Bias In Medicine: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

John Oliver discusses the roles that gender and racial bias can play in medical treatment.
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[@Eli-wu5jm]

My wife is black and I'm white. Having me come along with her just so the doctors take her seriously is literally a thing we have to deal with firsthand.

[@mrjebix]

Disgusting country

[@Erika-zt6mi]

I'm mixed with a black mom and a white dad. My mom's health care and her anxieties about seeing doctors drastically improved once my mom gave into me and my dad's insisting that he accompany her to the doctor.

[@waves5114]

Yes, but what do you do to get people to take you seriously.

[@DarthObscurity]

I call BS on this. I'm white my wife is black and I have way more issues of not getting help at the fucking hospital. You could have advocated for yourselves and the same things would have happened. Stop being so passive.

[@brookehammel8387]

Darth Obscurity so everyone in these studies is too passive? Regardless of SES? Is racial bias that difficult to believe that you assign entire swaths of people as being “too passive”?

[@jayyyzeee6409]

"My girlfriend missed her curse and told me the Happening is happening. I'm not ready to raise the Babadook."

[@LostShipMate]

At least you didn't have to Tubwobble.

[@tamhuy10]

babadook is childbirth not baby

[@chaosengine4597]

Oh man, you will have to read to your child... I suffer with you.

[@mindoverbread1213]

hahahahahahahaha

[@MrEdelnougat]

yeah that's just how we talked back in the 30s, good ol' times...

[@billyweed835]

"Bring a White Man" is actually legit good advice for this situation.

[@theviewer6889]

Sister twisted both her ankles at different times. Once we went with our dad, another time with our mum. The difference was kinda shocking.

[@nikkikindinger2718]

@@theviewer6889 Its the same with going to a mechanic, TBH.

[@quint8521]

Even just invoking a white man works. I’ve been brushed aside multiple times in an appointment until I used the magic phrase of “My husband thinks/is concerned about....” and suddenly the provider listens. You can also use “My boss is worried about...” Another one is “It’s affecting my marriage,” note that it is not enough for it to affect your sex life, it has to affect his. You don’t even have to actually have a husband. I was told to take tums when I had severe lower abdominal pain and diarrhea. “That’s called heartburn, honey, everyone gets it” they said. I said “no, the pain is not in my chest and it doesn’t burn.” They still dismissed me. Finally I said “My husband says the pain isn’t in my chest and it doesn’t burn” and they just accepted that a man knew my pain better than I did. Magic. I was promptly referred to a gastroenterologist. I didn’t even try to explain my symptoms to that doctor, I just led with “my husband says my pain is so severe that I blackout while on the toilet.” I got the care I needed immediately, no back and forth.

[@Tortle4444]

I had a blood vessel burst in my throat and I was only 12, and I was bleeding severely. My mom took me to the ER while my dad went home to watch my siblings. The doctor seemed to think my mom and I were exaggerating, even though there was a giant mixing bowl filled with blood and tissues that I was still bleeding into (it had slowed a bit by the time we got to the ER). I started bleeding heavily again and the doctor finally checked everything out, probably a full hour after I had arrived bleeding from my mouth. I almost had to have a blood transfusion. I kind of wonder if I would have been taken seriously sooner if my dad had been the one to come with me.

[@jebwatersheep3458]

@@quint8521 that fucking kills me, I’m so so sorry. I had similar pains but was taken seriously here in the UK. Turns out I had two ovarian cysts trying to twist off my entire ovary...

[@Notmyname849]

When I was 8 years old I was having severe abdominal pain, a fever, and I had vomitted (only once) for about a day. My mom worked in a hospital for many years at the front desk, so she had no medical degree but she picked up a lot of information over the years. She took me in at 2 am because I was just getting worse (she had to carry me in because I was in too much pain to walk). She told the male doctor my symptoms and what she thought was happening..... Appendicitis. He refused to take any blood tests on me or whatever they do to test my appendix, and told her she was just an over protective mother and all I had was the flu so she was to just take me home. My was furious and stood up for me. He finally agreed to do some tests. When they came back he was really concerned because they didn't look good. Yep, I had appendicitis. Surgeon said that it had been leaking and I was only a few hours away from it rupturing. I can only imagine what would have happened if my mom had just listened to the doctor

[@shnglbot]

Terrifying.

[@atulvadlamani2975]

Is it not common practice in America to always do a CT if the typical appendicitis symptoms come up? I have similar symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic so the reason they were reluctant was due to trying to limit my exposure. I am sorry to see all these comments about terrible medical practices and I hope as a one of the new generation of med students we can improve these conditions for you.

[@msch7620]

Oh yeah, the good old “overprotective mother”. It piss me off.

[@Br0nto5aurus]

Usually the first "test" is to palpate the abdomen looking for tenderness at McBurney's point. It would've cost him nothing to touch your belly a few times. Then he should've tested for elevated white blood cell count (indicating infection such as appendicitis), then some type of imaging (CT, X-Ray, MRI, ultrasound) to confirm before scheduling surgery. The point is, the beginning of this chain is extremely inexpensive, which makes it extra shitty that your doctor was resistant to entertain your mother's concerns.

