Women’s Healthcare and its Let-Downs
Sutter Health logo on building (Marissa Ceasare, The Puma Prensa)
By Marissa Caesare, staff writer
Women being overlooked, underappreciated, and failed by a male-dominated civilization is nothing new. This is the norm: Women have been trained their whole lives not to overextend their hopes when looking for help, especially from the American healthcare system.
Many female locals have reported being disregarded by health professionals, especially male health professionals dealing with female reproductive concerns. One sophomore here at Carrillo remembers being misdiagnosed with “a virus that will probably kill itself off” last January, when she, in reality, had a severe ear infection that, by the time she found the help she deserved, had spread to multiple other parts of her body.
The phenomenon of medical professionals blowing women’s serious concerns off is quite common across both the US and Sonoma County. Amanda Azevedo, a senior at North Bay Met Academy, (a small school in Windsor), had several different illnesses growing up, both physical and mental. When asked about her experience with the medical healthcare system, she shared an array of different times she was let down by professionals, ultimately leading to life-altering consequences. Having dealt with chronically heavy periods since the young age of nine, she went with her mother constantly to the doctor’s office looking for help or at least a diagnosis of what was causing it, but her treatment only led to worsening anemia and an assortment of different birth controls that caused both critical weight gain and loss. Azevedo recalls how her and her family “have had to find [their] own way to fix it, and go the naturopath way” because hospitals and Western medicines have let her down repeatedly. Azevedo believes that the most horrific experience she has had was with her eating disorder; doctors told her that she was not “clinically underweight” so she couldn’t be treated. All in all, Azevado attests that she “is living proof that hospitals and Western medicine suck.”
Current female Carrillo students have experienced medical misfortunes due to the ignorance of their doctors, too. One sophomore student, who has chosen to remain anonymous, reflected on her experience with being dismissed by medical professionals when worried about her menstrual cycle; at age 15, after not getting a period once in her life, she and her mother went to her doctor, male, with concerns about her physical health. She was shrugged off and told to “give it a few more months and [the doctors] will check it out later.” Then, after coming back she was told her lack of a period was due to stress. With a new doctor, she was then finally diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome once ovarian cysts and precancerous cells were found in her body. After her opinion not being taken seriously, even when she knew something was wrong, she discovered with the help of a new doctor that if she waited more than a month, she would have most likely gotten cancer.
Maria Carrillo alumni, Maddie Williams, recalls her multiple misdiagnoses after being severely sick almost nine times in one year and being shrugged off by medical professionals “like it was nothing and just a little cold.” Then, after going to multiple different doctors, she finally got diagnosed with recurrent tonsillitis and needed to get her tonsils removed almost immediately. Despite Williams’s multiple concerns for her health, explaining how on some days she had to “take multiple days of work off at a time because [she] was so sick [she] couldn't even get out of bed,” doctors still managed to dismiss her and not take her cries for help seriously.
The concept of women being disrespected and dismissed by the healthcare system they have also been taught to rely on is not just local; nationwide, women are experiencing let-downs from not only their healthcare providers but also from the United State’s government. One more recent, life-shattering event that comes to mind is the overturning of Roe v Wade. Those with female reproductive organs were stripped of their rights that they had fought so hard for. This was not the case for every state in America; California, Washington, and Oregon are a few of the states that still protect abortion, but others like Oklahoma, Texas, and Mississippi have not fared so well. Not only has the constitutional right to abortion been pried away, but now access to birth control is at risk for certain states. Why is it that a court run predominantly by men can pass legislation governing female reproductive organs? Women should be able to control their own bodies. This should not be debated among nor controlled by wealthy, white men.
The pattern of women bringing their serious concerns to doctors and being blown off or told it was “due to stress” is not just local; it is a substantial issue in the medical system that needs to be addressed immediately. When will the time come that doctors stop gaslighting and instead start analyzing women’s symptoms that can be potentially lethal? Amanda Azevedo speaks for many women when she says that medical professionals “have wronged me in so many ways, I could probably write a book about it.”