Kimberly, what you are talking about is an outcome — women treated less seriously than men. Due to the biases that doctors have. Never argued with that.

My guess was related to where these biases stem from. What are the root causes. Heart attacks — ok, Hollywood may be one of them.

What about the rest?

P.S. Also it is worth to remember that doctors as all other humans would tend to remember events that are emotionally charged and out of ordinary. For example, after getting a few women patients who are very emotional about minor issues they might form a predisposition to disregard problems of women as less serious. While due to our cultural environment it is less likely for them to meet the same number of men with the same degree of emotionality.

I’m not dismissing the problem. I believe that biases are natural, normal thing which will be present always. What needs to be done is not try to fight them, but to design a system so it would work well even in the case of biased treatment.