[@meinennamensagichnet]

I am lactose intolerant, which is not very special now but it presumably ststted when I was a toddler and went worse over the years. Therefore I had been to doctors and in hospitals with sudden tummy cramps more often than I can count. As lactose intolerance was not a thing in germany of the 90ies they didnt find anything. But what they did everytime even though them doctors soon saw me more often than their grandchildren was taking me serious and checking my appendix. When they finally checked on me having had milk before I had thousends of scans, ultra sounds, blood tests, iq tests etc but that was back then when our healthcare system was still good. Now ig they can't take out your appendix they will loose money so even if your head hurts they will get the appendix out "just to make sure" So sad.

[@demonanimeluvr999721]

Real talk tho, as a women w chronic pain, if a doctor refuses to run tests for whatever the problem is, request that they write in your file the date you requested the tests, his refusal, and then ask for a copy. Watch how fast their tune changes when there's documentation

[@Optiplex321]

If you're so dissatisfied stop bothering people who are doing their job and just get some Vicodin off of the street, you weirdo.

[@jomocheatham]

Nice strategy.

[@kimberlys8422]

We're told that we should hold doctors in high esteem, but a lot of them (male and female) are ignorant.

[@kimweaver3323]

@@Optiplex321 Right, just present your "prescription"........ on a bag of Popeye's Chicken, crispy, and a couple of Benjamins stuffed inside. Instant service with a "thank you".

[@minhnguyen6839]

I don't think you understand what it feels like to be a doctor. You think we don't want to run some test for you and make a quick bucks? Its because there are people with more serious conditions than you waiting to get a CT scan or a MRI. If you think we're being lazy then you should know we don't do those test,technicians do,and we get money for that. Just be nice and describe ur illness clearer and dont be so bossy and they will treat u the same way

[@jayyyzeee6409]

That poor man lost his wife and he's tortured by whether she might still be alive if only he had lost his temper with medical staff. That's absolutely heartbreaking.

[@krisaaron5771]

If that poor man had lost his temper with medical staff he'd have been dragged off in handcuffs, his wife left on a stretcher to die, his baby put into the child welfare system and he'd be getting out of jail about the same time as her funeral.

[@larrythehedgehog]

@@krisaaron5771 so what do you recommend that he should have done differently since you're so clairvoyant?

[@mmca9323]

That's an unfair situation to be put in,his story is heartbreaking

[@iJarib]

@@larrythehedgehog Be born white.

[@xdissonance8]

@@larrythehedgehog there's nothing he could have done unfortunately

[@SuburbanSavage]

When my gallbladder ruptured, I drove myself to the hospital, while vomiting blood, and was told that it was constipation and to go home. The attending said that I was being a crybaby.

[@DavidRamirez-se2yt]

Anything that causes blood vomit is serious shit, they are stupid

[@afoolishfopdoodle3284]

When did you get treatment???

[@SuburbanSavage]

@@afoolishfopdoodle3284 5 days later. I was being interviewed by detectives in a manslaughter case and when I started vomiting blood again, they drove me to the hospital and demanded that I get proper care. When the doctors tried to claim that I was drug seeking, one of the detectives said that they had been with me for 12 hours and had passed a drug test prior to that, so the hospital was just lying to deny me care. It was the most positive interaction that I've ever had with cops.

[@afoolishfopdoodle3284]

@@SuburbanSavage Oh my god. You should've gotten care WAY SOONER THAN THAT. Fucking hell

[@SuburbanSavage]

@@afoolishfopdoodle3284 I kept going to the hospital every time I had a flare up and the ER staff said that I was looking for drugs, despite testing negative for any and all drugs. Then they'd charge me $50 for kicking me out without care. When I finally got admitted for surgery, the ER realized that they f**led up and wanted me to sign an NDA, hiding their incompetence. The surgical department told me to not sign anything from the ER department, so I didn't.

[@shaelynmartin1996]

