Gender Bias and the Female Sexual Health Revolution
vanessa looked broken
when i walked into the exam room i
extended my hand
and i said hello i’m dr javaid
can you tell me what’s wrong we’re going
to call her vanessa
to protect her privacy she looked me in
the eyes
and she said i’ve suffered a stroke i’ve
driven
two days to come see you i’m exhausted
i’ve been to doctor after doctor in
florida
and no one could help me in fact they
told me
i should just be thankful to be alive
dr javade i need you to help me save
my marriage i have no libido
during our one hour long discussion i
pointed out to vanessa
that there were multiple treatment
options available for her
she began to cry for what felt like a
really
long time she was grieving the amount of
time
she had lost while getting to me
unfortunately
vanessa’s story is all too common she is
just one of
millions of women that struggle with
sexual dysfunction
in fact according to a recent article in
a medical journal
two out of every five women struggle
world
wide with their sexual dysfunction these
patients
often go undiagnosed dismissed
and passed from doctor to doctor
they endure shame isolation and guilt
and when they finally get to a provider
they hear things like
it’s all in your head or drink some wine
and you’ll be fine or women were born
to bleed breed and die
i wish i was making that last statement
up but that was just
said to my patient a few months ago by
her gynecologist
these repeated dismissals are what have
led
to up to an eight and a half year delay
in diagnosis
in medical conditions for women eight
and a half years
of suffering in silence eight and a half
years
of feeling like they were broken imagine
that you could not be intimate with the
person that you love
imagine that it hurts to have sex or
that you’ve lost your sex drive
imagine now that you judge yourself you
ask yourself what is wrong
with me you go to the doctor
and you find out that there are only two
fda approved treatment options for women
and 26 for men
26 to 2. your male partner can go to the
doctor
pretty readily get a diagnosis and get a
medication like viagra
viagra was fda approved in 1998
in only six months addie the first ever
female sexual health drug
was fda approved in six years
and was not available until
ob 2015. like me we specialize in
women’s healthcare
yet our training is limited to anatomy
contraception sexually transmitted
diseases
and pregnancy why why
are we ignoring an entire body system
why are we ignoring
the sexual health care of millions of
women
i’ll tell you why there is a glaring
gender disparity in sexual health care
in the united states women’s health care
lags behind in research funding
and female leadership women
our decisions about our bodies about our
very health care
are not in the hands of women and we are
often treated by protocols that are only
studied in men
leading to a dangerous one-size-fits-all
approach
and in survey after survey female
patients report
feeling gender bias at the hands of
their providers
and despite what we see on tv and in the
movies
or here with our musical lyrics
culturally
the us is far behind the rest of the
world when it comes to their views
on sexuality and the more these patients
are dismissed
the less likely these female patients
are to come forward or to get needed
treatment options
rendering them invisible women are
invisible patients but i believe that
there is hope
i believe the women’s sexual health care
revolution
is happening now i opened her md
five years ago in cincinnati to give all
women a safe place
to get treatment for their sexual health
care
we provide access to sexual health care
counseling
surgery medications and imaging we
participate in clinical research trials
that are improving female health care as
we know it
we recognize that female health care is
complicated
i wish it was as simple as writing a
prescription for a patient
but that would be like giving her a car
filling it with gas
and forgetting to give her the keys we
have to treat
both body and mind her md is one of the
few centers
around the country that number one
specializes in female sexual health care
number two takes this multi-disciplinary
team approach
and number three does so within an
insurance model
and it’s a start we’re revolutionizing
women’s healthcare
as we know it and if we circle back to
my patient vanessa
the last time i saw her she said i’m no
longer crying
about my sex life in fact she had a big
smile on her face
and she said her husband was smiling too
and getting back to those husbands
i believe all men deserve all the health
care they have
and more i just want women to have equal
access to health care
i don’t believe women should have to
drive thousands of miles to get the
health care that they need
i want women to educate themselves
advocate for themselves and empower
themselves to align themselves
with the provider that will allow them
to live their
best life women want
need and deserve to be visible
you