How Doctors Take Women’s Pain Less Seriously: this article details an emergency room visit in which a cursory check and dismissal of pain had potentially life-threatening outcomes.
Following a recent mystery illness and sharing my story on social media I’d received countless of DMs and replies of other women who have been in these shoes. I was torn — I felt comforted by the stories of other folks who had gone through this and shared their tips for self-advocating through it. I was also heartbroken that my experience wasn’t a random bad luck draw and that women’s pain quite often.
The story doesn’t end here. A variety of other biases (e.g., including race) influence how seriously reports of pain and illness are taken.
This is the tip of the iceberg — what other inequities are there in healthcare? What is being done to address this gap in providing quality healthcare?