The F-word discussion

June's non-fiction group selection is Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick by Maya Dusenbery.

In this shocking, hard-hitting expose in the tradition of Naomi Klein and Barbara Ehrenreich, the editorial director of Feministing.com, reveals how gender bias infects every level of medicine and healthcare today—leading to inadequate, inappropriate, and even dangerous treatment that threatens women’s lives and well-being.

Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with experts within and outside the medical establishment, and personal stories from regular women to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today. In addition to offering a clear-eyed explanation of the root causes of this insidious and entrenched bias and laying out its effects, she suggests concrete steps we can take to cure

I know some of us (yes, I mean me) may still be working through our May read, Anna Kerenina, and as always, all of our monthly book threads remain open for discussion - but June's thread is open for business.

Who is planning on reading this? Who has read this? What are some initial thoughts going in? (For example I'm really intrigued by the social and scientific combination, but I'm also reading the title and hoping that it is not rage inducing but I have a feeling it's going to induce rage)

I started reading a few days ago and am already 2/3 in- so I was captivated quickly. So far my impression is that she did a great job in weaving together descriptions of the various levels that implicit biases and plain prejudices have worked together to shape medicine and medical research at various levels to the present day. Somehow this shifting of perspectives sometimes leaves me dissatisfied with the feeling that important detail is missing, but then she's attempting to cover a lot if ground in just about 300 pages. on the other hand, certain motifs so to say reappear again and again; leaving a frustrating feeling of repetitiveness- which is exactly the point, I guess. On the topics that fall into my personal research interests, I sometimes felt the urge to respond to some sentence or the other, but then of course scientific detail is not what this book is supposed to supply. Most strikingly so far I'm bewildered at how the US health care works (or rather doesn't). That's definitely a topic I should catch up on. My personal experience in getting diagnosed with a 'neglected' disease myself did not match what maya dusenberry describes here- but mandatory and ~affordable health insurance, plus overall privileged situation seem to have worked to my advantage.

oh and I feel that 'lazy science' in the subtitle doesn't quite fit- I'd rather suggest 'self-righteous'.

Well, this is hitting very close to home. I'm right in the middle of getting diagnosed with a disease that effects more women than men that was misdiagnosed over five years ago and in the process found out that I have a condition that I should have been treated for as a child. The conveniently timed validation is nice, but I'm only 8% in and already have heartburn.

Vanessa wrote: "Well, this is hitting very close to home. I'm right in the middle of getting diagnosed with a disease that effects more women than men that was misdiagnosed over five years ago and in the process f..."

This is exactly what i'm scared of. But my library copy is finally in so I'll grab some tums and join you

I don't know if I can handle it. The intro was nearly the death of me. Part 1 was more of the intro. I'm... aghast. How does the medical community go ahead with a study on breast cancer that involves zero female subjects? How does 45 percent of a group have a different result and it gets dismissed and not investigated? At this point isn't this level of indifference on the effects of a widely prescribed drug or medical practice on women a legally negligible act??

Exposé is such a key descriptor for this book. I feel enraged and frightened for myself and all women. Like, it's tabloid level reactionary.

In Part 2, learning about auto-immune disease and the actual symptoms of heart attack for women has been enlightening. I'm hoping the lack of knowledge about auto-immune diseases has been thoroughly addressed by the medical community by this point and that it is a growing field of study and academia. I hope. Just like I hope women in medical fields is a growing demographic. I feel like this is a good combat to said issues.
Reading the first-hand accounts has also been interesting. But reading again and again about doctors not listening to women or dismissing their pain symptoms and chalking everything up to hysteria or nerves or stress or depression has just angered and annoyed me again and again. It's really quite enraging just to read about it, but to have it explicitly pointed out in multiple sections and chapters seems sadistic.

I'm finding it a bit redundant - possibly because I try so hard to remove negative, inciteful media from my life and I feel like this is exactly that. It's very good but could do with a good edit, imo, to make it more scholarly and less inciteful

As someone with an autoimmune disorder I can say the medical field is still lacking. The best thing that has saved me is finding the two doctors who truly listen to me (primary care physician and dndocrinologist). Wasn't easy and I know too many people still struggling to find the medical support that is a) knowledgeable (and not just arrogant) and b) willing fo listen, especially to female and geriatric patients.

That being said, i really want to read this book but was out of the country most of the month. Will request from library (once I return my overdue items, whoops) and jump in the convo when I can.

I ended up taking a break to read some less intense stuff for a few days before coming back to this. It is a lot of angering information to take in at once. I also went to the ER for an injury and got to live the book for a few hours, which really made the break feel very urgently necessary. Even though I am really glad that I read it and feel like I learned a lot, I don't know that I would have made it through it without Lizzo on repeat, sparkling water, and the privacy to burp as much as was necessary.

I hope this book leaves a lot of people with to-do lists. I am involved in some mental health organizations, and I'm definitely going to be using what I learned reading this and spreading the information in my community.

One thing that I really liked about the book is that it was very consistently not judgemental about people doing what they needed to do. I think I would have felt the same reading this whenever I had given up on getting medical treatment as I did now when I've been making some progress. It seems like it would have been tempting to include unhelpful recommendations for how women should behave when getting medical care to contradict the message that a lot of this is out of an individual's hands. That book would likely also sell more copies but it wouldn't be the right thing to do.

Vanessa wrote: "I ended up taking a break to read some less intense stuff for a few days before coming back to this. It is a lot of angering information to take in at once. I also went to the ER for an injury and ..."

Yes, I agree with so much in your comment. I needed to break up the reading. The frustration at living these experiences. However I was also able to have a long talk with my bestie who is going through her own diagnostic ordeal spanning years. There is definitely plenty to take from this book, even if it is an angering read in content. Another one I probably would not have read without the group, and another one I am glad to have read and learned from.