Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
by Maya Dusenbery - March 6, 2018
$19.03 Hardcover, other forms available and you can "Look Inside Book" at link.
Looking inside the book, many references to lyme and chronic lyme and from what I can tell she understands that it exists and questions doctors who say it does not.
At least on Amazon review said the chapter on ME/CFS and lyme was good. Not sure how truly "lyme literate" she may be but it seems this book shines a light on lyme dismissal by doctors.
NPR - FRESH AIR radio interview with Terry Gross - March 27, 2018
How 'Bad Medicine' Dismisses And Misdiagnoses Women's Symptoms
approx 20 minutes, audio & full article. Key points here not to miss.
at about 14: into the audio interview discussion about "contested diseases" such as fibromyalgia, chemical sensitivities, chronic lyme, etc.
The article differs from interview, though there is also a link to a transcript to read.
Scroll down to article end about women feeling the need to take a male relative to appointments to give them credibility. This can help but it also can backfire and greatly undermines the respect of women's own accounts.
Important and timely. Dusenbery has hit the nail on the head with this book. I highlighted so many passages.
She reveals how -- at almost every turn -- women are rendered dismissed, ignored and invisible by the medical system. [by Alex Strick van Linschoten, March 12]
&
Wow! Every woman should read this book. This author has done her homework, and recounts the discrimination and negligence on the part of both medical researchers and practitioners when it comes to illnesses that affect mostly women.
Although parts of this book made me downright angry, it was a fascinating read.
Ms. Dusenbery also gives women the tools to counteract this phenomenon in order that future generations of women won’t fall under the “hysteria” umbrella. [by Terri Ehrlich, March 24]
A sturdy account of how sexism in medicine is hobbling women’s health care.
. . . editorial director and lifelong athlete Dusenbery was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, she began an analysis of medical science’s lack of understanding of autoimmune diseases.
. . . Within an organized, well-balanced combination of scientific and social research and moving personal stories, Dusenbery makes a convincing case for the need for drastic industry reform and clinical refinement. . . .
. . . A final clipped section on solutions, unfortunately, feels insufficient and begs for pages of elaboration.
An intensive, timely spotlight on the gender disparities within the modern health care system that falls short on solutions.
[My thoughts, I think those last two lines are outrageously unfair. She's highlighted the problem & brought it out of the shadows - but the reviewer expects her to fix it all alone, overnight?
. as to some solutions, I would say add naturopathic doctors to all hospitals, clinics, etc. -- better yet, in very clinic: LLMDs and LL NDs . . . end of my comment] -
[ 03-27-2018, 06:46 PM: Message edited by: Keebler ]
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Keebler
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- "Required reading" as well, so that we can better understand the very system that we are asking / hoping / praying for answers & solutions . . . but why we might be going about it all wrong -- so very wrong in so many ways.
We have to better understand how they see their work, not just how we want them to see it. We have to know HOW DOCTORS THINK or we are just dead in the water.
How we might like them to think, act, learn, etc. sure is another part of this - how to get good medical care that works for us (and why I so strongly suggest instead availing ourselves of naturopathic medicine for so many of our medical needs.]
"DIFFICULT PATIENTS" - "code" to basically "ignore a patient from now on - for all of time."
You need to know if this is written on the inside front flap of your medical chart to follow you from one doctor to the next (or, gulp, now on your medical computer file).
& HOW DOCTORS THINK -
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Keebler
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- Re: Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
by Maya Dusenbery
I just received this book & have scanned it for a couple hours.. Oh, my. It is such a good account, explanation, verification of so many of my own experiences with inadequate doctors. . . I'm at a loss for words.
Maybe another day - after further reading - I can write more.
Important for everyone to read this. Libraries might carry it. -
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-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96222 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
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Keebler
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- Separating out just the reality that symptoms reported by girls, teens, young, middle-aged and older women are often dismissed by doctors . . . this book fulfills its duty of correctly reporting that medical dismissal from the roads I've traveled.
That even in trials of assessing disease and treatment, women are also often just left out . . . well, this does not surprise me yet is still shocking that she really did find what I wondered all along.
Was it just me who was dismissed or was there actually some "code" among doctors to just dismiss all complaints of vertigo, fatigue, by females. Starting in college with mono, I complained that I was just so dizzy all the time, even months later . . . a doctor actually said "well, aren't all blondes dizzy?"
that put me in my place and taught me no help would be found there and to just shut up.
This author managed to do the research to validate my hunch.
