As I was searching for an interesting article to read and research, I stumbled upon one that especially caught my eye. How Doctors Take Women’s Pain Less Seriously is an article in The Atlantic by Joe Fassler. He shares the story of the time his wife had an acute emergency and how long it took the ER to find it. In the article, Fassler describes how his wife’s severe abdominal pain was treated as kidney stones without a proper physical exam and how her pain complaints were excused as being “something that women do”. Eventually, many hours and an entire shift change later, scans revealed her excruciating pain to be caused by an actual critical illness—an ovarian torsion. He shares his frustrations and disappointments with the medical system …show more content…
In the study, the researchers reference the fact that most research done in comparing pain thresholds among men and women report “lower pain threshold, higher pain ratings, and lower pain tolerance for women,” and there is much room for debate whether these differences are due to biological characteristics or differences in coping and expression. Regardless of these differences, Hoffman and Tarzian note the fact that doctors themselves respond differently to pain complaints from males vs females. They reported that in a study done by Faherty and Grier, “physicians prescribed less pain medication for women aged 55 or older than for men in the same age group, and that nurses gave less pain medication to women aged 25 to 54”. Another study done by McCaffery and Ferrell actually measured the bias among healthcare providers. When they surveyed a group of 362 nurses, it was found that 63% agreed that men and women have the same perception of pain but 27% thought that men felt greater pain than women. They have found there to be a presence of doubt when providers assess pain in women due to the perception of them being “unreflective, emotional, or immature”. Hoffman and Tarzian, as lawyers, argue that from a justice perspective this is unfair due to the fact that everyone should be treated equally based on their needs and if this continues, the health care system may potentially lose the support of female
In her personal essay, Dr. Grant writes that she learned that most cases involving her patients should not be only handled from a doctor’s point of view but also from personal experience that can help her relate to each patient regardless of their background; Dr. Grant was taught this lesson when she came face to face with a unique patient. Throughout her essay, Dr. Grant writes about how she came to contact with a patient she had nicknamed Mr. G. According to Dr. Grant, “Mr. G is the personification of the irate, belligerent patient that you always dread dealing with because he is usually implacable” (181). It is evident that Dr. Grant lets her position as a doctor greatly impact her judgement placed on her patients, this is supported as she nicknamed the current patient Mr.G . To deal with Mr. G, Dr. Grant resorts to using all the skills she
Management of pain is very important when it comes to palliative care patients, considering that 55-95% of this patient population requires analgesia for pain relief (Creedon & O’Regan, 2010, p. [ 257]). But what is considered pain management? And why does pain continue to be inadequately treated? According to the article on chronic non-cancer pain in older people: evidence for prescribing, in the past few decades significant improvements have been made to the management of pain in palliative care. However, it is universally acknowledged that pain on a global scale remains inadequately treated because of cultural, attitudinal, educational, legal, and systemic reasons (Creedon & O’Regan, 2010, p. ...
When we see patients, we must remember that we are not simply treating a disease. We are caring for people with lives, hobbies, jobs, families, and friends, who are likely in a very vulnerable position. We must ensure that we use the status of physicians to benefit patients first and foremost, and do what we promised to when we entered the profession: provide care and improve quality of life, and hopefully leave the world a little better than it was
The thought that physicians believe that women have a low pain tolerance is not supported by facts. In the essay “How Doctors Take Women’s Pain Less Seriously,” by Joe Fassler he has a great example of how physicians do believe that many women are not experiencing as much pain as they perceive they are. Men and women are very different and every one had a different pain tolerance and physician should treat every patient as an individual and not make assumptions right away.
Atul Gawande is not only our resident surgeon; he’s also a patient himself. He’s anxious before performing a surgery, he dwells on mistakes, and he has emotions: he’s human and he understands us. However, he does not appear to share concerns with his patients initially. Gawande experiences a long, drawn-out development from a young medical student to the doctor he is today. This process of identifying with patients is evident in his anthology of essays Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science. Dr. Gawande appears to emphasize the value of making mistakes, and how it is a core component of his daily life as a physician. His mistakes are dependent on the “good choices or bad choices” he makes, and regardless
A. Chronic pain signifies a developing public health issue of huge magnitudes, mainly in view of aging populations in developed countries (Russo).
