Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with doctors and researchers, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today.
In Doing Harm, Dusenbery explores the deep, systemic problems that underlie women's experiences of feeling dismissed by the medical system. Women have been discharged from the emergency room mid-heart attack with a prescription for anti-anxiety meds, while others with autoimmune diseases have been labeled "chronic complainers" for years before being properly diagnosed. Women with endometriosis have been told they are just overreacting to "normal" menstrual cramps, while still others have "contested" illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia that, dogged by psychosomatic suspicions, have yet to be fully accepted as "real" diseases by the whole of the profession.
An eye-opening read for patients and health care providers alike, Doing Harm shows how women suffer because the medical community knows relatively less about their diseases and bodies and too often doesn't trust their reports of their symptoms. The research community has neglected conditions that disproportionately affect women and paid little attention to biological differences between the sexes in everything from drug metabolism to the disease factors—even the symptoms of a heart attack. Meanwhile, a long history of viewing women as especially prone to "hysteria" reverberates to the present day, leaving women battling against a stereotype that they're hypochondriacs whose ailments are likely to be "all in their heads."
Offering a clear-eyed explanation of the root causes of this insidious and entrenched bias and laying out its sometimes catastrophic consequences, Doing Harm is a rallying wake-up call that will change the way we look at health care for women.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Maya Dusenbery. (2018). Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Maya Dusenbery. 2018. Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Maya Dusenbery, Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick. HarperCollins, 2018.
MLA Citation (style guide)Maya Dusenbery. Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick. HarperCollins, 2018.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 1 | 1 |
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{B4278CB3-5E90-4A16-92C0-1F2CF3E085F3}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{B4278CB3-5E90-4A16-92C0-1F2CF3E085F3}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/B42/78C/B3/{B4278CB3-5E90-4A16-92C0-1F2CF3E085F3}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/B42/78C/B3/{B4278CB3-5E90-4A16-92C0-1F2CF3E085F3}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062470812
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B01I9BLFZK
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062470812
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Maya Dusenbery
- title
- Doing Harm
- dateAdded
- 2018-03-02T11:37:34.667-05:00
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=2854846
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- Doing Harm The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed Misdiagnosed and Sick
- crossRefId
- 2854846
- subtitle
- The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
- id
- b4278cb3-5e90-4a16-92c0-1f2cf3e085f3
- starRating
- 4
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: DoingHarm_9780062470812_2854846
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 850409
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062470812
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 1
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 3/6/2018
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=b4278cb3-5e90-4a16-92c0-1f2cf3e085f3&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: DoingHarm_2854846
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B01I9BLFZK
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 3/6/2018
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=b4278cb3-5e90-4a16-92c0-1f2cf3e085f3&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: DoingHarm_9780062470812_2854846
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 850407
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062470812
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 3/6/2018
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=b4278cb3-5e90-4a16-92c0-1f2cf3e085f3&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Dusenbery, Maya
- bioText:
MAYA DUSENBERY is a writer and editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com. She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist for Pacific Standard magazine. Before becoming a journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.
- name: Maya Dusenbery
- imprint
- HarperOne
- publishDate
- 2018-03-06T00:00:00-05:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Doing Harm
- fullDescription
Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with doctors and researchers, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today.
In Doing Harm, Dusenbery explores the deep, systemic problems that underlie women's experiences of feeling dismissed by the medical system. Women have been discharged from the emergency room mid-heart attack with a prescription for anti-anxiety meds, while others with autoimmune diseases have been labeled "chronic complainers" for years before being properly diagnosed. Women with endometriosis have been told they are just overreacting to "normal" menstrual cramps, while still others have "contested" illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia that, dogged by psychosomatic suspicions, have yet to be fully accepted as "real" diseases by the whole of the profession.
An eye-opening read for patients and health care providers alike, Doing Harm shows how women suffer because the medical community knows relatively less about their diseases and bodies and too often doesn't trust their reports of their symptoms. The research community has neglected conditions that disproportionately affect women and paid little attention to biological differences between the sexes in everything from drug metabolism to the disease factors—even the symptoms of a heart attack. Meanwhile, a long history of viewing women as especially prone to "hysteria" reverberates to the present day, leaving women battling against a stereotype that they're hypochondriacs whose ailments are likely to be "all in their heads."
Offering a clear-eyed explanation of the root causes of this insidious and entrenched bias and laying out its sometimes catastrophic consequences, Doing Harm is a rallying wake-up call that will change the way we look at health care for women.