My horror story started when I was about 12/13 years old. Went to the doc for a normal check-up and my pulse was a bit high. The nurse asked me if I was nervous about something and I didn't think I was, so I told her so. She insisted I had to be nervous because my pulse shouldn't have been that high. So I literally had to wrack my brain for something I was maybe nervous about and didn't realize I was nervous about. No further questioning done. I was just a nervous 12/13 year old girl. Couple years later at another doctor check-up, when I was about 16/17 years old, the nurse noticed I had a higher than normal pulse. She asked if I was okay, if I was experiencing any pain anywhere. I said no, but sometimes I felt a bit faint if I stood up too fast and that I couldn't handle the heat. She asked me to go into more detail, so I did. I explained how when my dad or brother or stepmom could be outside in the heat for hours at a time no problem, I felt I couldn't last more than 30 minutes before needing to go inside. I explained sometimes it felt like my heart was fluttering when I moved too quickly and that I couldn't get a proper breath in. She relayed this to the doctor, who promptly told my father that I was being a hypochondriac and trying to get out of manual labor around the house by being lazy. This lead to multiple screaming matches with my dad when trying to get me to do manual labor outside and my refusal do work more than 30 minute stints before taking breaks because I felt like I would faint. His argument was always "The doctor said there is literally nothing wrong with you." When I moved from down south up north after graduation to live with my aunt and uncle, my aunt asked me to be her volunteer at her medical school (She needed a volunteer to practice blood work and other injections on) and I agreed. Both she and her teacher noticed my extremely high pulse (Because at this point the problem continued to escalate). Both discussed how odd that was and I just said "I've always had a high pulse." My aunt urged me to see a doctor, but I refused because my experience with doctors was always "There's nothing wrong with you." A year later when she started working in a medical office, I finally agreed to see the Nurse Practitioner because my aunt had told me stories on how this woman was a fantastic NP and she would at the least run some basic tests. My aunt expressed that she wouldn't stop pushing until testing proved nothing was wrong. I went to see the NP and the NP did an EKG my first visit. According to the EKG, I had an enlarged heart. She printed me out a copy of the EKG upon my request and immediately referred me for blood work. While I was waiting in line to get my blood drawn, I texted a picture of the EKG to my dad that said "Welp, I guess something was wrong lol." I think I was in shock and trying to find humor in the situation. My dad immediately called me and asked what he was looking at. I explained what the NP said and what the EKG showed and he started apologizing to me. He sounded like he was on the brink of tears. I was confused because it wasn't his fault, he's not a medical professional. He's a nuclear engineer. A doctor told him consistently that there was nothing medically wrong with me. That I was just trying to get out of working around the house. Thankfully, the blood work results showed that it wasn't an enlarged heart. I had hyperthyroidism, more specifically, Graves Disease. Now, there are multiple ways to treat this. A) Medication. B) Single injection of radioactive iodine. C) Surgery. The specialist I saw wanted me to take option B. I explained to said specialist that option B was not an option for me because I am *highly* allergic to iodine. I go into anaphylactic shock when I am exposed to iodine. (For those who don't know, that means the throat swells and I can't breathe). He was frustrated that I didn't even want to consider that a solution, but grudgingly decided to put me on medication instead. I was placed on a beta-blocker and a thyroid medication. Well, every time I took the beta-blocker I felt like my chest was burning and going to explode. It hurt, severely. I reported this to him and he refused to changed the medication. The NP, who had become my primary care physician, told me to stop taking the medication if it hurt that badly because that is a sign that the body is rejecting the medication. So I did and the specialist was suddenly unable to assist me further because "I refused his medical treatment and advise." My PCP gave me a choice: Try a different specialist or she would prescribe what she could. I chose to just let her handle my prescriptions because frankly, the specialist only furthered my own personal bias against the medical industry as a whole. This Nurse Practioner had become, in my eyes, the only trust-worthy medical professional who could help. The only one (My aunt obviously excluded) who took me seriously. At this point I was 20. I had so many tests done. I had a stress test, which I couldn't fully complete because they had to take me off the treadmill at two minutes due to my heart rate spiking up to 200 bpm (These are heart attack levels). I had multiple MRIs done. And all the while my PCP and I were playing a game of medication because my body would get used to the medication I was on and my bpm would spike again. She would raise the medication dosage, it would work for a bit, so she'd try to lower it slightly to find that sweet spot, my bpm would jump to worse than previously, so she'd raise it again. She kept insisting I needed to see a specialist, but I always responded with "I don't trust them with my body." I was going to the ER regularly because I was told that I needed to take each and every aspect of chest pain lasting longer than five minutes as a potential heart attack due to my high bpm. Then the worst thing happened. My PCP moved to a different field of medicine and couldn't see me anymore. She recommended other docs who could help me, but I was skeptical. I didn't want a new PCP, I didn't trust anyone else. My aunt started working with the new doctor who had replaced her and my aunt asked me to give him a try, because at the very least I needed someone to prescribe my medication. (Actually, the convo went more like "You're going to see him for your meds or you will die of a heart attack [Insert my full name here].") So I saw him and, to my surprise, he took my 22 years old self seriously. He told me that he looked through my chart and saw the issues I had with the specialist. He'd taken the time before I even walked in that office to go over ALL my files so he was up-to-date, as he was the "new person in this medical struggle and needed to do the proper homework." He told me, flat-faced, I needed surgery. The medication wasn't cutting it and I couldn't do the iodine treatment. He explained to me that he couldn't refer me to a general surgeon because he wasn't a specialist. A specialist had to do that. So he took the time to find a well-liked female specialist that wouldn't be too out of the way for me. He did all this... BEFORE I EVEN MET HIM. I was blown away by how in-depth and seriously he took me. So I saw the specialist and she agreed with him. I needed surgery. She referred me to a general surgeon she said she worked with numerous times before. She also told me that I needed to stop any form of drinking (Not that I was an alcoholic, but I enjoyed a glass or two of wine every now and then). She also advised that I quit smoking. I managed to stop the drinking, but smoking was proving to be a struggle. So I saw the surgeon and when the nurse took my levels, she asked me if I took the stairs. I said no, I had parked on the correct level so I didn't have to take the stairs. When I asked why, she silently showed me my bpm. 199 bpm. Let that sink in. At 22 years of age, my resting heart rate was 199 bpm. She then calmly stated that if I had taken the stairs, I likely would not have made it into the office. I instead would've been sent downstairs to the ER for a heart attack. I think it was her way of making sure I knew how serious this was. Apparently, my old prescription of meds wasn't working anymore. The surgeon saw me and was nervous about the surgery because it was a risk, a lot could go wrong. Usually, they place patients on iodine pills to lessen the risk of complications, but I have that pesky allergy. We scheduled the surgery and after a few more hiccups (Including one where I almost didn't get the surgery due to complications that would've delayed the surgery until after I was 23, lost my insurance, and couldn't pay for it) I finally did get surgery. My thyroid fully removed. He said my thyroid was actually stuck to my vocal chords, so it took a bit longer than expected as he had to pry my thyroid off my vocal chords without permanent damage. I don't know how he managed it, but other than my voice being a hiccup higher now, everything went as smoothly as possible. I tell this story like this because I was showing symptoms of hyperthyroidism at the age of fucking TWELVE and NO ONE took me seriously. I started showing advanced symptoms around the age of SIXTEEN and no one took me seriously. If my aunt hadn't pushed me to see someone, I would likely not be alive today. It only got so bad because it took me until I was NINETEEN for someone to do even the most basic of testing. TL;DR The American medical industry is fucking jacked up beyond belief that they would rather call a child a nervous hypochondriac rather than take the time, money, and effort to double-check whether or not she's telling a story for attention or if there really is something wrong. They'd rather a young woman die than be proven wrong. And it's sickening.

