A review by jenmangler
Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick by Maya Dusenbery

4.0

Reading this fabulous book made me so angry that I found myself talking back to the book often (specifically, talking back to the doctor who dismissed a female patient in story after story). One line near the end of the book made me particularly furious and really made me think: "Indeed, the loss of knowledge that has resulted from medicine's distrust of women's accounts is staggering to think about." How different would things be if women had always been believed?

I see that others have complained that the book is repetitive. Yes, the book is repetitive. But that's really the point. Women with a wide variety of conditions face shockingly awful and similar experiences trying to find relief from their suffering. Over and over and over, they have to fight to be believed. The medical profession gets to define what "sick" is and who deserves to be treated, and again and again women are deemed undeserving.

I wish every doctor and researcher would read this book.