- reviews
- premium: False
- source: Gloria Steinem
- content:
"Ever since the centuries of burning women healers as witches, because they taught women how to govern our own bodies, thus to control reproduction—the medical world hasn't included all of humanity. Doing Harm shows what is left to be done, and directs both women and men toward healing." — Gloria Steinem
"Maya Dusenbery's exhaustively researched book is equal parts infuriating and energizing. No woman will see the medical establishment, and perhaps even more profound, her own body, the same way after reading it. In a just world, it would be required reading in medical schools from this day forward." — Courtney E. Martin, author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters
"Maya Dusenbery brings new life to one of the most urgent yet under-discussed feminist issues of our time. Anyone who cares about women's health needs to read this book." — Jessica Valenti, author of Sex Object
"Dusenbery challenges a new generation of women and practitioners to fight for medical equity—shinning a harsh light on the sex bias that pervades every level of medicine. It's outrageous that such malignant neglect exists more than two decades after the government acknowledged the gaps in knowledge about women's health." — Leslie Laurence, co-author of Outrageous Practices
"In this groundbreaking book, Maya shows how the same forces that hold women back in society more broadly lead to sub-par medical care and inadequate attention to health issues that impact women. Every doctor, scientist, health care provider and researcher should read this book. And so should every woman." — Jill Filipovic, author of The H-Spot
"Doing Harm is a deeply researched and very readable exploration of the systematic mistreatment of women in our medical system—and how even those with the best intentions perpetuate it. This book is an eye-opener; may it also be a call for real, sustained change." — Kate Harding, author of Asking For It and co-editor of Nasty Women
"An intensive, timely spotlight...Within an organized, well-balanced combination of scientific and social research and moving personal stories, Dusenbery makes a convincing case for the need for drastic industry reform and clinical refinement." — Kirkus
"Dusenbery's excellent book makes the sexism plaguing women's health care hard to ignore...skillfully interweaving history, medical studies, current literature, and hard data to produce damning evidence that women wait longer for diagnoses, receive inadequate pain management, and are often told they are imagining symptoms that are taken seriously in men." — Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Editor's Choice by the New York Times" —
"As seen on FRESH AIR" —
"an antidote to the isolation and maddening self-doubt that this all-too-common dismissal can impose. Her careful evidence answers the uncomfortable question that so often niggles in the doctor's office: 'Am I getting lesser care because I'm a woman?'" — Ms. Magazine
"well researched, wonderfully truculent..." — NYT Daily
"Doing Harm methodically and thoroughly lays out an indictment of the medical systems that still largely discount the experiences of women both individually and collectively. Doing Harm demands nothing short of system-wide change, starting with a call to providers at the most basic level" — Rewire
"Dusenbery, who was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, masterfully takes down the...
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from January 15, 2018
Dusenbery, editor of the website Feministing, presents a canny and candid analysis of how modern medicine treats women in pain. She skillfully interweaves history, medical studies, current literature, and hard data to produce damning evidence that women wait longer for diagnoses, receive inadequate pain management, and are often told they are imagining symptoms that are taken seriously in men. Dusenbery exposes the biases underlying treatment for established conditions such as heart disease and discusses the “circular logic built into psychogenic theories” that keep conditions exclusively or commonly experienced by women, such as endometriosis and autoimmune diseases labeled as “contested illnesses.” Backed by patient stories that range from hopeful to horrifying, Dusenbery illustrates how often modern physicians dismiss women’s symptoms as arising from anxiety, depression, and stress. She’s fair to doctors, who are “fallible human beings doing a difficult job,” and her solution is simple—more funding for research that can find the causes for “medically unexplained” conditions and that can close the knowledge gap about sex and gender differences in disease. But the biggest paradigm shift Dusenbery suggests is to eliminate the trust gap and believe women when they say something’s wrong. Dusenbery’s excellent book makes the sexism plaguing women’s health care hard to ignore.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
January 15, 2018
A sturdy account of how sexism in medicine is hobbling women's health care.When Feministing.com editorial director and lifelong athlete Dusenbery was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, she began an analysis of medical science's lack of understanding of autoimmune diseases. As she probed further and began hearing stories from women whose health complaints were either dismissed or misdiagnosed, the author developed serious concerns about the lack of attention paid to the potential differences between men and women. She places blame in part on the male-dominated medical industry, which approaches gender gaps and their separate health-related concerns lopsidedly and with a marked lack of knowledge and trust. In her well-informed study, Dusenbery traces the history of women's medicine and health care activism and presents a wide variety of anecdotal material from women who voice their experiences and their exasperation with a system that remains unsupportive, skeptical, and indifferent when confronted with reproductive issues, pain complications, sex-specific drug reactions, and general well-being. The same applies when addressing diagnostic delays, which can render a suffering woman unable to function in society or