[@shaelynmartin1996]

@@KitchenWitchery My dad was abusive because he believed the medical practitioner over his daughter which caused us to argue? I'm sorry, I don't follow.

[@AirKIng74]

A fascinating and moving story. Thank you, anecdotes like this can really breathe life into an issue, especially one so well written. I'm sorry you had to go through all of that.

[@koboldmaki6014]

This is so shocking. Thank you for sharing your story. I‘m really glad you made it through all of that and I hope you found medical professionals you can trust. A friend of mine went through something similar with endometriosis. She was over 40 when she finally got the right diagnosis and had to go through surgery as well. I can’t wrap my head around stuff like this. Hope you‘re doing well!

[@ErutaniaRose]

I'm so glad you got the medical care you need. I know for me personally, my medical history is SOOOOO complicated since I was born with a heart condition most cardiologists haven't even heard of because it's so rare. It was corrected with surgery when I was 5 months old, but I have always been told, "We don't know how long you'll live." because of it. I also had complications with period pain and it took me over 2 years, bed-ridden pain where I couldn't even rollover, and a new doctor before I was even allowed to TRY birth control. All because my former doctor, who was a woman, said, "Oh, you're just stressed." Yeah, like that would explain worsening pain, ibuprofen doing nothing despite taking 800mg, and constant illness once or twice a month with flu or bad cold symptoms ranging from 2ays to 2weeks. Oh, and the random fever that lasted over a week at 103 degrees average, and NO doctor could tell me what was going on before it mysteriously went away. (That was with over 4 blood tests, two days of hospital observation, and a fever specialist.) I still have no official diagnosis, at 19, but I have a MUCH better doctor. However, I can easily say that I am medically complex and that as soon as I fall off my Dad's insurance, I am screwed, even with a diagnosis. (Good thing I wanna leave America, so I can LIVE.)

[@sk98ification]

That is so fucking insane. I'm glad you got the treatment you needed.

[@perteadsf4914]

Wait a minute... If a doctor believes black people have less nerve endings and thus feel less, that means it has to be WORSE for them if they go to the doctor and you should take it MORE seriously...

[@LeighWinterrs]

I remember reading about how in the 1800s, pre antebellum, doctors believed black people (specifically women), had supernatural strength because they don’t display pain in the way white people do. And then I learned that modern day OBGYN practices are a result of a ‘pioneer’ mutilating female slates out of curiosity and for the entertainment of high society men

[@mausemadchenmi7144]

The first time ovulation was observed life in Germany was in women prisoners if the third Reich

[@Treysorable]

Newsflash, that's why you barely see a black person in your local clinic

[@joshuacox534]

isn't it odd that the american exceptionalists love to talk about how much better the right wing U.S. is when clearly there are still drastic changes that need to be made that have parallels to right wing muslim countries? this is what we get in a capitalist economy that relies on sexism and racism. identity politics divides people along lines of alienated labor.

[@deadwood1574]

@@joshuacox534 The self proclaimed "Grim Reapor AKA Moscow Mitch said Medicare for all and The Green New Deal would never even be voted on....Crazy shit the last thing passed in the Senate was Obamacare. Like a full decade ... good job doing absolutely fkn nothing!

[@nate.draws.things]

Also worth noting the bias against poor people in medicine. I've lived in a pretty poor area, and they think everyone here are junkies and addicts. My mom went to a clinic with paperwork *from a rheumatologist* saying that she has A.S. They couldn't refuse to treat her, but they drove her to tears, and one doctor actually asked her if she was just there for drugs. She didn't go back. So, no. Not all broke people are addicts. We need fair medical treatment too.

[@aserta]

Yeah, but US isn't a first world country so that's not something uncommon.

[@kimberlys8422]

That's true. I had a massive panic attack and was shaking... one of the paramedics actually said "She's probably on meth" and the doctor wasn't any better.

[@winesap2]

And the doctors want all the drugs for themselves.

[@teendetective013]

As a poor block woman, I have been refused medicine because they assume I’m a junkie, emotional, or immune to pain.

[@DanielHarvey1980]

Definitely true.

