure and my blood pressure?
Exactly like male robots. Yes, as you know, men talk
like robots. UM. The Journal of Patient Education and Counseling
in two thousand six published a study that found that
while men tend to be satisfied regardless of the doctor's
gender and communication style, US ladies are more particular and
(15:14):
we tend to be happiest with female doctors when those
doctors expressed great concern, empathy, and reassurance. And I mean
that makes sense to me. I want to know that
my doctor is listening to me and understands. I don't
I don't need her to be like, oh boo, don't worry,
but you know, I want to know she's listening and understands.
But actually the whole the whole thing flips on its ear.
(15:35):
And if those doctors were male, female patients were dissatisfied
with overt displays of caring. Ah, we can't be pleased.
They just can't. But it makes sense so that women
might be more particular about the kind of health care
they are receiving. Because we are spending more time in
doctor's offices, we're probably seeing more doctors. And again we
(15:59):
go in statistically, we go in armed with more knowledge.
So maybe we set the bar a little bit higher.
And this is not to say by any means that
male doctors are somehow not doing their job properly. They're
simply a communication difference. Because there was a journal I
don't know, Carolina, did you reference as the Journal of
(16:19):
Women's Health study from two thousand nine that found that
male physicians had a higher component to score, which was
understanding the whole person, which is really what it sounds
like more what female patients are interested in, right. It
seems like we want to get the whole picture, the
whole health picture laid out, And from this same study,
(16:42):
female physicians had a greater component one score, in other words,
exploring both the disease and illness experience. But I'm wondering
if maybe this big dissatisfaction has much less to do
with the gender of the physician that we're talking to,
because again, Um, I don't want to say that that
(17:02):
female or male physicians are one is superior to the other.
But maybe it's how women present their symptoms and whether
or not the word stress comes because a Cornell study
presented at the two thousand eight Cardiovascular Research Foundation found
(17:22):
that mentioning stress affects a doctor's perception of a woman's symptoms.
These researchers examined how doctor's reactions reacted to patient descriptions
of cardiovascular problems for male patients versus female patients, and
they concluded that quote the inclusion of a stressor precluded
(17:44):
doctors from making a coronary heart disease diagnosis in women,
but not in men. So there's something about women saying
stress that like sets off alarm bills in physicians brains says,
oh you know what, Uh, it's probably just your stress levels.
Here is something that will take care of that. Yeah,
(18:06):
here's an anti anxiety or an antidepressant. Right. Maybe that's why.
According to the CDC, the major classes of drugs doled
out to women are pain killers, antidepressants, and estrogena. Oh
hey interesting, Um, yeah, as far as as the mental
health and anxiety goes, I mean yeah, We did reference
that stuff in our anxiety podcast and it was interesting
(18:29):
to see how doctors perceive women so differently. But according
to the World Health Organization, doctors are more likely to
diagnose depression in women compared with men, which we've talked
about before, even when they have similar scores on standardized
measures of depression or present with identical symptoms. And this
is a quote, Uh, you know, you think about predictors
(18:50):
for for being diagnosed with the disease, you don't think
of your gender. I mean, I I don't know. It's
a female. Gender is a significant predictor of being prescribed
mood altering psychotropic drugs. So just being a lady, you're
more likely to get mood altering drugs. Women also tend
to seek more generalized medical assistance for mental health issues,
(19:13):
as again coming from the World Health Organization, compared to men,
who are a less likely to seek mental health but
when they do, they'll go more to specialists, right. And
and there's just there's something about gender stereotypes, not only
for women, not only doctors thinking oh, she's just hysterical, um,
but for men as well, and gender stereotypes regarding proneness
(19:36):
to emotional problems and women and alcohol problems and men
appear to reinforce social stigma and constrain help seeking along
stereotypical lines. That's also from the World Health Organization. So
these are barriers, I think too, to get in quality
care if you're if maybe if you assume something about
your own situation, or if your doctor just assumes something
(19:58):
because of your gender. And the fact matter is, uh,
you know, we're talking a lot about whether or not
women are satisfied with their patient care, but guys, you
you also are suffering from a healthcare gap as well.
Over the life term. Male healthcare costs far more than
women's because you're not investing as much in preventative care
(20:20):
and going to the doctor um as often as we are.
So it's kind of like, you know, maybe at some
point we need to meet in the middle where doctors
quit dismissing women's complaints is just the byproduct of everyday stress,
and men stopped going in when it's a situation, so
that doctors take your you know, symptoms far more seriously, right, Yeah,
(20:45):
go from more more checkups along the line instead of
waiting until it's just at the tipping point and as
far as identifying problems, especially mental health issues along gender lines. UM.
There was an interesting interview with doctor Jerome Groupman by NPR.
He read a book called How Doctor Stink after he
(21:05):
himself had a bad experience about trying to get something diagnosed,
and he went to several different doctors and um, finally,
I think it was the fifth doctor. Someone finally listened
to all of his symptoms and he got the right diagnosis.
