Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick

Maya Dusenbery’s “Doing Harm” uncovers the plight of women seeking healthcare. They are often ignored and dismissed, despite efforts toward an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment plan. Maya’s book describes why medical research has avoided attention to women and why current treatment is misaligned to meet female needs. Her book includes many stories of women who have battled our healthcare system in their pursuit of care, sometimes with tragic consequences. As a physician, medical coder/compliance officer/auditor and caregiver, I can attest to Maya’s findings. With lipstick, clean clothes and groomed hair, many medical providers instantly believe a woman looks and, therefore, feels fine. “Doing Harm” is a must read for medical providers, researchers and health policy makers. We owe it to our mother, sisters and daughters to improve female healthcare.Michael Warner, DO, CPC, CPCO, CPMAPresident, Patient Advocacy InitiativesDetailed discussion posted April 5, 2018 on the AAPC Knowledge Center, “Co-Author Your Medical Record With a PreHx”

This book is absolutely a must read for anyone who is sick, in healthcare, or needs to learn how the healthcare system is so broken it leaves women more sick than they started. There are compelling anecdotes that I felt deep in my soul and tore at every ounce of empathy and compassion I have because I’ve been through this horrible system since I was a young child. This book is incredibly well researched and sourced, and I believe it should be read by every pre-med, nursing, public health, etc. student so that they can see how they can exacerbate problems or solve them. I listened to the audiobook through my library and then came back to buy the book because I think it’s so important, I’ll read it over and over again. If you’re sick and trying to find answers: read this book. If you’re in the healthcare industry: read this book. If you have a loved one who counts on you to be their advocate: read this book. If you have compassion for the struggles sick women go through: read this book. This isn’t a book that will cure your ails or be a miracle in terms of changing the path your sickness takes, but it will change your life in the sense that you’ll realize that you aren’t alone, you aren’t crazy, you can do this, and with all the systemic oppression sick women have experienced, it’s time to raise our voices to be heard and treated with dignity and respect, even when the answers don’t seem “right”. This book shows how doctors have silenced and shut millions of sick women down, so much so that they’ve missed many important diseases and diagnoses that affect millions. This book doesn’t read like dry, medical non-fiction; I found it riveting from the start. The statistics are bleak and sad; the anecdotes are heart wrenching, but this book was written with those of us in mind who will hold onto it and say “wow, look how many women have had similar struggles” and how our doctors can learn to communicate, listen, and learn better through their patient’s experiences. I HIGHLY recommend this book for anyone and everyone that has ever spent more than 2 minutes in a medical facility.

This book is helping me to understand how I ended up not getting diagnosed with a life-long, genetic disease until I was 36 years old (despite having a family history and symptoms since toddlerhood), after the disease had taken much more of a toll on my body than necessary. More than that, It's a valuable description of how gender-based research and clinical trials can be and what the consequences and ramifications of that gender bias might be. I highly recommend this book to all women, anyone who loves a woman, and all healthcare providers.

This is an excellent read for anyone who is unaware of the level of bias in the medical industry.I'm unfortunately all too aware. My mother had a hysterectomy at age 27 because doctors refused to believe that periods could be unusually painful. When a doctor finally did listen, and wanted to do a scope to see what was going on inside, she woke up to find out she'd had a full hysterectomy. There was so much endometriosis that her ovaries were fused to her intestines. She demanded that I be taken seriously when I started having symptoms (endometriosis is hereditary), so I didn't have to experience the same.Doctors are human. We seem to forget that. This book gives an excellent history of the medicine, including the women who would treat people before conventional doctors existed. It's fascinating to see women getting shut out of a field that they actually had success in, in favor of bloodletting and enemas, because that's all "doctors" knew to do at the time. It hurts to read so many accounts of women who nearly died (and I can't even imagine how many have) due to the negligence of their doctors.

This book moves our stories from disconnected anecdotes with little power to create change to quantified and substantiated experiences that collectively are dramatic, alarming, heartbreaking and motivating. She provides validation to our experiences and gives power to our voices. More importantly though, she looks underneath the pain to find the legacy, systemic and personal biases at play and through that begins to help us find a way forward. As we look to solve for the many factors driving healthcare costs up and outcomes down, this book should be required reading for everyone - those who work within the healthcare industry, those who regulate and legislate it and all those who are continuing to access it (or attempting to) in hopes of finding care and healing.

