Thread by @LeaMerone

This #InternationalWomensDay I’d like to remind my doctor colleagues that medicine has an androcentric history that may impact upon women patients. That woman isn’t « difficult », she’s under-researched and we know less (and even less has been translated to practice). 🧵

We can do Better. Women are also represented less in medical and anatomical textbooks. Here are some papers for further information.
Androcentricity in medicine:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

Misogyny in medical research:

croakey.org/the-unattracti…

Sex and gender gaps in the medical literature

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35136877/

Women wait longer for pain relief and get less of in emergencies

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18439195/

Do mad women get endometriosis or does endometriosis make you mad? Difficult women:

scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&…

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22985951/ (retracted) do attractive women get more severe endometriosis?

Why is gender bias in research important? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01…

Gender bias in clinical images affects students implicit biases ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/3656/

Gender bias is observed in medical textbooks (is this linked to the bias and gap in research? We obtain our medical education from an already biased foundation and institution) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18761614/

ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/3143/ gender bias is also seen in clinical anatomy textbooks, contributing to gender and sex stereotyping and making female bodies « other » from the male norm ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/3143/

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7933371/

Womens heart disease remains under recognised scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&…

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P… And Is a « diagnostic challenge » (? Because of less research?)

Sex hormones may impact on irritable bowel syndrome scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&…

Male sex hormones may be protective against ibs pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11007231/

There are sex and gender differences and gaps in kidney disease pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27252402/

These papers are a tiny sample of what I’ve encountered in my #phd #research examining androcentricity in medicine and medical research and the potential impacts it has on the experiences of female patients. There are entire textbooks on gender medicine yet it is neglected —>

In medical education. Women suffer from more « medically unexplained » conditions such as #fibromyalgia, or #MECFS - perhaps the reason is these conditions are underfunded, under researched (like women) and therefore remain a mystery when an answer is there waiting to be found?

There is a gap regardless and we need to do more to close it. We need to have difficult discussions as medics, we need to acknowledge and address our own biases (Inc internalised misogyny and YES I have it too!), we need to research women more, we need to analyse results by sex-

And currently that is only done in around 10% of clinical research. We need to #believewomen when they tell us their symptoms, believe their pain, acknowledge Yentl syndrome (a woman has to prove herself as sick as a man to be taken seriously). Advocate. Learn. There is much to -

Do. Let’s make a start this #InternationalWomensDay #IWD2022 #iwd #WomensDay #womenshealth #WomenInSTEM #WomenSupportingWomen #MedTwitter

Also a note on #MECFS - lots of research emerging on a physiological neuro immune cause!! Heed it. Esp with #longcovid increasing