But so he wrote this book called How Doctor Stink
after his experience, and he's talking about how doctors maybe
have errors in thinking. It's not that they're bad people,
(21:27):
it's that, uh, we use shortcuts. He says, most doctors
within the first eighteen seconds of seeing a patient will
interrupt him telling his story and also generate an idea
in his mind of what's wrong. So they're making this
snap judgment. And he calls it an anchoring mistake because
once you utter a couple of words about what you're experiencing,
what hurts, or what feels bad. Um, some doctors have
(21:49):
already made a decision about what you have based on
your gender, age, race, whatever, and they kind of stick
with it and maybe, uh use everything else you say
to confirm what they are pready believe. So as far
as having an idea of what someone is already suffering
from or not suffering from. UM. An interesting study from
(22:09):
the Cardiac and Vascular Institute at New York University Langhorne
Medical Center. This was published UH in September. UM. Anywhere
from forty to a hundred thousand women every year with
arteries that show up is clear on an angiogram suffer
from a heart attack. And thirty eight percent of the
time they have the kind of plaque that doesn't show
up on an angiogram. And so a lot of these
(22:31):
doctors are sending women home because they just do this
one test and they say, oh, you're fine, it's probably indigestion,
you know, here's here's a prole stack or whatever. Go home,
lie down, get some rest. But then when the woman
comes back and she's going, no, okay, for real, I'm
I'm having a heart attack. UM, that's when they realized
that something very serious is wrong and and women are symptoms.
(22:53):
And and this says, I feel common knowledge. I know
that women present very different symptoms when they're having a
heart attack in men. You UM, and that is something
that really needs to be taken into account. If a
woman is suffering from the same thing a man is,
she just might not present the same symptoms in the
same way. And so I think, um, if maybe if
we get more time with our doctors, if we go
(23:16):
to them with enough time in advance of any problems
we have, then maybe we could um be taken more
seriously and get these things diagnosed as far as and
I mean, instead of waiting until it's almost too late. Well,
and if the standard test for things like heart disease
and heart attack our tailored to what more commonly manifests
(23:37):
and meant, it would make sense that within that eighteen
second window that you mentioned from how the book How
Doctors Think, it would makes sense that you know, doctors
would conclude that yea or nay, this is or is
not going on. UM. So it sounds like there's room
for more nuanced in the exam room, but also before that,
(23:57):
taking more even in med school, training doctors to look
more closely for um, for for the gender differences. I
have never been to med school. People who have been
let me know if that is happy. I'm sure it's
happening a lot more than it used to because we've
talked about in the podcast before. How with for a
lot of prescription medications, for instance, it's only been in
(24:20):
recent years, in the past, like twenty years probably that
they have started using women in more test groups, whereas
everything was tailored to men because men are more stable
because they don't have menstrual cycles. And by stable, and
I'm not talking about like brain and mood stable, I
mean physiologically levels of hormones in their body fable. But
(24:45):
to cap things off, let us let us at least
verify that it is not just in our heads. Even
though women are going to the doctor more often than men.
A December two thousand elevens study published in the European
Journal of Public Health via the Public Health Agency of
Barcelona found that women did indeed report health problems more often,
(25:11):
but it's because we are actually suffering from a higher
rate of chronic disease, and the lead researcher says, these
results suggest that the poor self rated health of women
is a reflection of the higher burden of disease they suffer,
and it should be the findings should be offered up
as support that women are not just a bunch of
(25:32):
raving hypochondriacts and of speaking of hypochondria. According to the
National Institutes of Health, hypochondria presents itself equally among men
and women, especially with websites like web m d read.
All you have to do is click on that little
body and tell it what hurts. It's always cancer. There's
(25:52):
always You could scrape your knee and web MD symptom
checker would give you knee cancer. It's like some it's
always going to be cancer or a foot fungus. It's
something where you're like, how do you how do I
have prostate cancer? Would I'm I'm a woman, Come on, um.
But okay, so we we've we've come back around to
(26:14):
the whole self diagnosis thing, and I think we should
talk about some of the mistakes that we do make
when we go to the doctor's office. I already told
my long story about my hydrocortisome cream. We don't need
to revisit it. Um. But Dr Christine Northrop was quoted
in a two thousand eight CNN column by medical correspondent
(26:35):
Elizabeth Cohen and actor. Northrop said that women make a
huge mistake by feeling paralyzed and voiceless in a doctor's office.
Although I'm not sure how you can call and something
like that a mistake. If you feel paralyzed, you feel paralyzed.
But anyway, she says, you shouldn't feel paralyzed. And so
so she breaks down the five the five mistakes that
(26:56):
we make, and one is we don't question our doctors.
She compares it to a a child versus parent interaction
that we're just like, okay, whatever you say, you're smart.
So we're just passive sitting on the the exam table
waiting for the terrible prognosis of knee cancer. Exactly, you're
going to get letters from people with knee cancer. Um.
(27:18):
She suggests taking someone with you who will ask questions,
who who maybe isn't afraid to ask questions to the doctor,
or just ask the doctor to slow down and say, look,
I don't I didn't go to med school. Can you
please help me understand this? So that that's one idea,
And she also says that instead of just saying the facts,
we're offering interpretations which could lead the doctor down the
(27:39):
wrong path. In other words, what she's saying is you
go and prepared, know that you're going to have a
limited amount of time, and know what you want to
talk about if there are you know, three things specifically
that are happening, be ready to cut to the chase,
right and yeah, cutting to the chase, which is what
I should have done earlier with my store worry. Um.
(28:01):
She says that, you know, don't interpret your systems or
your symptoms in the doctor's office. Don't just state the facts,
state what you're suffering from. Don't say like, oh, well,
so then I was reading that maybe it could be
foot fungus. Um, just just let them let them exam,
you know, examine you. And I'm not gonna lie. I
am totally guilty of going into the doctor for something
(28:23):
and not wanting to reveal the fact that I had
done the research for fear of seeming like a crazy
internet hypochondriac. But so many of us are. I mean,
I think they know that. I mean, I think if
you're a doctor, you're an internist. Probably, I would say,
a huge chunk to be very specific, come in every
day just being like, well, I've read this on the internet.
