Free Essay. What Deficits Do Both the Book and Talk Highlight in Regard to Women's Health?

The major question that the talk poses is why women's health is being left to chance. The orator establishes two reasons as to why this deficit or dilemma occurs; there is so much to learn, but the scientists are not taking into a chance to understand the extent of the sex difference. Secondly, scientists and researchers are consuming what they have learned and routinely implementing it in clinical care (Johnson, 2013). She further divulges three examples of where sex differences have impacted the health care system in the United States. The first example is on heart disease which is the leading killer of women in the US, where Linda who was suffering from this disease was done a gold standard test and cardiac catheterization (Johnson, 2013). However, after the symptoms escalated Linda was done another test known as intracoronary ultrasound that established that the blockage of arteries in Linda's case did not look like a typical male's situation. This example shows that there is a need for women to be regarded during health care research to avoid such uncertainties that are contributing to higher rates of deaths among women in predominantly the US, and the entire world.

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The book provides a biologically different perspective of why there are sex differences in the provision of further diagnosis for women. Medical experts have discovered that men's bodies are human standards, so female's bodies become the exception and "abnormal" (Galliano, 2003). The book further describes a woman as a pair of ovaries with a human being attached, whereas man is a human being attached with a pair of testes (Galliano, 2003). Medical research have resulted in using only male samples, whereas women were structurally excluded from any clinical diagnosis and drug trials (Galliano, 2003). These exclusions were done based on concerns for women's fertility and the developing fetus.

Do Any of These Deficits Surprise You? Why?

The explanation provided by the book that women have been excluded from research studies and drug trials due to worries of women's fertility and developing fetus surprises me. I think it should not be a problem since women samples can be still be subjected to clinical trials, particularly for those who have chosen the path of not needing to conceive children. In the video, despite the healthcare system allocating enormous funds to advance the research on heart disease, little has been done to reduce the number of women being subjected to this killer disease.

What are Some Changes That Could be Made to Our Health Care Research System?

The major change I would like to recommend to the US health care research system is to develop a policy that is geared towards increasing recognition that the quality and inclusivity of both sexes of biomedical research across the research continuum depending on suitable regard of significant biological variables, like sex (National Institute of Health, 2020). Under this new inclusion policy, clinical researchers will be required to study both male and female humans and animals in drug trials (National Institute of Health, 2020). Finally, I think women have been left out of clinical experiments primarily since they have different organs, hormones, and different cultural influences that normally invoke sex differences in areas of research.

References

Galliano, G. (2003). Gender: Crossing Boundaries. Belmont Wadsworth.

Johnson, P. (2013). His and hers in health care. TED Talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/paula_johnson_his_and_hers_health_care#t-466357

National Institute of Health. (2020). Including women and minorities in clinical research background. https://orwh.od.nih.gov/research/clinical-research-trials/nih-inclusion-policy/including-women-and-minorities-clinical