This book is an eye-opener. Men (and doctors) should read it to get a better perspective of how women are perceived in medicine so that they can do better. Women should read it so they can help themselves better. I myself am an example of just the type of problem this author describes. I have had to deal with a prejudicial and lazy set of doctors and I was accused of having psychological problems when they could not diagnose me; as it turned out, I have a rare and very real and serious autoimmune disease. A definite must-read.

Spot on, and let's have #harmedmetoo to expose just how many women (and men) have been failed by the worldwide psychosomatic/somatization agenda and dogma that refuses to listen to and believe particularly women’s suffering while blissfully ignoring unacceptably high misdiagnosis rates across the board. For too long women have thought that they were just ‘unlucky’ to have been misdiagnosed or ignored by their doctors, or have wondered what they were doing wrong to not be believed about their symptoms.All women should read this book, and any interested fair-minded male partners, husbands, fathers, brothers and sons too. All politicians should be made to read this book. And all prospective medical students should have to demonstrate that they have read this book before they are accepted into medical school. This systemic disregard and abuse of women MUST stop, and we must no longer allow ourselves to be treated as second-class healthcare citizens.On page 100, Maya, by quoting Lipowski, lists some of the derogatory labels that have been applied to those patients, predominantly women, who have been described as having somatization or ‘medically unexplained symptoms’ or ‘MUS’ – “ ‘crocks’, ‘gomers’, ‘turkeys’, ‘hypochondriacs’, ‘hysterics’ and ‘the worried well’ ”. She also draws attention to the notorious ‘heartsink’ branding. Not listed is the expression ‘stomach-churners’ which I suspect could be gaining popularity in the UK since a remark that was made by one GP to ‘qualitative’ researchers was selected by a ‘MUS’ proponent and published in a British GP journal. So entrenched is this prejudice and dogma that female doctors will mete it out on their fellow women patients.And then there is the problem of someone who has presided over the psychosomatic agenda in the UK, seemingly sitting on unacceptably high misdiagnosis rates made evident by their own research while at the same time apparently not especially concerned to see all MUS patients in the IAPT programme labelled with ‘somatization disorder’.I sincerely hope that Maya will come to the UK to investigate the situation here for female patients within the NHS. We desperately need her to build on this great accomplishment. I suspect that there is more than enough material over here for her to write another illuminating book.

Brilliant, reflects my experience exactly. I have PoTS and mast cell activation syndrome probably as a result of dysfunctional collagen from hypermobility spectrum disorder. Had to diagnose myself through online groups and then get recommendations for doctors through the groups etc, it took nigh on 20 years. A copy of this book should be made available to all doctor's. Was repeatedly told it was psychological which is ironic because I work in mental health. The amount of money and time that is wasted through inappropriate referrals to mental health services must be staggering.

This excellent, thoroughly researched book encapsulates the experiences of so many women who struggle to access quality health care. It has taken me 17 years to get a debilitating condition which we now know to be genetic, diagnosed. I had to go private for the privilege. Only a year ago I was told by a GP that my condition was 'somatic' and that I was having a panic attack. I wasn't. The breathing issues, arrhythmias, widespread muscle weakness and poor gait I was experiencing were due to a Chiari Malformation impacting my autonomic nervous system. I am now making several formal complaints and will be sending copies of this book with each of them. This should be a standard text in every medical student's education #harmedmetoo

I was moved to tears by this book – because even though it is a non-fiction, scientific account of how women have been mistreated by the medical system, I was reading for the first time stories that are so similar to my own. I have been recommending it to everyone I know, especially medical professionals! Everyone must read this.

OMG.This book sums up everything I’ve ever thought , said or experienced as a women treated by so called healthcare professionals male or female ( predominantly male) I can only read a page at a time as I get so mad. Well written and gut wrenching. If ever you cared about a woman ever in your life you’d have to read this book. I wish I’d written it but not too ,as it should never have had to have been necessary to write it in the first place. And I wish women the world over were not suffering so much at the hands of those that say that they care for them.