(28:45):
It sounds like we just need more honesty in the
in the exam room and maybe several follow up appointments.
I'm going to prescribe our listeners more honesty and gumption
next time they go to the doctor. Put that on
a pillow. Um. And one one major issue that she
points out is that we don't as women, we don't
recognize gender bias. Apparently. She says that our issues are
(29:08):
more likely to be interpreted as emotional issues or complaining
like we've touched on and uh. Dr Nissa Goldberg, author
of the wonderfully titled Women Are Not Small Men. Um,
thank you Dr Goldberg. She says, you don't want to
go to a doctor who says, now, honey, it's not
all that bad, which is true. I mean you want
(29:29):
to If you're taking the time to go to the doctor,
you're probably taking off work or school or whatever. You
want to be taken seriously, so listen to us. And
we're not small men, right, Like you said, we have
menstrual cycles. So we've been addressing a lot from the
patient end of things. What I'm also interested in two things.
A for people working in the medical field out there,
(29:52):
how do you I mean doctors and nurse practitioners and
everybody else cannot be blind to this communication barrier between
patients and the physician. So I'm wondering whether or not
this is something that is talked about, whether or not
it's something that is kind of dismissed. If you if
you have those certain patients who it's like, well they
(30:16):
stop talking about my mother, get ready for a bunch
of complaining um or you know how how you how
you manage that UM and also men out there doesn't
are are women just complaining more? Or is there a
similar disconnect between what you need when you go into
(30:37):
the doctor and the kind of care that you are
or are not getting. Is this something that we're all experiencing,
because I feel like the um, the issues that we're
talking about have as much to do with with patient
interaction as it does with how doctors are responding. And
I want to hear from from women. I know we've
heard from a couple already when we did our Volvetenia
(30:57):
podcast about what symptoms have you had? What what health is?
She said you had that doctors have dismissed and that
you found out later it was actually something serious. So
we just asked for so much from everyone. But but really,
I'm I'm very curious to hear from folks. Mom stuff
at Discovery dot com is the address? Okay, I have
(31:22):
a letter from Christina Um. She says, has anyone ever
told you this? Before? The movie? Whip It encompasses at
least six elements from stuff Mom never told you episodes.
Let me explain. First the Roller Derby Show obviously what
the movie was about, slightly mentioned. Second, the Women of
the Oscar Show. This movie was not up for an
Oscar as far as I know, but in mentioning general
(31:43):
female directors, Drew Barrymore directed and start in it. Third
is Miss America relevant that show? Ellen Page's character Bliss
was being pressured by her mother to be a part
of a beauty pageant show for feminism, as mentioned in
most shows, Bliss lived happily ever after without Oliver, the
cheating boyfriend decided not to buy his crap about a
girl in a picture wearing a striper shirt she discovered
(32:06):
on his band web page. Also, be your Own Hero
was a catchy, empowering quote. Fifth, Bullying Show Maven Juliette
Lewis's character was bullying Bliss, but earned her respect at
the end. Sixth The Girl Scouts show. Herl Scouts was
the team name that Bliss played on. Isn't this strange?
Or is this someone's favorite movie. The movie was cool,
but I love your show and wanted to point this out.
(32:28):
So that's something I've never thought about. And I wrote
back to tell her that I have never seen Whippett,
but now obviously it's really cute. It's really cute, and
I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't
seen it. Kristin your mooths, But the part where you
mentioned Christina the whole like living without Oliver the Boyfriend.
I love that theme. That's my favorite. I have no
(32:51):
idea what you're talking about, So I'm going to talk
about grammar. Just from Mary Ellen. She has a piece
sheet in linguistics and is writing in response to m
A Girl, and she took some issue to some of
the things she writes. When answering the question about whether
men or women pay more attention to grammar. Grammar Girl
mentions that older women tend to be bigger sticklers for
(33:11):
grammar because all of the teachers way back when we're women.
While this might be true, it's only part of the story.
At least in Western culture, language has been a vehicle
of upward mobility for women. Think, my fair lady, if
women speak properly, they can have white collar jobs such
as teachers and secretaries and move out of the lower class. Men,
(33:31):
on the other hand, benefit from speaking the vernacular and
are mocked if they speak too proper, which brings to
mind this the whole kind of elitism argument that crops
up often in political seasons as we are in. Finally,
I want to comment on if you Will. I disagree
with grammar girl. I don't think that it undercuts what
you are saying. What if you Will does is ask
(33:53):
your audience permission to use a word or phrase that
you're acknowledging as inadequate but best fits because you can't
think of a better word. I think it's a useful
phrase and don't see any reason that you shouldn't use it,
you know what. Mary Ellen is one of many who
has written in too in support of if you Will.
But I don't know. I don't I don't know if
I can do it. I feel like I've trained myself
(34:15):
to weed it out so thoroughly as you wish, that
as you wish will be the only thing that will
suffice if you will, So, if you have any questions
to send our way, Mom stuff at Discovery dot com
is the email address. Facebook dot com, slash stuff Mo've
Never Told You is the surprise Facebook place to go,
(34:35):
and then at mom Stuff Podcast is how you can
reach us on Twitter and of course if you want
to find us During the week, we are over at
how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works iPhone app
(34:59):
has a right delmot it today on iTunes, brought to
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I've never told to your production of I Heart Radio.
So today we're bringing back a classic on on something
we've talked a lot about, which is doctors not believing women,
(00:27):
um not trusting their pain or thinking they're exaggerating. And
as we said, um, who knows how many episodes ago,
pretty recently, one of the things we want to talk
about is the physical health impact of this pandemic and
all the stress, and that's something that we are working on.
