00:00why is women's pain taken less seriously okay so we know that being a woman and a woman of color
00:06helps determine how much we earn how seriously we're taken in meetings and if we'll be able to
00:12finish a sentence in that meeting without interruption but this week i learned that women
00:18are also less likely to get cpr from a bystander and more likely to die because of it apparently
00:28rescuers don't want to rustle a woman's clothing or touch her chest in order to give her cpr
00:35which is kind of ironic because when we're alive and at a bar bystanders seem really willing to
00:42touch us i learned that this is called the gender pain gap even beyonce and serena williams had a
00:48hard time convincing doctors to take their pain seriously during their pregnancies and this is
00:54reflected in study after study when men and women have the same symptoms studies show that women
01:01are more likely to be given sedatives instead of pain relieving drugs because we're seen as more
01:08anxious gender and race play a huge role in preventing women from getting the medical care they need and
01:16deserve and no one knows this better than dr alexandra maffat bateau it never occurred to me that
01:25hospitals wouldn't be a place where i would be safe and cared for and i was like wow this is
01:32a systemic
01:32problem dr maffat bateau had experienced chronic pain her whole life but no doctor took her seriously
01:39until she found a woman of color doctor who brought home her medical records to comb through them on her
01:46own time and so she starts taking my records home and starts putting together the puzzle pieces and she
01:53brings me in one day and she's like has anyone ever talked to you about lupus and i was really
01:58strangely excited because in my mind the reason i had been facing so much discrimination and unwillingness
02:05to care about my cases because i didn't have the diagnosis but even with the diagnosis of lupus which
02:11is a debilitating disease dr maffat bateau still had to fight to be taken seriously nine times out of ten
02:20it was just this belief that i was making things up that what i was saying wasn't real that i
02:26must be
02:27seeking drugs or selling the drugs or some such thing is that really what people would that's
02:32that's what you were getting oh yeah absolutely absolutely and when the patient advocate and the
02:38nurse advocate and the doctors came in they also brought full security and lined them outside the
02:44door and they were there because they were afraid we were going to act up right um and so what
02:49happens
02:50is you start to develop a ton of fear around going to the doctor
02:56the trauma that she faced at the hands of doctors consistently prevented or delayed her
03:01from getting the medical care she needed i think one of the things that i've noticed is happening
03:07is is i've started to wait longer and longer and longer before the go to the hospital you know i'm
03:14starting to black out and then finally one of my friends is like no we're going to the hospital right
03:18now but i've developed so much trauma and fear around what is this going to be like this time
03:26is someone going to say something awful to me and that's a really kind of stunning thing that i don't
03:31think many people really consider i had never considered it after all the first rule of being a doctor
03:38is first do no harm how could an industry whose sole goal is to provide care be steeped in so
03:46many
03:46stereotypes that cause further harm and trauma so the achilles hill of the medical industry has always
03:52been as profound arrogance right the assumption that they know everything at any point in time
03:58and we just know that's not true like most americans medical doctors are reticent to acknowledge the
04:06role that bias plays in their profession and so if you don't think something's an issue then you're not
04:11going to pay any attention to it right and so for black women women of color women in general
04:18um there's been lots of conversation about this issue of pain and pain being ignored but you still
04:25don't see very much engagement on this issue from doctors themselves are you a doctor let us know how
04:30you feel below i would love to hear if you're reading or seeing any of this news coverage and i
04:34used to
04:35always wonder why like people like my grandfather would never go to the hospital and you know growing
04:41up i always thought that was so crazy but now in my 30s i'm like that wasn't crazy at all
04:47you know
04:47like they thought more harm was going to come to them in the hospital than would happen to them
04:54if they just stayed home and tried to take care of themselves even when they had cancer and so
04:59until medical students are receiving diversity training on gender race sexuality and class on the
05:07role in which income plays in your ability to access health care we're going to continue to have these
05:13same problems dr moffat pato taught me that the achilles heel of science is arrogance and that
05:20means they're very unlikely to acknowledge what they don't know for women and for women of color
05:26this becomes a very real barrier to accessing health care and that needs to be acknowledged
05:32thanks so much for joining us this week don't forget to click that follow button
05:35and come back for a new episode next tuesday
