# four mistakes doctors make with women

Category: Health and Wellness

## Post 1 by Damia (I'm oppinionated deal with it.) on Sunday, 06-Apr-2008 10:09:10

I got this from a mailing list, and found it useful. I hope others of you do as well.
4 Biggest Mistakes Doctors Make (With Women)
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“We want to do the best we can, and we’re terrified of making a misdiagnosis, but we’re not perfect,” Groopman says. (Harvard Medical School professor Jerome
Groopman, MD, author of the sobering and candid 'How Doctors Think') Add to that the fact that many docs have heavy caseloads and get only minutes per
patient, and you have a common recipe for medical mistakes.
What can you do to prevent a misdiagnosis and get the attention and treatment you need? First, learn the four common mental traps that doctors fall into—and
then use these tricks to help your own doctor steer clear of them.
1. The doc stereotypes you
When doctors hastily decide they know your type—and therefore your typical health woes—serious problems may go undetected. “All physicians are prone to
stereotyping, and it often occurs literally within a few seconds of seeing someone,” Groopman says.
Take Ellen Barnett, whose complaints were dismissed as garden-variety hot flashes by no less than five doctors. They missed a rare endocrine tumor that
might have led to kidney failure or other serious issues. It was discovered only after Barnett finally urged a new doctor to think of her as something
more than a high-strung menopausal woman.
Doctors who see a lot of patients in the same category (middle-aged women, for example) may miss uncommon problems. That doesn’t mean you should avoid a
women’s-health specialist, says Marianne Legato, MD, founder and director of the Partnership for Women’s Health at Columbia University and Health Advisory
Board member: “She might be more receptive to complaints, particularly if women patients have unusual reactions to medications.” It does mean that whatever
your doc’s specialty or gender, he or she should be talking and listening to you—not Anxious Patient No. 536.
What you can do: Say, “I know something has changed for me, and I want you to think about my symptoms in as open a way as possible.” That will remind your
doctor to explore how you might be different from other patients instead of leaning on superficial stereotypes.
2. The doc assumes you’ve got that “bug” that’s going around
“If you’ve seen the 20th person with flu, the odds are that the 21st has the flu, too” Groopman says. After all, we call them flu and allergy seasons for
a reason. But if the usual remedies don’t make you feel better soon, your doctor should perform another physical exam, recheck your medical history, and
consider ordering blood work or other tests to go beyond the first obvious diagnosis.
What you can do: Ask, “What else could it be?” This is the best way to broaden your doc’s thinking during follow-ups if the usual treatments don’t work,
Groopman says. Convinced the bowel rumblings your doc’s chalking up to a virus are a sign of colitis or something serious? Say exactly which diseases you’re
worried about, he says: “A thoughtful doctor listens closely to a patient’s worries and may be prompted to ask more probing questions.”
3. The doc wants to get you in and out fast
Office visits typically max out at 17 minutes. Docs walk into the examining room with chart in hand, mental wheels turning, perhaps a diagnosis in mind.
But the most alarming statistic is this: On average, doctors interrupt patients 18 seconds into their description of what’s wrong, according to one study.
No wonder the first symptoms mentioned are sometimes the only ones docs actually hear.
“If you’re not able to tell your whole story, the doctor can’t think broadly and consider everything,” Groopman says. If you’re first told, “We see this
sometimes,” in lieu of a clear diagnosis, that’s another red flag that the doctor’s thinking may be rushed.
What you can do: If you feel hurried or don’t understand what the doc’s telling you, say so. You also might offer to tell your story again during a later
visit. Another trick: Try a female doc. Studies show women do a better job of encouraging patients to talk, and their visits are 10 percent longer on average,
says Debra Roter, a doctor of public health and professor at Johns Hopkins.
4. Your doc dislikes you—or likes you too much
Doctors try to set aside their likes and dislikes when dealing with patients. But MDs are no different from the rest of us: They enjoy some people and are
turned off by others. It’s human nature and it can be dangerous. “Our minds snap off, based on emotion,” Groopman says. That’s what happened when he himself
misdiagnosed a patient who had a fatal tear in her aorta. He’d found her annoying, partly because her voice reminded him of “nails scratching a blackboard.”
On the other hand, Groopman says, he once nearly lost a favorite young patient to septic shock because he wanted to spare the boy a rectal exam. “The second
your doctor tries to be both your friend and your treating physician, it’s a problem,” says Tracy Gaudet, MD, executive director of Duke Integrative Medicine
at Duke University.
What you can do:
If you think the doc’s negative attitude is getting in the way, explain that you don’t feel the two of you are connecting (or communicating) . “That should
cue the doctor to pause and take his or her emotional temperature,” Groopman says.
If you fear that kindness is getting in the way of care, bring your spouse or a close friend along to change the dynamic in the room, help you stick to
the subject, or ask tough questions. Or simply say that you really appreciate the warmth, but you don’t want her to get distracted from doing her job—icky
probes, tests, and all.

## Post 2 by Thom3of5 (Do the Doo.) on Monday, 07-Apr-2008 10:22:54

Candy,
You are so awesome to bring these subjects to light. When you get a guy reading about menstral cups and topics like this, you're doing something right. grins.
Keep it up.
Hugs
Thom

## Post 3 by OrangeDolphinSpirit (Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how popular it remains?) on Monday, 21-Apr-2008 20:42:26

Hey, I never thought of this stuff, but it's true. Glad you posted it.
-- Allie

## Post 4 by mysticrain (Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.) on Saturday, 26-Apr-2008 5:33:28

Very true. I just went to a doctor and number three is so true. I wasn't able to tell her all the symptoms, and left feeling unsettled.
Thanks for posting this.

## Post 5 by Shadow_Cat (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Friday, 20-Jun-2008 19:19:48

Hi, all. This was an interesting and informative post, but the tag line is a little misleading. This message is about mistakes doctors make with all kinds of patients, not just women.

## Post 6 by Nicky (And I aprove this message.) on Wednesday, 10-Sep-2008 23:15:19

I just whent to the er not to long ago, I have a dieing eye as I have been told, I have to get it out in three to seven years maybe. I had been sleeping alot and was having my useal simtems that i get when i am sick, plus i was having this alful headache. I use to never get headackes till a couple of years ago. The doc told me that he thought I had meningytus or something, "Pronounceds men in jye tus." He wanted to do a spinel tap on me. If i really did have what he thought i had, I would be dead right now. I think that it might have had something to do with my eyes and I might have been slightly sick as well.

## Post 7 by Queen Rogue (Generic Zoner) on Thursday, 11-Sep-2008 0:06:14

Candi,, this article is very touching, and totally reminds me of the things I ent through growing up
I was diagnosed with seizures at 18 months of age, wore hearing aids for 24 years now, one good functoning kidney. I can keep going, but...the most important that ruined me, was when I was losing my sight at age 17 to a falsetumor of th brain called, Pseudotumor Cerebri. which had tooken my sight,I sued two doctors for misdiagnose's. I wuld love to tell more about my medical history, but your article so touching, and along with mylife. Its all got me crying.
Hugs girlfriend.
I do apologize for any typos here, hands a little shakey, lol.