And I know we have discussed this a lot, but Samantha,
(00:51):
do you have like's something that comes to mind immediately
when you think of a time you went to a
doctor or something and they kind of dismissed while you
were there. So I can't really I'm trying to think.
I don't often go to the doctor because I am
that person. I think part of my problem with in
general going to doctors, I believed them in thinking that
(01:15):
there's nothing wrong with me and I have to That's
part of why I won't go unless I'm absolutely sure
I am sick. I will not go like it's an
odd thing, like, uh, I think there were several times
when people told me they've gone to the hospital because
you know they had done this to that a goal
they did, I'm like, no, I just didn't like. I literally,
I think, pulled my cab muscle to the point that
(01:38):
it blew up. I couldn't stand on it, and my
entire leg was purple. I refused to go to the
doctor because in my mind it still wasn't bad enough,
because it wasn't broken, so why And I'm pretty sure
I broke my foot once and I refused to go
because I didn't think it was good bad enough. So
I am that person that truly does not believe I
guess I'm not I'm worth seeing, and I don't know why.
(02:00):
So I am overly cautious, even though I'm probably I
probably should have on several occasions. The only time I
can really think of any kind of mishap like that
was trying to explain my anxiety and my mental health stuff.
And I had been referred to a male psychiatrist who
pretty much dismissed my entire job, saying that because at
(02:23):
the time I was working with social work and work
with at ristines and kids who have worked in problematic
issues with the law, whatever broken, you know, and had
gotten arrested, and he was talking about essentially how he
worked with the facility and was like, they all need
to be just put in jail, put away. And I'm
like what because my job was the opposite of that,
trying to keeping them out and so dismissing that and
(02:45):
say there's nothing they could do to help them, as
well as that I am doing too much so that
my anxiety was self induced and all these things. And
I was like yeah, And I never went back to him,
and I reported it back to my therapist. I'm like,
he should never recommend this person again, like he was
the worst and assumed that was coming in for extra
(03:06):
drugs too. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm kind of similar. I
don't and I'm not saying this is a healthy mindset
at all, um, But I will also like put off
going to the doctor until like it's there's no way
that they can tell me that I'm exaggerating or it's
in my head, or it would be much harder, which
is part of this conversation that we feel this way,
(03:28):
but I have. When I went to go get I
was just having a lot of trouble breathing, which asked
Samantha knows. I have a long problem and I have asthma.
Had asthma really badly at one point, and this doctor
(03:49):
I came in to get all these tests and at
the end of it, he said, like, it's hard to
get up and work out every now and then, isn't it.
And I was like a young, you know, self conscious,
in secure, fourteen or fifteen year old, and that just
that that cut me. That was bad. That left him
(04:09):
mark because I already felt like I was like chubby
and all of this like toxic stuff that he was
kind of reaffirming that that's all bad and that's on
you and it's your fault. And then it turns out
like I had a colon ambulance when I collapsed at
school because I couldn't breathe the minds went blue. So
and then one day we're going to do a Monday
(04:31):
mini on this because I really want to talk about it.
But I had a really, really, really bad experienced my
first time at a gynecologist, and he essentially like, looking back,
I'm really not sure what was going on here, but
he kind of like threatened to tell my dad that
I was basically sexually promiscuous or something which oh my god,
there's so much from pack there, but that it scared
(04:53):
me and it traumatized me um to this day. I
think about I think about it. Uh and again yeah,
I think it was fifteen fourteen or fifteen. So yes, Well,
with all of that in mind, and with all of
these ideas that we're planning on returning to in a
future episodes, please enjoy this classic episode. Welcome to Stuff
(05:17):
Mom Never Told You from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen.
There seems to be a lot of questions floating around
the Internet about women and their doctors, and I'm just
getting the impression generally that women feel that doctors don't
(05:40):
listen to them. I came across two big questions on
said internet regarding women and doctors. One is whether or
not male doctors come on to female patients and where
the ethical lines are. I did not investigate that one.
That's a whole other podcast, yes, and that we probably
(06:01):
will never record. And also whether or not doctors listen
to female patients. Right, there's a lot of interesting data
out there about um just gender interactions, both the gender
of the patient and how that affects the doctor patient relationship.
And and as you can imagine the gender of the physician,
(06:22):
and I, for one, have always thought out female doctors.
I feel more comfortable with a female gynecologist and a
female internist, my chiropractor, and my acupuncturist. I'm just going
to tell you everything about myself right now. Do you
want to know my blood type? I don't know it.
Oh god, we should figure that out. They're male, So
the people, the people who are like cracking my spine
(06:44):
and sticking needles and mirror are guys. But you know,
I just feel like if I'm going to be doing
talking about really personal things and getting medicine prescribed, I
just I feel more comfortable with a lady doctor. And
this question of the doctor female patient relationship has been
snowballing in our minds as we've been doing episodes on
(07:06):
underdiagnosed chronic conditions among women, such as wolvedenia, and it
also stood out in our podcast we did a while
ago on gender differences in anxiety because Taylor Clark over
its Slate pointed to the American Psychological Association's Stressed in
America survey in two thousand and eight, which found that
(07:29):
if a woman goes into a doctor's office uh and
complains of symptoms, they are more likely to be dismissed
as just the products of female stress, just the product
of being a woman, perhaps the change of life, yes,
the season's turning u. Whereas male symptoms, the same symptoms
(07:52):
presented by a male patient often taken more seriously. And
this is specifically in regard to cardiology, and we'll get
into that a little bit more. So, we decided to
look into whether or not that was true, whether or
not women are just complaining more loudly. Are we just
pickier about our doctors? Are we all hypochondriacs? What is happening? Yeah?
