#24: Pain Problems

This next one is a really serious problem in healthcare: that doctors don’t take women’s reports of pain or other symptoms as seriously as they do men. One study found that women who went to the emergency room reporting chest pain had to wait 29% longer than men to be evaluated for a possible heart attack.

Another study found that women who went to the ER reporting acute abdominal pain were 25% less likely than men to be given strong painkillers. There are similar biases in health professions around Black people. It’s a sad reality, and maybe that’s part of the reason why people refuse to acknowledge it, but it’s true nonetheless.