[@tanwenward9664]

I started experiencing intermittent chest pains in the end of 2016, and went to the Drs one night to have them tell me it was probably due to anxiety or stress, and at the most it was costochondritis (an inflammation of the cartilage in your chest). They said to just relax. A few months later, the chest pains got more regular and I started developing breathing problems. Back to the doctor, this one said that it was probably costo (not that they’d done any tests to confirm) and suggested I take up swimming because it’s great for stretching out your muscles. Over the next couple of months, I went back to the doctors three or four times, one suggested asthma, others kept saying anxiety (despite my mother being a clinical psychologist and thus would have recognised anxiety). Then it got to the point where I could barely talk for more than 30 seconds and my partner couldn’t hug me without causing a coughing fit. I had lost heaps of weight and was regularly experiencing night sweats and other symptoms but just kept shrugging them off because I didn’t want yet another doctor to insinuate I was a hypochondriac. One week it got so bad that I took myself to the emergency room. After a simple chest x-ray, they found a giant tumour in my chest that was taking up where my left lung should have been and pressing on my heart. Three days later, they diagnosed me with Hodgkin lymphoma. That was about six months after that first doctor’s visit. Would have been nice to be taken seriously the first time I went. Luckily all good now but still pretty pissed about all of doctors I saw previously. Just adding my story to the growing collection of people not being taken seriously by doctors.

[@yay-depression]

I had similar symptoms and got told the exact same things!! costochondritis (even though it was in the wrong place), anxiety (which is weird bc I'm on anxiety meds), muscle tension, and asthma were all suggested as a reason. turns out I have not one, but *two* chronic pain conditions. Being a woman fucking sucks sometimes

[@ritamariekelley4077]

So very sorry for that unnecessary trauma. And they wonder why they get sued...

[@isabellevkd]

When I was 4, I couldn’t eat, drink, or talk. My mom was obviously terrified, took me to the doctor because she knew it was my tonsils. Me doctor said it was an ear infection. She tried to fight it, but he wouldn’t let up. Eventually she took me to a different doctor, who instantly checked my tonsils, and saw they were the size of ping pong balls. I had surgery that day. She ended up becoming my primary, and my family was super bummed when she moved to a different state a decade later. Dr. Opal was the best and most compassionate doctor I had as a kid. My primary now is amazing though, she gets me any test I need, and sometimes will consult over the phone for advice/a question because then I don’t have to pay hospital fees.

[@aldranzam3456]

The dentist that pretty much saved my teeth after a greedy doctor left my braces on for too long is an amazing woman who did her studies in Cuba. Cuba has some of the best medicine schools in Latin America, and I do feel her learning in a diverse community helps.

[@quietpurposefulness8439]

There is also bias against young people who have issues that "won't affect them at their age"

[@AvgJane19]

+

[@jesseyunderwood7322]

I got that after a massive injury to my spine.

[@bonesonstones1]

Absolutely agree with this. My SIL's lymphoma went undiagnosed for 2.5 years, allowing it to grow to stage IV, because she was 29 at the time her symptoms started.

[@awhellyeah12]

True

[@leilanidru7506]

Quiet Purposefulness yeeeeeeessssss.

[@kurkkupastillitjalammintee]

I used to dream about moving to the US. The more I watch this show I become more and more convinced not to. My nordic ass is staying in Finland.

[@Anna133199]

Why would you dream about that country? It seems great for people who are rich af. Normal people are better off in Northern, Western and Central Europe. Edit: And Southern Europe.

[@watsonwrote]

I wish I could move to Finland. America is hell

[@weasel7491]

Finland and the nordics seem nice? I mean America is a good vacation place if you're that curious.

[@stitchfinger7678]

There is literally not a single reason to leave Europe for America.

[@SyntheticFuture]

Definitely stay in Finland. Great country, nice social securities. Shame of the depression there though, but I'm sure over time people there will realize their live is pretty good and that will change as well.

[@kawaiiconcept7479]

This kind of thing happens in mental health too. Young girls are far less likely to get diagnosed with autism then boys are because a lot of what autism portrays as are also female stereo types. It wasn't until I was 20 years old that I got diagnosed with autism and ADHD even though I got a 'maybe' when I was a kid for ADHD but it all went untreated until I was struggling through college on a social level.

[@precise1758]

I know this is an old post, but this EXACT situation happened to me. I had to go to another doctor who confirmed I did have autism (did the tests), then when I told my family doctor she said some young people want to belong to a culture and imagine they have all sorts of things

[@kawaiiconcept7479]

@@precise1758 yikes that's not fun. Sorry you had to go through that.

[@tinino8947]

it's really really hard to realise how far this goes. A female friend of mine got turned down by the very reasons told here. A male friend who's got depression got recently turned down with the sentence "just be a little happier". Haven't thought of that yet dumbass

[@TheDungeonofBadDecisions]

I got diagnosed with autism at 24, because every time i ran into an autistic person, they'd ask me if i was sure i wasnt autistic. I finally asked my therapist about it, and she went "Oh, yeah, you're absolutely autistic. You want me to make it an official diagnosis?" My father, on the other hand, still doesn't believe I'm autistic now, 4 years later, because the test they had done when I was 7, in 2002, claimed I wasn't. I asked him how even got them to administer the test, because before about 2016, it was essentially impossible to get medical professionals to admit that girls could even have autism. He hasn't gotten back to me on that.