While I've still mostly skimmed large sections, the parts that concern lyme are well done. MCS, here, too.
I did find it both validated so much (and she is very informed) yet at that same time wish she had elaborated more on what a LLMD really is (other than self-determined and just treated longer with antibiotics).
There was no mention of ILADS yet it was very clear that lyme / tick borne disease is most often ignored in the medical field.
LL journalist, Pamela Weintraub got two mentions and some phrases included - that's good. She's the author of "Cure Unknown . . . . ".
But that is not what this book is about. Problems with accessing Lyme care is featured here and, 99% accurately yet I have to remember that it's not the full point of the book.
It covers so much more, rightfully so. And I was amazed at how many of the same dismissive phrases I'd heard over decades were the same as others heard, too.
I think some of the doctors actually picked up key phrases in medical school or conferences. It was part of their plan, this dismissal. Still is.
Readers will have to go elsewhere for more lyme / TBD detail. As well they should. But this does shine an introductory light on many complex "contested" illnesses.
For what she set out to do with this book, she has succeeded.
the interview below examines it much better than I. -
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Keebler
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- So, now what? How does this change? Discussed in interview below. But it's dim. The medical college coursework, well, uh. she says it better.
There were so many excerpts and key points that I wanted to point out but they just took over my work page and energy tanked. It's all worth reading.
Please take your time to read this entire conversation. It's superb in many ways. Share it. Then please call your library and ask them to put this book in their system.
I'd like for hospital patient libraries to also get it into their lending libraries. That might take it being donated and quietly taken in on either a very busy or very slow day where the clerk at the desk is distracted, eh?
“You Need to Calm Down” and Other Degrading B.S. Women Hear from Doctors
A new book exposes how women still can’t get equal medical care.
By Kate Harloe - Mother Jones - March 30, 2018
Conversation with author Maya Dusenbery about her new book,
Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
[link for book in first post above] -
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Keebler
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- This book and her conversations about her research, too,
emphasizes for me & I urge for others
the absolute need for anyone going to any doctor to research the doctor not just in terms of if they actually have the training, skill, knowledge (and desire to find out more if need be) for the full assessment / comprehensive treatment you need be it for lyme / TBD, inner ear, or other --
but also if they are biased in any way. In any way. This matters.
Support groups (of various kinds) can be a place to begin to find the really true doctors. Just a start.
Those with lyme / TBD have had a long head start figuring this out. But, when searching for a new doctor for a particular non-lyme issue -- or even returning to others -- this question of bias needs to be at the top of the homework list.
Even if a particular doctor is not bias about something about you . . . if they suggest a certain treatment or Rx, go deeper as to how that's been assessed on patients in your demographic categories. -
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Keebler
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- Not just for "new moms" but for all - in how medical staff too often ignore patients' own level of knowledge.
The lesson new moms should learn from Serena Williams’s scary childbirth experience
The tennis star had to fight to be heard by medical staff when she had complications. Other new mothers are not as empowered and can fall through the cracks.
By Darlena Cunha - The Washington Post - January 12, 2018 -
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randibear
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when I was younger I heard "fat, female, forty"....now it's "senior, sixties, fat, female"
sick of it.
it's not always a bad marriage, family, depression, etc., we are legitimately ill. lyme exists...
nice to see someone admit we have problems and it's not us.
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map1131
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Since I've entered the Thyroid world, I've seen references to how doctors have mistreated women with pains/fatigue/weight gain complaints that should have lead the educated doctor to a serious look at her Thyroid hormones.
Women are the majority with Thyroid disease. Some of these cases women were crippled due to doctors failing to help these women.
It is truly a crime against humanity that women are treated like this.
BTW, Thyroid world is as crazy as Lyme world trying to find a doctor that wants to help the patient and has any intelligence about Thyroid Disease.
I will look for this book.
Pam
-------------------- "Never, never, never, never, never give up" Winston Churchill Posts: 6478 | From Louisville, Ky | Registered: Jan 2002
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Keebler
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The Hidden Ways Your Gender Affects Your Healthcare
Women are more likely to wait longer for a health diagnosis and to be told it’s ‘all in their heads’. That can be lethal: diagnostic errors cause 40,000-80,000 deaths in the US alone.
by Maya Dusenbery - BBC - 23 May 2018
Excerpt:
. . . Studies in the 1990s suggested that as many as 30-50% of women diagnosed with depression were misdiagnosed. Furthermore, depression and anxiety are themselves symptoms of other diseases . . . .
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