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A review by celenabean
Doing Harm: The Truth about How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick by Maya Dusenbery
4.0
Honestly, don't read this book if you're not willing to feel really frustrated.
That said, I think this book did a very thorough job of looking at how the medical world still has ways to go in how it researches and treats illnesses in women.
I will note that when this book says "women" the focus is really on cis women, however I will give the author credit that she does apologize for that in her introduction and does make note (albeit quickly) of the problems that trans women face when dealing with doctors about illness.
Outside of that, I think that this book does look at the issue through the lens of intersectionality, and discusses how women of colour, specifically black women, have to deal with racial stereotyping from doctors in addition to the gendered stereotyping. It talks about how doctor's treat thin women as though nothing is wrong with them because they "look healthy" and how fat women are told that anything wrong with them can be fixed with "just losing weight."
This book also deep dives into various illnesses that predominantly appear in women and how little doctor's will properly diagnose or treat these illnesses.And I found myself being able to think of people in my own life who have had some of these illnesses and have struggled to be diagnosed and it makes me see those moments in a much clearer (angrier) light.
Basically, this book gives anecdotal as well as statistical proof that doctors need to step it the fuck up.
That said, I think this book did a very thorough job of looking at how the medical world still has ways to go in how it researches and treats illnesses in women.
I will note that when this book says "women" the focus is really on cis women, however I will give the author credit that she does apologize for that in her introduction and does make note (albeit quickly) of the problems that trans women face when dealing with doctors about illness.
Outside of that, I think that this book does look at the issue through the lens of intersectionality, and discusses how women of colour, specifically black women, have to deal with racial stereotyping from doctors in addition to the gendered stereotyping. It talks about how doctor's treat thin women as though nothing is wrong with them because they "look healthy" and how fat women are told that anything wrong with them can be fixed with "just losing weight."
This book also deep dives into various illnesses that predominantly appear in women and how little doctor's will properly diagnose or treat these illnesses.And I found myself being able to think of people in my own life who have had some of these illnesses and have struggled to be diagnosed and it makes me see those moments in a much clearer (angrier) light.
Basically, this book gives anecdotal as well as statistical proof that doctors need to step it the fuck up.