(08:17):
There was a May blog post by Nancy klemus On
on the Miss magazine blog and she posed the question
that we're going to get into about why don't doctors
listen to women? Or do doctors listen to women? And
she said, how do we dispel the age old myths
that women are emotional, overreactive, and generally unable to describe
(08:38):
their own medical conditions? What is up with doctors making
up their minds about us when we've uttered three words
about what we're suffering. And I believe Klemus also is
a medical doctor, So this is a doctor posing this
question about other doctors now across the board. Probably because
of the limited amount of time that doctors have have
(09:00):
to see patients in the exam room, there is some
mistrust that goes on between patients and physicians. There was
a two thousand eight column in The New York Times
by Tara Parker Pope who was citing a Johns Hopkins
study finding that about one in four patients, it's pretty high.
One in four patients feel that their physicians sometimes exposes
(09:22):
them to unnecessary risk, and she quotes a New York
doctor saying that nobody's talking to patients. Everyone is so rushed.
I don't think doctors are bad. People were just working
in a broken system. And on a side note, this
is coming from a report in the Wall Street Journal
from to two thousand and five, the time my doctor
(09:44):
spends with individual patients has actually increased from a whopping
eighteen minutes, which was high I thought, to twenty one
minutes um. As far as the environment that these doctors
are working in, Tara Parker Pope in her post says
that dealing with declining reimbursements and rising costs, doctors have
(10:07):
only a few minutes to spend with the patient, and
sometimes when I cut to the doctor, I feel like
it is literally just a few minutes. I mean, I'm
really surprised by that twenty one minute figure. Well, the
that's averaged out, and the writers suggest that it might
be that high number might be due to an aging
baby boomer population sort of skew the skew the curve
(10:28):
could be could be um. Some things that influenced the
trust issues between doctors and patients are news reports about
medical mistakes and drug industry influence. So the more you
hear about malpractice suits and you know, people leaving medical
instruments and someone's spleen after a surgery, maybe you're more
likely to worry. Yeah, And because a lot of adults
(10:49):
are very attuned to what could possibly be wrong. I
don't know about you, Caroline, but I have inadvertently diagnosed
myself with a tear will cancer symptoms? Checker have cancer?
It's it's pretty dangerous. This was according to a few
Internet Project survey uh sixtent of women and percent of
(11:13):
men will research what could be ailing them before the
even step foot in the doctor's office, right, And that's
actually sort of a maybe not a dangerous mistake to make.
But if you've done all this research because you're worried
about your help, that mean it makes sense. But if
you take all of that into your doctor and say, okay, look,
here's what this website says, this is what I have. Well,
(11:34):
even though your doctor is a very smart individual, he
or she might sort of follow you down that path
and think, Okay, you're right. And this actually I say this.
I say this because it happened to me. I actually
had it. It was a minor and a brief dermatological issue,
and I looked it up online and I was like, okay, good, well,
ay I'm not dying, and be this sounds like what
it is. So well, you know, I went to the dermatologist.
(11:55):
Wasn't my normal doctor. I went to a new one
because I couldn't it in anyway. So I go in
with all this information and they're looking at me, and
I'm thinking, okay, I'm not gonna say anything. I'm not
gonna say anything. I'm gonna let them decide what it is.
And finally, you know, they're poking at me. And stuff,
and I'm like, you know what, I think it's this
and they look and they're like, yeah, I hear some
(12:16):
Hydrocortisown cream go home. Well then it wouldn't go away.
I mean, you know, it was nothing bad, but it
kept like it just kind of hung around. And so
then I went into my my normal dermatology. She's like,
oh god, how long have you been using this Hydrocordisown
cream And I said, well, really not as much as
they told me too. She said, good, because that's not
what you have. And if you had used hydrocordisome cream
every day between thin and now, your skin might be
(12:38):
falling off. Oh my godness. So yeah, it is dangerous
to go in with your mind made up already. Well,
in addition to women possibly over educating themselves about what
could be going on compared two men, we're also more
likely to like, you did, take action and make that
appointment and go in. This is coming from the Centers
(13:01):
for Disease Control and Prevention. This is excluding pregnancy related visits.
Women are thirty three percent more likely than men to
visit a doctor. Now that starts to close with age,
as we all get old and we're all equally sickly UM,
but doctors see our faces more often, right, And according
(13:23):
to a meta analysis of data from nineteen sixty seven
to two thousand one. This appeared in the Journal of
American Medical Association. It found that visits with female doctors
last two minutes longer on average as far as gender goes,
so as far as women, women are in the doctor's
office more. But if you're seeing a woman doctor, you're
(13:44):
also going to be seeing her more, a little bit more,
a little bit more, twenty seconds more. I wonder if
two minutes makes that much of a difference, though, if
you have a question, yes it's a brief question, and
you mentioned that the pattern is slightly different for umb U,
I n's and this is true. It's interesting because all
these studies are saying that, you know, female patients go
(14:06):
to the doctor more, they spend more time at the doctor. Um.
Female physicians are more likely to spend more time with you.