physically cope. The author notes that in matters of heart disease and women, the symptoms have been undertreated or misdiagnosed entirely under the universal "male model" platform of the condition. Her analysis progresses into greatly misunderstood issues of chronic pain, migraine disorders, endometriosis, and chronic fatigue syndrome, all supported with engaging stories of women who wound up either being considered "hysterical" or had their suffering categorized as psychosomatic. Within an organized, well-balanced combination of scientific and social research and moving personal stories, Dusenbery makes a convincing case for the need for drastic industry reform and clinical refinement. She also addresses larger issues of gender equality and how to confront a culture of sexism and rampant sexual harassment against women. A final clipped section on solutions, unfortunately, feels insufficient and begs for pages of elaboration.An intensive, timely spotlight on the gender disparities within the modern health care system that falls short on solutions.COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
February 15, 2018
In this medical manifesto, Dusenbery, editorial director of Feministing.com, empowers women, telling them to trust their instincts, get second opinions, and refuse to settle for one-size-fits-all health care. Why should so many studies be conducted just on men? After all, many conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease and chronic fatigue syndrome, disproportionately affect females. In 2014, only 21 percent of full professors and 16 percent of deans at U.S. medical schools were women. Well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning doctors cause harm, bringing their biases to their diagnoses. When one black teenager told her gynecologist she would continue using condoms, he prescribed prenatal vitamins, saying it was obvious she'd be pregnant soon, says Dusenbery. In one survey, nearly half of female patients with autoimmune diseases said they were initially dismissed as chronic complainers. Too often doctors chalk up abdominal pain to menstruation, including cases of one woman with colon cancer and others with endometriosis. Dusenbery urges female patients to be more confident and their doctors to be less dismissive. Believe us when we say we're sick, she writes. Good advice that may be easier said than done.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
November 1, 2018
Maintaining that the medical community has a lack of knowledge about women's health and a lack of trust in women who in are pain, Dusenbery sheds light on autoimmune diseases, especially how they receive little funding, are often misdiagnosed, and predominantly affect women. (LJ 2/15/18)
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
November 1, 2018
Dusenbery (editorial director, Feministing.com) uses her diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis as entree into a discussion of medicine, research, and womanhood. The densely written three-part text starts with a focused feminist critique of the health-care system, highlighting the systemic dismissal of women's issues and complaints. Part 2 addresses the "Male Model" system, a long-term issue in health care. Researchers leave women out of this model for many reasons (e.g., their hormonal cycles make trials difficult to standardize), and consequently, providers treat and prescribe women based on male models. Throughout Part 2, and into Part 3, Dusenbery includes the medical narratives of women she has met, focusing on both the female absence in the male model and what she calls the "Neglected Diseases" of chronic pain, pelvic and gynecological pain, and contested illnesses. Prior knowledge of feminist theory is not required to enjoy this volume, but readers with that background will have a richer context from which to draw. Dusenbery also provides an in-depth "Notes" section with plenty of options for further reading. VERDICT For readers interested in a feminist critique of health care, especially in the treatment of women.--Rachel M. Minkin, Michigan State Univ. Libs., East Lansing
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- popularity
- 734
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/b4278cb3-5e90-4a16-92c0-1f2cf3e085f3/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- b4278cb3-5e90-4a16-92c0-1f2cf3e085f3
- starRating
- 4.1
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{B4278CB3-5E90-4A16-92C0-1F2CF3E085F3}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{B4278CB3-5E90-4A16-92C0-1F2CF3E085F3}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/B42/78C/B3/{B4278CB3-5E90-4A16-92C0-1F2CF3E085F3}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/B42/78C/B3/{B4278CB3-5E90-4A16-92C0-1F2CF3E085F3}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Health & Fitness
- value: Sociology
- value: Women's Studies
- value: Nonfiction
- publishDateText
- 03/06/2018
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062470836
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with doctors and researchers, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today.
In Doing Harm, Dusenbery explores the deep, systemic problems that underlie women's experiences of feeling dismissed by the medical system. Women have been discharged from the emergency room mid-heart attack with a prescription for anti-anxiety meds, while others with autoimmune diseases have been labeled "chronic complainers" for years before being properly diagnosed. Women with endometriosis have been told they are just overreacting to "normal" menstrual cramps, while still others have "contested" illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia that, dogged by psychosomatic suspicions, have yet to be fully accepted as "real" diseases by the...
- sortTitle
- Doing Harm The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed Misdiagnosed and Sick
- crossRefId
- 2854846
- subtitle
- The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
- publisher
- HarperCollins
- bisacCodes
- code: HEA024000
- description: Health & Fitness / Women's Health
- code: MED035000
- description: Medical / Health Care Delivery
- code: SOC028000
- description: Social Science / Women's Studies