[@meowntown69]

Here really late but yeah. I got diagnosed with ADHD but not autism, though everyone around me says it's very obvious I have it (my brothers are autistic as well). But I was never diagnosed because who's gonna catch it in an afab???

[@Kat-qe1vk]

When I was dealing with crippling abdominal pain for months, doctors just kept telling me it was cramps and tell me to take some Ibuprofen, despite my telling them that I was taking ibuprofen it wasn't helping. Finally I'd had enough and got my good friend James to go in with me and basically just pretend to be my boyfriend and repeat everything I said in slightly different words. They still essentially rolled their eyes whenever I spoke but when the words came from him, suddenly it was a serious issue and I got the tests I needed. It's worth noting that while I love James like a brother...He is not a clever man. He once almost blinded himself accidentally spraying febreeze directly into his eyes- if anything his dumb ass should have hurt my case lol

[@quint8521]

I did the something similar but instead of bringing in a man I just repeated what I said but started with “My husband says/said/thinks....” Even when I was describing my symptoms, I just had to say “My husband said the pain is in this area, feels like this” and they listen. Like, what???

[@natashavermilyea7964]

@@quint8521 I've used the "My husband asked if I was making the doctor appointment or if I wanted him to call and schedule the appointment." Suddenly it was worth listening to my cold.

[@laurahall3094]

It's not at all fair, but I'm glad you got taken care of and I hope you are OK from now on.

[@laurahall3094]

@@quint8521 that's actually very clever

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

Goes to show how bad it is that someone who should have made things worse made things better.

[@WrecklessEating]

The older I get the more I find out just how odd our country is. We seem to spend more time telling everyone how great we are rather than actually helping the people who live here.

[@n.a.f.k]

@Jane Nonymous 😂

[@theberrypie]

for once this video is about an issue that is relevant in all predominantly white countries on earth. But I agree otherwise

[@bobdole8830]

I feel like the more shitty the US becomes, the louder the claims of how great it is become.

[@dingqinghe1414]

Yeah, but you get nothing from helping people in need. Telling people how great America is will get you elected as the president.

[@Super_Boa]

You're also taking all this from a foreigner who presents it with comedy. It's manipulation used to indoctrinate you into a certain way of thinking.

[@Zarolea]

Black Twitter said that if the doctor refuses to treat you, make them write that refusal down. They change their minds really quick.

[@edmundduke3259]

Stupid bullshit. 1-2 nutheads who dont want to treat blacks don't make the whole community of physicians ffs

[@boarder6246]

That’s actually really great advice, no one should be refused medical services. Always hold the doctors accountable if they are ignoring your issues.

[@oof-rr5nf]

@@edmundduke3259 did ya watch the video mr. edmund? millions of people's health and lives are at stake, mr. edmund.

[@lazeybonez]

@@edmundduke3259 No one is claiming that, least of all this comment. Did you even read what they wrote OR watch the video? Because John made that point clear as well.

[@31webseries]

@@edmundduke3259 Yeah but if your life or your wife's or your child's is in the hands of those 1 or 2 nutheads, you'd want all the advice on what to do.

[@moxiemoxen]

Also transgender people experience lots of bias from doctors, I once had a pregnancy misdiagnosed because the doctor thought I had my uterus removed despite there were no notes about it in my file....

[@cauchyschwarz3295]

If everyone gets discriminated against, it might be time to ask yourselfes if its not discrimination but just a shitty healthcare system.

[@kashmirwillwin3124]

@@cauchyschwarz3295 lmao

[@Aethelia]

Yes it's a shitty healthcare system, but it's very clearly worse for some people than for others.

[@kallaghanburke2857]

As a trans man ive run into some amazing people in health care but Ive Also had to spend over an hour explaining what I was, what surgeries I had and "what I hoped to do with this" to a clinic doctor I went to see for an ear infection. And even had a doctor walk into the exam room and just leave to be replaced later. It does not instill a trust in the people ment to help me when they have no idea how to deal with me or will not even see me.

[@Canleaf08]

whilst in Europe, you are usually gatekept at every simple step. America and Canada at least have informed consent. It is such a fight to get anything here granted...

[@Ashley-xu1lk]

There's also discrimination on patients that are obese or overweight. There are doctors out there that think every complain of pain from a heavy person is related to their weight and just sends them home without looking for a different possible cause.

[@Razatanx7]

This should be covered in this episode... but for anyone encountering a doctor who’s being less than adequate tell them you want the medical notes to state that you’re being denied treatment along with the name of the doctor in the notes so there will be a record of their negligence especially if you’re discharged. Also keep that copy in a safe place and any needed lawyer will thank you.

[@SomeRandomJackAss]

And don't take no for an answer. When you're trying to cover your ass for negligence, they 'll try everything they can think of not to let you. "We don't do that here." "It's really not necessary." "It's all in the system." Bullshit.

[@cordlefhrichter1520]

That's excellent advice.

[@anutokaitu2234]

...some people are too decent to do that. You fucking tell people that they should take responsibility? You must be fucking kidding me. This should be implicit regarding these healthcare jobs.

[@anutokaitu2234]

09:06 - because you stupid people see it as a tragedy when a lot of people die at the same time and place...but not if they die about the same time but far spread apart from each other. That's why you call mass shootings tragedies...but when more Latinos and Black People are getting killed every day you do not even realize it.