But all of that is not the case for male O,
b G, I N. They actually demonstrate a higher level
of emotionally focused talk with their patients. But maybe that
has to do with them tailoring communication styles to their
(14:28):
patient population. Because studies have also demonstrated that female patients,
unsurprisingly UM tend to communicate more, want to do more
of the the whole person analysis how they're feeling um mentally, physically, emotionally, uh,
instead of just you know, be sticking more to what
(14:51):
is going on, what is my denvergure and my blood pressure?
Exactly like male robots. Yes, as you know, men talk
like robots. UM. The Journal of Patient Education and Counseling
in two thousand six published a study that found that
while men tend to be satisfied regardless of the doctor's
gender and communication style, US ladies are more particular and
(15:14):
we tend to be happiest with female doctors when those
doctors expressed great concern, empathy, and reassurance. And I mean
that makes sense to me. I want to know that
my doctor is listening to me and understands. I don't
I don't need her to be like, oh boo, don't worry,
but you know, I want to know she's listening and understands.
But actually the whole the whole thing flips on its ear.
(15:35):
And if those doctors were male, female patients were dissatisfied
with overt displays of caring. Ah, we can't be pleased.
They just can't. But it makes sense so that women
might be more particular about the kind of health care
they are receiving. Because we are spending more time in
doctor's offices, we're probably seeing more doctors. And again we
(15:59):
go in statistically, we go in armed with more knowledge.
So maybe we set the bar a little bit higher.
And this is not to say by any means that
male doctors are somehow not doing their job properly. They're
simply a communication difference. Because there was a journal I
don't know, Carolina, did you reference as the Journal of
(16:19):
Women's Health study from two thousand nine that found that
male physicians had a higher component to score, which was
understanding the whole person, which is really what it sounds
like more what female patients are interested in, right. It
seems like we want to get the whole picture, the
whole health picture laid out, And from this same study,
(16:42):
female physicians had a greater component one score, in other words,
exploring both the disease and illness experience. But I'm wondering
if maybe this big dissatisfaction has much less to do
with the gender of the physician that we're talking to,
because again, Um, I don't want to say that that
(17:02):
female or male physicians are one is superior to the other.
But maybe it's how women present their symptoms and whether
or not the word stress comes because a Cornell study
presented at the two thousand eight Cardiovascular Research Foundation found
(17:22):
that mentioning stress affects a doctor's perception of a woman's symptoms.
These researchers examined how doctor's reactions reacted to patient descriptions
of cardiovascular problems for male patients versus female patients, and
they concluded that quote the inclusion of a stressor precluded
(17:44):
doctors from making a coronary heart disease diagnosis in women,
but not in men. So there's something about women saying
stress that like sets off alarm bills in physicians brains says,
oh you know what, Uh, it's probably just your stress levels.
Here is something that will take care of that. Yeah,
(18:06):
here's an anti anxiety or an antidepressant. Right. Maybe that's why.
According to the CDC, the major classes of drugs doled
out to women are pain killers, antidepressants, and estrogena. Oh
hey interesting, Um, yeah, as far as as the mental
health and anxiety goes, I mean yeah, We did reference
that stuff in our anxiety podcast and it was interesting
(18:29):
to see how doctors perceive women so differently. But according
to the World Health Organization, doctors are more likely to
diagnose depression in women compared with men, which we've talked
about before, even when they have similar scores on standardized
measures of depression or present with identical symptoms. And this
is a quote, Uh, you know, you think about predictors
(18:50):
for for being diagnosed with the disease, you don't think
of your gender. I mean, I I don't know. It's
a female. Gender is a significant predictor of being prescribed
mood altering psychotropic drugs. So just being a lady, you're
more likely to get mood altering drugs. Women also tend
to seek more generalized medical assistance for mental health issues,
(19:13):
as again coming from the World Health Organization, compared to men,
who are a less likely to seek mental health but
when they do, they'll go more to specialists, right. And
and there's just there's something about gender stereotypes, not only
for women, not only doctors thinking oh, she's just hysterical, um,
but for men as well, and gender stereotypes regarding proneness
(19:36):
to emotional problems and women and alcohol problems and men
appear to reinforce social stigma and constrain help seeking along
stereotypical lines. That's also from the World Health Organization. So
these are barriers, I think too, to get in quality
care if you're if maybe if you assume something about
your own situation, or if your doctor just assumes something
(19:58):
because of your gender. And the fact matter is, uh,
you know, we're talking a lot about whether or not
women are satisfied with their patient care, but guys, you
you also are suffering from a healthcare gap as well.
Over the life term. Male healthcare costs far more than
women's because you're not investing as much in preventative care
(20:20):
and going to the doctor um as often as we are.
So it's kind of like, you know, maybe at some
point we need to meet in the middle where doctors
quit dismissing women's complaints is just the byproduct of everyday stress,
and men stopped going in when it's a situation, so
that doctors take your you know, symptoms far more seriously, right, Yeah,
(20:45):
go from more more checkups along the line instead of
waiting until it's just at the tipping point and as
far as identifying problems, especially mental health issues along gender lines. UM.
There was an interesting interview with doctor Jerome Groupman by NPR.
He read a book called How Doctor Stink after he
(21:05):
himself had a bad experience about trying to get something diagnosed,
and he went to several different doctors and um, finally,
I think it was the fifth doctor. Someone finally listened
to all of his symptoms and he got the right diagnosis.
