The data isn’t there for women, so healthcare isn’t either.
Lying on the table, minutes before the surgeon was going to start my c-section, I can remember three thoughts frantically cycling through my head.
First, please, please let my daughter live.
Second, please, please let me also survive this.
Third, thank god my surgeon and her team are women.
Our adventure to the operating table had been an exciting one. I had placenta previa, meaning my placenta was blocking my cervix and my daughter’s only way of exit was “through the sunroof” as I jokingly took to calling it. My doctor decided she needed to come out at only 35 weeks, because the risk of me potentially hemorrhaging (and dying, and therefore potentially her also dying) had become too great for us to wait any longer.
My husband and I both maintained the calm poker faces we tend to wear whenever we face a serious situation, but as he sat next to me on my side of the curtain, I knew we were both terrified.
What made me feel better as the operation began was knowing I was in the hands of women.
The reason for this was what I knew about the statistics — somewhere during my pregnancy I had read this Washington Post article and the numbers were seared in my memory. In a study of 1.3 million cases, female patients were 32% less likely to die and 16% less likely to experience postoperative complications if their surgeon was a woman. It’s still not fully clear what the correlation is, although hypotheses include female surgeons taking fewer risks and providing better follow up care.
So, it was no surprise to me this week when a new study popped into my news feed sharing that, in another study of 700,000 cases, both male and female patients fare better with female doctors. The starkest data contrast was for female patients treated by female physicians.
Ask the women in your life if they’ve ever felt dismissed by a male doctor and you’ll undoubtedly hear some anecdotes. Personally, I have my own handful of tales. One of the worst examples I’ve heard was from a friend, who told a male doctor that she was having painful, recurring symptoms similar to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis. His response? “These things are so popular now, everyone thinks they have them.” Later, during an ultrasound, a female doctor confirmed she had suffered from raging endometriosis and adenomyosis for years.
I feel outrage, but I’m not surprised. How can I be, when the world is built on the data of men, and our medical schools, technologies, products, and systems are built on top of this data? Of course misdiagnosis and dismissal of the concerns of women will be more prevalent from male doctors, who can have no way of learning about the female experience unless they’d live it.
Anyone who doubts this absolutely must read Caroline Criado Perez’s impressive book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed by Men. Back to some of the earliest moments in our civilization, women have been considered a permutation of man rather than a distinct gender. We’ve been absent from medical trials, ignored in studies, and underexplored in so many areas of health. An example? Only in recent years has the world of medicine sought to understand the unique female manifestations of our number one killer — heart disease.
It’s chilling. And overwhelming. I’d be remiss not to mention that for Black women in many regions, the invisibility and the risks are even greater.
What I find myself thinking is: what can I do to help change this?
I’ve built my career working with impact-creating startups and I’ve seen first hand how companies can harness the power of technology and science to fix some of the biggest societal challenges we face. I believe the challenge of inequity that women face around the world to be no different.
So, after recently resigning from an executive role to take time to explore new passions and projects, I’m excited to be embarking on an exploration and a lot of (virtual and in-person) coffees about how innovation can fix our gender equity gap. How can we fix the lack of data on the problems women face and who is already active in this space? What companies are developing the technologies and products that are rebuilding the world for women? What companies aren’t being built because no one is thinking about the potential market? What role can investors, entrepreneurs, and policy makers in the Netherlands (where I happily call home) play to improve things? And what’s happening in femtech in the US, other countries, and beyond?
I’ll be sharing what I learn as I go. Follow along if you’re interested and contact me if you’d like to chat.
I’m looking forward to learning more.
And to my surgeon, if by some miracle you’re reading this: On behalf of my husband, my daughter, and myself — thank you.