The range of medications from anti-inflammatory to opioids is extreme, and have different effects on the human body. Medical professionals have to make the decision whether to give a patient a lower grade pain management drug or a higher grade drug, and they are the ones who have to determine how much pain the patient truly is in when most of a patient 's pain in unseen to the physical eye. “Pain as a presenting complaint accounts for up to 70% of emergency department visits, making it the most common reason to seek health care. Often, it is the only reason patients seek care,” and with this knowledge health care professional need to treat each patient equally in the sense that they are the emergency room or a physician 's office for a reason, and that reason is to relieve the pain they are in (American College of Emergency Physicians Online). The article from the American College of Emergency Physicians continues on to say that, “it is the duty of health care providers to relieve pain and suffering. Therefore, all physicians must overcome their personal barriers to proper analgesic administration,” this is in regards to medical professional who are bias toward specific patients, such as “frequent flyers” or even patients of certain class standing; no matter what their patient may look like or be like they must be treated equally and
Cultural meanings of gender can play heavily into therapeutic effects of the client. A female client who is in therapy with her male partner may not have the “right” to speak against what he is saying if she disagrees; some cultures forbid the woman to go against her male partner or even speak in the presence of a male stranger, which could be the clinician. On the other hand, a male client with the above cultural custom may view a female clinician in a nega...
Institute of Medicine Report from the Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care and Education. (2011). Relieving Pain in America A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education and Research. Retrieved from http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?records_13172
Assessing and managing pain is an inevitable part of nursing and the care of patients. Incomplete relief of pain remains prevalent despite years of research due to barriers such as lack of kn...
Greater pain-related symptoms and disability in African–American patients relative to white patients have also been reported in multidisciplinary pain; suggesting that independent of other demographic factors such as age, sex, socioeconomic status, education, employment, marital status and other potential confounders, such as medical comorbidities and disease duration. Clinicians should make every effort to increase their cultural sensitivity and awareness in order to improve treatment outcomes for minority patients. Therefore ethnic groups may differ in the outcomes of specific treatments, ethnicity should be one factor that clinicians consider when selecting and recommending treatments. (Campbell& Edwards, 2013) Some diseases that are predominantly more found within specific minority groups along with an array of other factors. Minorities have a higher prevalence of diabetes than whites, and some minorities have higher rates of diabetes-related complications and death. The statistical breakdown of the different minorities 10.8 percent of blacks, 10.6 percent of Mexican Americans, and 9.0 percent of American Indians have diabetes, compared with 6.2 percent of whites. Certain minorities also have much higher rates some as much as 50% of the total population of diabetes and related complication. (AHRQ,
Findings. Pain has many different meanings to many people. What is important to know as a nurse or health care provider is that pain is what the patient says it is. It is not the nurse or provider’s place to determine what the patient’s pain is but rather take an in-depth history and assessment. Using this assessment and history can therefore help treat your patient’s pain accordingly. Also pain theories have been proposed and used the implications of nursing practice in regard to pain.
In a pain assessment, the pain is always subjective, in a verbal patient; pain is what the patient says that it is. Nurses must be able to recognize non verbal signs of pain such as elevated pulse, elevated blood pressure, grimacing, rocking, guarding, all of which are signs of pain (Jensen, 2011). A patient’s ethnicity may have a major influence on their meaning of pain and how it is evaluated and responded to behaviorally as well as emotionally (Campbell, & Edwards 2012). A patient may not feel that their pain is acceptable and they do not want to show that they are in pain. For some people, showing pain indicates that they are weak. Other patients will hide their pain as they do not want to be seen as a bother or be seen as a difficult patient.
Just 2.7 percent of the working nurse population in the United States are men. To understand why nursing is dominated by women, we have to examine the its history. Male nurses may belong, but there?s still not many around. According to the U.S. Labor Department statistics, "6.7 percent of registered nurses were male"(statistics). Gender discrimination in nursing exists because of prejudices male students encounter in the classroom, in the workplace and with the patients.
In the operation of the healthcare system, gender plays a central role. Gender discrimination in the healthcare exists either in the field of education, workplace or while attending to the patients. Interestingly, as opposed to other areas where discrimination lies heavily to a particular gender; gender inequality in health happens to both women and men. Gender inequality in the health care service negatively affects the quality of care given and perpetuates patient biases to a gender. Also, the gender disparities in the field of health assists researchers and practitioners to study conditions and their probable manifestations within both sexes.