But so he wrote this book called How Doctor Stink
after his experience, and he's talking about how doctors maybe
have errors in thinking. It's not that they're bad people,
(21:27):
it's that, uh, we use shortcuts. He says, most doctors
within the first eighteen seconds of seeing a patient will
interrupt him telling his story and also generate an idea
in his mind of what's wrong. So they're making this
snap judgment. And he calls it an anchoring mistake because
once you utter a couple of words about what you're experiencing,
what hurts, or what feels bad. Um, some doctors have
(21:49):
already made a decision about what you have based on
your gender, age, race, whatever, and they kind of stick
with it and maybe, uh use everything else you say
to confirm what they are pready believe. So as far
as having an idea of what someone is already suffering
from or not suffering from. UM. An interesting study from
(22:09):
the Cardiac and Vascular Institute at New York University Langhorne
Medical Center. This was published UH in September. UM. Anywhere
from forty to a hundred thousand women every year with
arteries that show up is clear on an angiogram suffer
from a heart attack. And thirty eight percent of the
time they have the kind of plaque that doesn't show
up on an angiogram. And so a lot of these
(22:31):
doctors are sending women home because they just do this
one test and they say, oh, you're fine, it's probably indigestion,
you know, here's here's a prole stack or whatever. Go home,
lie down, get some rest. But then when the woman
comes back and she's going, no, okay, for real, I'm
I'm having a heart attack. UM, that's when they realized
that something very serious is wrong and and women are symptoms.
(22:53):
And and this says, I feel common knowledge. I know
that women present very different symptoms when they're having a
heart attack in men. You UM, and that is something
that really needs to be taken into account. If a
woman is suffering from the same thing a man is,
she just might not present the same symptoms in the
same way. And so I think, um, if maybe if
we get more time with our doctors, if we go
(23:16):
to them with enough time in advance of any problems
we have, then maybe we could um be taken more
seriously and get these things diagnosed as far as and
I mean, instead of waiting until it's almost too late. Well,
and if the standard test for things like heart disease
and heart attack our tailored to what more commonly manifests
(23:37):
and meant, it would make sense that within that eighteen
second window that you mentioned from how the book How
Doctors Think, it would makes sense that you know, doctors
would conclude that yea or nay, this is or is
not going on. UM. So it sounds like there's room
for more nuanced in the exam room, but also before that,
(23:57):
taking more even in med school, training doctors to look
more closely for um, for for the gender differences. I
have never been to med school. People who have been
let me know if that is happy. I'm sure it's
happening a lot more than it used to because we've
talked about in the podcast before. How with for a
lot of prescription medications, for instance, it's only been in
(24:20):
recent years, in the past, like twenty years probably that
they have started using women in more test groups, whereas
everything was tailored to men because men are more stable
because they don't have menstrual cycles. And by stable, and
I'm not talking about like brain and mood stable, I
mean physiologically levels of hormones in their body fable. But
(24:45):
to cap things off, let us let us at least
verify that it is not just in our heads. Even
though women are going to the doctor more often than men.
A December two thousand elevens study published in the European
Journal of Public Health via the Public Health Agency of
Barcelona found that women did indeed report health problems more often,
(25:11):
but it's because we are actually suffering from a higher
rate of chronic disease, and the lead researcher says, these
results suggest that the poor self rated health of women
is a reflection of the higher burden of disease they suffer,
and it should be the findings should be offered up
as support that women are not just a bunch of
(25:32):
raving hypochondriacts and of speaking of hypochondria. According to the
National Institutes of Health, hypochondria presents itself equally among men
and women, especially with websites like web m d read.
All you have to do is click on that little
body and tell it what hurts. It's always cancer. There's
(25:52):
always You could scrape your knee and web MD symptom
checker would give you knee cancer. It's like some it's
always going to be cancer or a foot fungus. It's
something where you're like, how do you how do I
have prostate cancer? Would I'm I'm a woman, Come on, um.
But okay, so we we've we've come back around to
(26:14):
the whole self diagnosis thing, and I think we should
talk about some of the mistakes that we do make
when we go to the doctor's office. I already told
my long story about my hydrocortisome cream. We don't need
to revisit it. Um. But Dr Christine Northrop was quoted
in a two thousand eight CNN column by medical correspondent
(26:35):
Elizabeth Cohen and actor. Northrop said that women make a
huge mistake by feeling paralyzed and voiceless in a doctor's office.
Although I'm not sure how you can call and something
like that a mistake. If you feel paralyzed, you feel paralyzed.
But anyway, she says, you shouldn't feel paralyzed. And so
so she breaks down the five the five mistakes that
(26:56):
we make, and one is we don't question our doctors.
She compares it to a a child versus parent interaction
that we're just like, okay, whatever you say, you're smart.
So we're just passive sitting on the the exam table
waiting for the terrible prognosis of knee cancer. Exactly, you're
going to get letters from people with knee cancer. Um.
(27:18):
She suggests taking someone with you who will ask questions,
who who maybe isn't afraid to ask questions to the doctor,
or just ask the doctor to slow down and say, look,
I don't I didn't go to med school. Can you
please help me understand this? So that that's one idea,
And she also says that instead of just saying the facts,
we're offering interpretations which could lead the doctor down the
(27:39):
wrong path. In other words, what she's saying is you
go and prepared, know that you're going to have a
limited amount of time, and know what you want to
talk about if there are you know, three things specifically
that are happening, be ready to cut to the chase,
right and yeah, cutting to the chase, which is what
I should have done earlier with my store worry. Um.
(28:01):
She says that, you know, don't interpret your systems or
your symptoms in the doctor's office. Don't just state the facts,
state what you're suffering from. Don't say like, oh, well,
so then I was reading that maybe it could be
foot fungus. Um, just just let them let them exam,
you know, examine you. And I'm not gonna lie. I
am totally guilty of going into the doctor for something
(28:23):
and not wanting to reveal the fact that I had
done the research for fear of seeming like a crazy
internet hypochondriac. But so many of us are. I mean,
I think they know that. I mean, I think if
you're a doctor, you're an internist. Probably, I would say,
a huge chunk to be very specific, come in every
day just being like, well, I've read this on the internet.
