Melissa Rochelle's Reviews > Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick

While at times repetitive, Dusenbery delivers an eye-opening look at how women's health is often dismissed and diminished by the physicians and nurses that are supposed to help us. Dusenbery spends a lot of time on hysteria but later highlights specific illnesses that were also likely called "hysteria" by useless doctors. I didn't mind the repetition too much because I took my time reading, by the time I came to the truly repetitive chapters, I was in need of a refresher.

Unfortunately most of the health-related research focuses on men, white men at that. The symptoms of a heart attack differ in men and women, but women are often told they're having a panic attack instead of a heart attack.

Dusenbery does attempt to discuss the intersection of race and gender. One of the beliefs held by some doctors brought up by Dusenbery was also briefly discussed in White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism : some doctors believe Black people do not feel pain. There are multiple research papers that discuss this belief despite overwhelming evidence that it simply isn't true. The bullshit that we (as a society) have allowed ourselves to be buried in is appalling. Do better, people.