How might women get a bad rap in medicine and what you might do about it?
Dr. Berkson and Sellma Vllasi, FNP-C, practiced in the same family medicine clinic for 6 years and still share many patients. Vllasi is an integrative and functional medicine nurse practitioner, team leader of the Wiseman Family Practice (in charge of provider education) and previously was a labor and delivery nurse for eight years.
Today’s show explores:
- Gender bias and differences in medicine (from diagnosis to treatment and insurance reimbursement)
- Gender differences in provider’s perceptions
- Women are often taken less seriously
- Women are often recommended aggressive prophylactic procedures (such as hysterectomy and bilateral mastectomy) but this is not the case for males even though males have a high incidence of prostate cancer, plus the rate of breast cancer in males is rapidly increasing) and men can get BRCA genetic glitches, too.
- When data came out in 2012 that testosterone therapy during prostate cancer treatment is protective, urologists jumped on giving T therapy to males. This has not been the case with females.
Female breast cancer patients often have not heard or been given the option of taking T therapy with tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors to improve their quality of life and safety profiles.
- Women must create an advocacy team with agile thinkers.
- Women must learn how to become more self-aware and trust themselves more. In this show you hear a few steps toward achieving this.