Doctor Reacts to John Oliver | Last Week Tonight: Bias in Medicine

A med student asked his professor, "What if my beliefs make me uncomfortable treating someone who's transgender or gay?" The professor replied, "Find a different career." We need professors like this.

Both I and my wife have had our gallbladders removed. My wife was sent home TWICE for a ‘stomach ache’, whereas I was kept overnight and checked. This was at the same ER at the same hospital.

I went through three years of misdiagnosis from doctors. I went from being a competitive 18 year old female triathlete to being completely bedridden from mindnumbingly painful joints, tendons and nerves that paralysed me. One doctor thought I was making it up, another told me it would go away and I should "relax and have a margarita", an ER nurse told me I was "hysterical" because nobody was taking my pain seriously (after three years), and yet another one used used the fact I was completely vulnerable an paralysed to grope me. A fantastic young doctor finally diagnosed me with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a chronic auto-immune disease and form of arthritis. My mother who has the same disease has had a similar experience. No question in my opinion, there are serious issues with women being diagnosed and not being believed. Not just in the USA though.

I'm a maternal mortality statistic (revived, fortunately). The nurse in recovery ignored my anxiety over something feeling wrong and being scared. Told me I was fine and got me extra blankets because I was 'just cold'. The extra blankets covered up that I was post-partum hemorrhaging from a clotting issue (Which I couldn't feel from my epidural post C-section) and I quietly bled out until I lost consciousness and my heart stopped. I think some medical professionals dismiss 'panicky new moms' as being worried about trivial things because they can be, but they shouldn't. It's unfortunate that doctors and medical professionals are trained to practice and treat patients based on pattern recognition when bias is developed the same way.

My favorite comeback for "it's all in your head" is "so are brain cancer and strokes."

I took my son to the Doctor several times ..got the usual eye roll (over protective Mother ) Made my Husband come to the next day ... Doctor listened to him ordered a blood test. .Next day he was in hospital diagnosed with AML ( Leukaemia )

This “women presenting atypically” thing exposes the root of the problem: “typical” is based on symptoms and disease courses in men, and instruction is based on that. This is where the bias begins and only a radical overhaul of how we view, classify and describe conditions and treatment will change that. Awareness training can overcome some of the ill effects of this bias, but the bias should be eradicated. It’s not just male providers who are tainted with this patriarchal construction - female providers suffer from it, also. I’ve changed doctors more than once because of it, and I was right about my health issue every time.

As my mom always said, "Not every doctor graduated med school with straight A's." There is always a spectrum of medical knowledge.

As a girl with a medical condition I will offer this piece of advise to any young woman who wants to take it!! If you ever go in for something that is abnormal and the doctor refuses to run any tests and tries to send you home make them write it in your medical chart! This way if you go to another specialist they can see that no tests were run and that dr looks like an absolute fool. This has worked for me every time. when I tell the drs to write that they refused to treat me/test me in my chart they 'all of a sudden' think that this may be something to look into.

I saw a TED talk about how its extremely difficult for women to get a doctor to agree a sterilization. Men can say, "i dont want kids." Boom, they get a vasectomy in minutes. But if a woman says, "i dont want kids." They constantly get denied and told, "you will regret it." From the woman's perspective, they are in pain, dont feel comfortable carrying, and/or need the procedure for other health reasons. Their defense is, "if i want a family, i will foster or adopt from the many many cases of children without families. Why do i HAVE to be blood related to them??" And they still get turned down.

In one of my nursing classes, one of my classmates said, “I just don’t know if I could give a patient who’s a drug addict opioids.” And my instructor replied, “Well, that’s not your job to decide.”

I understand Dr Mike's inclination to highlight the progress made, but when he says it's not John's job to highlight progress, he is 100% right! The intention of John Oliver's piece is NOT to say, 'Hey, look how far we've come!' because the point is that we haven't come far enough. Yes it's important to acknowledge those who are working to create positive change, but we can't rest our focus on what we have already done if we truly want to motivate further progress... idk, that's just my two cents. Decent video over all. Lost me a bit at the end with a few too many excuses.

When I was 8 years old I had extreme abdominal pain, vomiting, and fever for about half a day. My mom doesn't have a health science degree, but she worked as a clinic manager for years, so she had a base knowledge. She guessed it was my appendix. She took me to the hospital at 3 am when I just couldn't take the pain anymore. The male night doctor told her it was just the flu WITHOUT taking any tests. He told my mom she was just being an overprotective mom. Thankfully, my mom is not a pushover and demanded he take some tests. So he did. Yep, it was appendicitis and it was close to rupturing. Thankful for my strong mother, not thankful for the doctor that tried to send me home

I was actually labeled a drug seeker when I went through 12 years of my life (from 15 to 27 years old) to get treatment and even a doctor to take my abdominal/pelvic pain seriously and diagnose my endometriosis. I stopped bothering to go bc I was treated so horribly. I'd even a cyst rupture and was shood away. When an amazing dr finally operated on me, the first thing he said to me upon waking from surgery was an apology that no one had ever listened or treated me bc I had it everywhere on almost every organ and was of the worst cases he'd seen. Finally getting that validation that I wasn't crazy, it wasn't in my head, nor was it normal to feel as much pain as I did and still do on an almost daily basis was so amazing, despite the confirmation of a chronic pain condition.

I respect Dr. Mike a great deal, and I love that he’s taking a resolution approach vs a problematic approach. However, on the issue of race it’s not just because black people tend to have access to lesser quality hospitals that they have less access to opioids and are treated poorly. When my sister was sick I witnessed doctors gaslight her and make light of her symptoms. My mother got upset and spoke up for her, I’m glad that the lead doctor that came in to resolve the issues my sister was having. Dr. Mike is right that we can’t only look at this as a race issue, but there are doctors out there that do have racial bias. Dr. Mike did an amazing excellent job breaking this segment down.

Great session. Dr. Mike. When I studied the fresh research a few years ago, about the lower survival rate for women vs. men presenting to hospitals with heart attacks, it struck me that I had to be very precise about my language from now on. Instead of saying: “Women don’t always have typical symptoms,” we should say “Women don’t always have the symptoms that are typical in men.”

This is why House is the best. He treats everyone with same loathing scathing hatred :D

I only go to younger doctors because I have had a history of older doctors disregarding my very real pain. I can say that the younger generation of doctors have been amazing at listening to me and actually treating me. Seems to be a difference between the schooling.

Uh-uh. Picking her kids up from school does not excuse a misdiagnosis, being sent home without treatment, or denial of equal pain management. This is NOT the woman's fault. This is the doctor's bias, and the medical professions disinterest in studying women's health beyond her reproductive system.

I love how he talked about lightening the situation with patients. I’ve had a lot of severe medical problems and most of the doctors, while professional and good at their jobs, had not a funny bone in their family. I spent 30 weeks in a hospital due to a persistent kidney infection that ultimately resulted in a radical nephrectomy. But my doctor for this issue was super personable and we made jokes with each other all the time. Once he was out of town for his own wedding and I became septic while he was gone and I jokingly blamed it on him for daring to get married while I was sick. And he joked back with “I tried to tell my wife I had to watch you but she insisted on it” we traded funny little jokes the entire time I was stuck there and it made the ordeal much more bearable. When it came time to take the kidney out I pulled out a stress ball that was shaped like a kidney and I have it to him right before the surgury and told him maybe he could fit that one in as a replacement 😂 he’s a great doctor and he has it on his desk. Some doctors are really great and some shouldn’t have been admitted to med school.