She said she was in pain, I was there to listen

As a medical student, had my Gyneacology and Obstetrics rotation last throughout last year. It was an eye-opening experience. I saw, firsthand, the issues women faced and actively participated in care for women and learnt a lot. Sadly, I saw a lot of cases of medical misogyny. Medical misogyny is the quiet, often invisible bias in healthcare that causes women's pain to be dismissed, their symptoms to be doubted, and their diagnoses to be delayed-simply because they are women.

One case that stuck out to me was one day when a patient came to have her stitches removed. The site of the wound was a little inflamed, so the woman was in pain. The consulting doctor went to remove the stitch, and woman was clearly in pains and was finding it difficult to stay still. The doctor strongly told her to stay still but she was still moving in pain. The doctor impatiently walked away from the patient. I immediately intervened, I went to her bedside, held her hands and calmed her down. After a few minutes she had calmed down, then I calmly explained why she needed the doctor to remove the stitches. Then I went and explained to the doctor that she was ready. He came back to take the stitches off. Through the process I held her hand and kept telling her sorry and encouraged her to endure. This helped her endure and get through the process and receive the care she needed at that point. Throughout the rest of the visit, she ran everything the doctor by me and thanked me before she left. That is how I, a student, intervened. I felt so happy and fulfilled in that moment because I made sure that woman did not have a negative health care experience that day.

The doctor in question was not a bad doctor but had the was part of a much larger issue. Medical misogyny is something that happens worldwide, this is not an isolated event. Women's symptoms are either outright ignored, delayed diagnosis due to women's pain not being taken seriously seen in diseases like endometriosis and some autoimmune diseases. Women's pain is easily and often labelled as anxiety or hormonal. This has it's origins as far back as ancient Egypt when women were diagnosed with "hysteria". It was used by Greek, Roman, and Western doctors until the late 19th century.

Now we might wonder why this medical misogyny exists and I will share some theories. The first theory is the historical bias as medicine has been a male dominated field, and, therefore, most studies were male-centered and relegating issues that affected women to the side. Another thing contributes to this is the harmful stereotype that women are emotional and cannot communicate their feelings due to this. This is a very harmful stereotype as it downplays and totally ignores the experience of the women. This leads to symptoms that are specific to women to be ignored, and the women were told straight up that the symptoms are just in their heads. In my country like mine, Nigeria, this bias is very strong as the society is still predominantly patriarchal. Most women are financially dependent on a male figure- husband, father or other male family leaders- so they have to prove to these men in their lives that they need help before medical care is even sought. This is one of the strong contributors to the very high maternal mortality rate in Nigeria (993 deaths per 100,000 live births).

The consequence of medical misogyny is too much to be ignored. First of all, we have the physical consequences which include missed diagnosis, delayed diagnosis. These leads to major complications which cause things like pain, deformities and even death in some cases. There are very painful, long lasting emotional repercussion. These women feel dismissed, they begin to doubt themselves, they do not report and symptoms they feel because they have learnt to doubt things their bodies are telling them. Eventually these women completely lose trust in the healthcare system which snowballs into horrible things like self-medication, turning to the wrong people for help and that comes with a whole lot of issues. In one of my community medicine postings we spoke to women who have had children and we found out that some of them do not trust the hospitals because they felt that their symptoms were completely ignored in the hospital. In fact, one of the women said she would not have her next child in the hospital because of this.

As a student seeing these things these experiences have really shaped my view of the medical profession. I have realised that one bad experience can literally mean either recovery or worsening of condition for the women. I believe that every woman should be treated with dignity and her concerns listened to with utmost respect. Her worries may not be real, but this must be communicated with understanding and respect.

This is why we need more representation for women in healthcare; there should be more research into issues that affect women and medicine made by women for women should be encouraged. This one of the reasons I want speak up about these issue and advocate for a better healthcare for women. This bias should be taught and talked about so that it can be dealt with and fixed.

In conclusion, women do not need to be believed more- they need to be doubted less.

#GivetoGain