(28:45):
It sounds like we just need more honesty in the
in the exam room and maybe several follow up appointments.
I'm going to prescribe our listeners more honesty and gumption
next time they go to the doctor. Put that on
a pillow. Um. And one one major issue that she
points out is that we don't as women, we don't
recognize gender bias. Apparently. She says that our issues are
(29:08):
more likely to be interpreted as emotional issues or complaining
like we've touched on and uh. Dr Nissa Goldberg, author
of the wonderfully titled Women Are Not Small Men. Um,
thank you Dr Goldberg. She says, you don't want to
go to a doctor who says, now, honey, it's not
all that bad, which is true. I mean you want
(29:29):
to If you're taking the time to go to the doctor,
you're probably taking off work or school or whatever. You
want to be taken seriously, so listen to us. And
we're not small men, right, Like you said, we have
menstrual cycles. So we've been addressing a lot from the
patient end of things. What I'm also interested in two things.
A for people working in the medical field out there,
(29:52):
how do you I mean doctors and nurse practitioners and
everybody else cannot be blind to this communication barrier between
patients and the physician. So I'm wondering whether or not
this is something that is talked about, whether or not
it's something that is kind of dismissed. If you if
you have those certain patients who it's like, well they
(30:16):
stop talking about my mother, get ready for a bunch
of complaining um or you know how how you how
you manage that UM and also men out there doesn't
are are women just complaining more? Or is there a
similar disconnect between what you need when you go into
(30:37):
the doctor and the kind of care that you are
or are not getting. Is this something that we're all experiencing,
because I feel like the um, the issues that we're
talking about have as much to do with with patient
interaction as it does with how doctors are responding. And
I want to hear from from women. I know we've
heard from a couple already when we did our Volvetenia
(30:57):
podcast about what symptoms have you had? What what health is?
She said you had that doctors have dismissed and that
you found out later it was actually something serious. So
we just asked for so much from everyone. But but really,
I'm I'm very curious to hear from folks. Mom stuff
at Discovery dot com is the address? Okay, I have
(31:22):
a letter from Christina Um. She says, has anyone ever
told you this? Before? The movie? Whip It encompasses at
least six elements from stuff Mom never told you episodes.
Let me explain. First the Roller Derby Show obviously what
the movie was about, slightly mentioned. Second, the Women of
the Oscar Show. This movie was not up for an
Oscar as far as I know, but in mentioning general
(31:43):
female directors, Drew Barrymore directed and start in it. Third
is Miss America relevant that show? Ellen Page's character Bliss
was being pressured by her mother to be a part
of a beauty pageant show for feminism, as mentioned in
most shows, Bliss lived happily ever after without Oliver, the
cheating boyfriend decided not to buy his crap about a
girl in a picture wearing a striper shirt she discovered
(32:06):
on his band web page. Also, be your Own Hero
was a catchy, empowering quote. Fifth, Bullying Show Maven Juliette
Lewis's character was bullying Bliss, but earned her respect at
the end. Sixth The Girl Scouts show. Herl Scouts was
the team name that Bliss played on. Isn't this strange?
Or is this someone's favorite movie. The movie was cool,
but I love your show and wanted to point this out.
(32:28):
So that's something I've never thought about. And I wrote
back to tell her that I have never seen Whippett,
but now obviously it's really cute. It's really cute, and
I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't
seen it. Kristin your mooths, But the part where you
mentioned Christina the whole like living without Oliver the Boyfriend.
I love that theme. That's my favorite. I have no
(32:51):
idea what you're talking about, So I'm going to talk
about grammar. Just from Mary Ellen. She has a piece
sheet in linguistics and is writing in response to m
A Girl, and she took some issue to some of
the things she writes. When answering the question about whether
men or women pay more attention to grammar. Grammar Girl
mentions that older women tend to be bigger sticklers for
(33:11):
grammar because all of the teachers way back when we're women.
While this might be true, it's only part of the story.
At least in Western culture, language has been a vehicle
of upward mobility for women. Think, my fair lady, if
women speak properly, they can have white collar jobs such
as teachers and secretaries and move out of the lower class. Men,
(33:31):
on the other hand, benefit from speaking the vernacular and
are mocked if they speak too proper, which brings to
mind this the whole kind of elitism argument that crops
up often in political seasons as we are in. Finally,
I want to comment on if you Will. I disagree
with grammar girl. I don't think that it undercuts what
you are saying. What if you Will does is ask
(33:53):
your audience permission to use a word or phrase that
you're acknowledging as inadequate but best fits because you can't
think of a better word. I think it's a useful
phrase and don't see any reason that you shouldn't use it,
you know what. Mary Ellen is one of many who
has written in too in support of if you Will.
But I don't know. I don't I don't know if
I can do it. I feel like I've trained myself
(34:15):
to weed it out so thoroughly as you wish, that
as you wish will be the only thing that will
suffice if you will, So, if you have any questions
to send our way, Mom stuff at Discovery dot com
is the email address. Facebook dot com, slash stuff Mo've
Never Told You is the surprise Facebook place to go,
(34:35):
and then at mom Stuff Podcast is how you can
reach us on Twitter and of course if you want
to find us During the week, we are over at
how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works iPhone app
(34:59):
has a right delmot it today on iTunes, brought to
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com