[@1MarkKeller]

Wish I had thought of that two years ago.

[@amelievandecasteele4998]

A year ago I had really bad abdominal pain. The nurses asked me like 30 times if I was sure I wasn’t pregnant as my pain reminded them of labour pain. The doctor asked me if I was on my period. I told him no (it wasn’t about to start for another week). He dismissed my pain and told me that it was just my uterus preparing for my period. One of his assistants (a male medical student) asked if he could do an echo for training purposes and because he wanted to look more into it. This medical student took me seriously and found out that my intestines formed abnormally, they are to bendy and have spots where water can stay behind. My cramps where the result of my body wanting to expel the water. So thank you medical student. 🙏 Edit: With echo I mean ultrasound. Thanks everyone for bringing that to my attention. English isn’t my first language and in my first language an ‘echo’ refers to an ultrasound.

[@thankfulthief]

@Luis Tejeda her problem all along was that her heart was in her digestive track

[@zoeybirds]

@Luis Tejeda she probably means an ultrasound..

[@letizia4]

Luis Tejeda An echography I take it (ultrasound) (if you were just being ironic, sorry)

[@juliejay5436]

Amélie Vandecasteele that is tragic and incredibly sad.

[@saddemgargouri]

@Luis Tejeda ultrasound . this could serve double purpose , A check Appendice , and B see intestine Gaz \ liquid format , if someone suffering from intestinal occlusion you can see certain shapes in Ultrasound exam . While sure the first thing to consider is extra uterine pregnancy , other abdominal urgencies can be the cause . I feel like the problem the doctor treated you as a woman and not a generic patient that can have anything , if it was a male he wouldn't consider obstetrical causes first obviously

[@camilledasse4331]

A good example of bias in medecine, though unrelated to gender or race, is a doctor who asked me on my first visit if I was smoking, drinking alcohol or doing drugs. When I answered no to him, he looked at me and told me "sure, I believe you" with a very condescend tone. All of this because I was a college student. I never came to his office again.

[@quicksilvermad]

Same here when I went to a clinic for a UTI when the doctor asked if I was sexually active and I said "no", she scoffed. And I can't forget the time when I went to a clinic because I was experiencing weird as fuck symptoms two weeks after a concussion (coffee no longer smells like it's supposed to, and it tastes like the bottom of someone's shoe to me after that head injury), got all the way back to an exam room, explained how concerned I was about my concussion symptoms, then, right when I was telling her that the initial concussion happened at work, she literally threw her hands up and snapped at me about how I needed to go back and fill out the intake forms again because apparently I was supposed to know to tell them it was a work-related injury before anyone even fucking talked to me.

[@ritamariekelley4077]

Awesome that you never went back.

[@crestflames492]

I started my period at 14, and immediately it was extremely heavy, I had terrible cramps, awful mood swings, and they lasted for over a week (the average period lasts 3-5 days). I thought that maybe it was just because it was the first one, and sometimes they can be heavier. But no, they just kept being like that, and lasting anywhere from 7-12 days with all of the same symptoms. I had to change my tampon every hour or so, and I would still bleed onto chairs at school. It was a mess. I finally went on birth control to try and regulate them, but they were still pretty bad, so I went on continuous birth control so I don’t get them at all, and that changed my life. But from the beginning I was just told by my mom that “yeah, this is how bad my periods were too” and same for her mom, my sister, and my dad’s mom. We all just accepted it because we were told by doctors that our periods are just bad and that’s that. I only found out last year, when I started seeing a different gynecologist, that the reason they’re so severe is because I have a bleeding disorder, Von Willebrand disease, and PMDD (though we had known that part before seeing this new gynecologist). Literally no other doctor besides this one had thought to run tests on me even though my periods were very abnormal and indicated further health problems. In fact, most women with Von Willebrand disease don’t find out they have it until they start having periods which are almost always very severe. Luckily, the best treatment for it is birth control, which I was coincidentally already on. Birth control already comes with the risk of blood clots, because it raises your Von Willebrand factor in your blood, which is coincidentally the factor I don’t have enough of. But it’s still baffling to me that no one ever thought to try and figure out the cause of the terrible periods that literally every woman in my family had, because it’s just assumed that periods suck and you have to deal with it.

[@masonbobro3794]

Hey, same except I have hereditary Factor X Deficiency (rare bleeding disorder). Are you active in the bleeding disorders community? Edit: bdc in the U.S., I assume you live here?

[@JOHN----DOE]

Women with endometriosis have similar experiences. "You're a healthy young woman, it can't be that bad, you're just a crybaby." Boy, would I love to teleport that pain to any doctor with that attitude. One moral: don't have a doctor who doesn't have the same organs you do. That helps a lot.

[@martalaatsch8358]

I don't have an actual disorder, but my periods are very heavy - needing to change tampons more than every two hours for the first few days, but not much more. I went on continuous birth control to stop them. Several brands didn't work, including one that caused depression symptoms. One time I asked my gp for a different brand and explicitly asked him to look through the records and prescribe something different from the one that had caused depression symptoms before. His response was "Don't worry, I'll put you on the minipill, that one can't cause depression." At that point I already probably had sub-clinical or mild depression anyway due to other things, but I took this pill anyway. It was a disaster. Every night I called my mom (I was a college freshman living alone) to say I couldn't stop crying and didn't know why. Near the end of the first month, I started jaywalking with a death wish,which might or might not technically be considered a suicide attempt. After two days of that, during which I could have died and just got lucky that I didn't, I went off the pill. Felt better within a day despite the crazy painful cramps that come with going off the pill compared to normal periods. That doctor didn't take a basic precaution I explicitly asked for, and the only reason I didn't die was because I happened to get lucky.

