I was talking to a doctor who specializes in a hard to diagnose condition. Somewhere close to 80% of his referrals are women. If you search online there are countless stories about how it takes longer for women to get diagnosed despite higher prevalence in women. The Facebook groups are full of complaints that women are at a disadvantage with this condition and it’s the doctor’s fault.
But when you look at research where the condition is discovered incidentally in people’s records, the gender difference disappears. When you randomly check for it, there is no gender disparity. It’s just random.
The difference, he said, is that many women are more persistent about getting diagnosed while many men avoid going to the doctor as long as possible. The fact that women are diagnosed at a higher rate and with longer time to diagnosis doesn’t, by itself, explain that a condition is more common in women or that doctors ignore them longer.
I was talking to a doctor who specializes in a hard to diagnose condition. Somewhere close to 80% of his referrals are women. If you search online there are countless stories about how it takes longer for women to get diagnosed despite higher prevalence in women. The Facebook groups are full of complaints that women are at a disadvantage with this condition and it’s the doctor’s fault.
But when you look at research where the condition is discovered incidentally in people’s records, the gender difference disappears. When you randomly check for it, there is no gender disparity. It’s just random.
The difference, he said, is that many women are more persistent about getting diagnosed while many men avoid going to the doctor as long as possible. The fact that women are diagnosed at a higher rate and with longer time to diagnosis doesn’t, by itself, explain that a condition is more common in women or that doctors ignore them longer.