Doing Harm

The Truth about How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick

By: Maya Dusenbery

Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg

In this shocking, hard-hitting exposé in the tradition of Naomi Klein and Barbara Ehrenreich, the editorial director of Feministing.com reveals how inadequate, inappropriate, and even dangerous treatment threatens women’s lives and well-being.

Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with experts within and outside the medical establishment, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today.

Dusenbery reveals how conditions that disproportionately affect women, such as autoimmune diseases, chronic pain conditions, and Alzheimer’s disease, are neglected and woefully under-researched. “Contested” diseases, such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, that are 70 to 80 percent female-dominated, are so poorly understood that they have not yet been fully accepted as “real” conditions by the whole of the profession. Meanwhile, despite a wealth of evidence showing the impact of biological difference between the sexes in everything from drug responses to symptoms to risk factors for various diseases - even the symptoms of a heart attack - medicine continues to take a one-size-fits-all approach: that of a 155-pound white man.

In addition, women are negatively impacted by the biases and stereotypes that dismiss them as “chronic complainers”, leading to long delays - often years long - to get diagnosed. The consequences are catastrophic. Offering a clear-eyed explanation of the root causes of this insidious and entrenched bias and laying out its effects, Doing Harm will change the way we look at health care for women.

©2018 Maya Dusenbery (P)2018 Blackstone Publishing

A must read for women and those who love women

This book is an incredibly eye opening journey of medicine and women through the years. Women experience things differently than men and many diseases are inexplicably higher in women. Yet women are not always diagnosed or treated properly and often spend years simply looking to be heard. This book intelligently sheds light on this proven through both scientific studies and anecdotal illustrations. As a woman with chronic illness, this book made me feel heard and validated and fired me up to want to do more.

Powerful

Every woman should read this book. Very empowering and supportive for women’s health. Thank you.

An important read

Everyone should read this! This book is important for the medical community and every woman who's ever felt gaslighted by their doctors.

Driven narration of a very revealing book

Dara Rosenberg truly brings this text to life. I was struggling to read my physical copy so I starting the audible version and it made all the difference. Not only was the narration very driven, but I learned so much from this book. I am one of these women who have taken a decade to get a diagnosis, so I've had to do plenty of my own research, but there is more in this book than I ever could have known about why women go untreated and how symptoms vary between the sexes. There is something so sobering about reading the history of how women have had to claw their way to real care and realizing that, if I had been born just a few decades earlier, I would've be diagnosed with hysteria.

Essential Reading

Dusenbery's exploration of the failures of western medicine in accounting for women in health research and healthcare provision should be mandatory reading in every medical school, PA program and nursing program. The disparities in how we address medical concerns that appear to impact men less often than women hinder medicine and unnecessarily remove potentially productive citizens from our workforce. Whether you are interested in clinical care, interested in reducing reliance on disability, or simply know a woman who you think deserves to get medical care if she gets severely I'll, I wholeheartedly recommend you read this book immediately.

I have no particular notes on the performance of the audiobook. The reader did a solid job, but I generally find non-fiction audiobooks a little dry. This was consistent with what I would anticipate considering my personal preferences: very professional, but the reading didn't seem to breathe life into the work beyond what I would attribute to the author's spectacular reporting.