[@xwasx08]

Usually Sunday night: Bed. Work in the morning. My Sunday night: 330AM, time to watch the parrot man.

[@sly369]

Its noon here tho

[@thesims4omnibus673]

1:30am in bham, I have no regrets😉

[@rollin340]

Someone needs to make a quick drawing of him in a ParrotMan costume.

[@kamenraider1175]

Midnight here

[@GHustle4]

you mean Monday...

[@jacksonzhou6893]

"I'd like to speak to your supervisor." I'm an Asian immigrant to this country, and learning those words from white people has changed my life!

[@rafaguelfand6615]

summon your internal Karen

[@Tuffsmoygles]

ugg, I hate white people like that. Yes, it is valid sometimes to ask for a sup, but a lot of people use it a club to get what they want even though they don't deserve it or it is not possible.

[@rafaguelfand6615]

@matthew styles wtf is wrong with you

[@softyzz69]

@matthew styles true dat

[@dimitarbonev4541]

Why don't yoou speak to the supervisor in your own country!???

[@TheNormExperience]

This is so sad and true. I remember one doctor I had briefly who straight up told me (as an 17-18 year old young woman) to “Stop being so over-emotional.” when I came to him in horrible PAIN. Yet he just kept telling me I needed to try to control myself. To calm down. To stop being so hysterical. That was when I decided to leave, so I just asked him where the nearest ER was so I could find a medical professional willing to take this seriously. He rolled his eyes and said, “Really? Why do YOU need to go to the ER? Do you want to waste their time with this pointless drama as well? They have real people in need of help.” It was absolutely disgusting and insanely unprofessional conduct. Just because I happen to have ovaries doesn’t mean I am not a human being and deserving to be treated as such.

[@ritamariekelley4077]

Another a-hole. Why do so many of them go into medicine?

[@FiveOClockTea]

I guess it's good that "a white man" adressed these problems... looking at the comments (or rather the comment threads) I can only imagine how toxic some of them would be, if "a black woman" had moderated this (or any woman, seeing as most toxic comments seem to be from sexists and not racists)

[@xCorvus7x]

@@colbyboucher6391 That depends solely on the circles you frequent, I'm afraid. (Then again, much does, and this here doesn't seem to be one, generally.)

[@gwenbracker457]

When you ask for a test and the doctor refuses. Tell them to document both your request and their refusal on your chart and make sure they do it.

[@dinolandra]

My mom started doing this with her diabetes specialist and getting better care.

[@pedrobury6275]

Gwen Bracker this is probably the best advice because the doctors know they’re being lazy and if something ends up happening it traces back to them

[@MonkeyJedi99]

a.k.a. Stand up for yourself. That is one of the keys to getting good health care.

[@MarioAlvarezYates]

@@MonkeyJedi99 or you know....money

[@thomasakagi7545]

@@Mark-xj8bu That's the point. Make a paper trail so the coroner can determine later whether or not it was really unwarranted.

[@aaronmarks9366]

Those weird beliefs about black people's skin and pain tolerance have a very specific historical cause. I'll give you a hint: it starts with 's' and ends with 'lavery'

[@ZanetaW]

During the times of good old-fashioned slavery, black people (especially black women) were subject to dangerous experimental medical procedures by white doctors specifically because of this belief :((

[@c.m.3800]

Yup, Yup!!💁

[@kitimka]

The idea about black people having thicker skin might have to do with the fact that black people have more compact collagen bundles in the skin and it therefore appears tougher (on average).

[@ShadowTheDeathhog]

Yeah, I was thinking all those thoughts sounded familiar from the bogus race science of the 19th and early 20th century, and like 10% to 20% of the medical practitioners interviewed believed that to be true? Dude that's like having a biologist who still believes in spontaneous generation

[@busehannah001]

I would highly recommend anyone watching this actually read the studies. Or check out doctor mike’s analysis of this segment. John Oliver cherry picked parts of these studies to confirm HIS BIAS.

[@bobbauer7928]

I had a friend (latinx) whose mom went to the ER feeling very poorly, and was told she had the flu and sent home. She went back a few hours later because she knew something was wrong. She was told again that she had just the flu and to go sleep it off. Truth was she was having a heart attack and died that night.

[@streamoflillies2345]

I'm a heavier white woman. I went to the doctor a couple years ago because I was going to class, coming home, taking a nap, waking up long enough to eat and MAYBE do homework and then going to bed and sleeping through my first class, every day (I ended up getting taught my morning class by a friend rather than attending it bc I physically could not wake up for it). I was sleeping up to 18 hours a day. I told them about my mothers entire side of the family (my mom, her mom, my aunt, my uncle, all of them) having thyroid problems, and was made to feel stupid for asking to get my thyroid levels tested. They told me it might be a mold allergy, but didn't even attempt to test for that. They said me it might be depression, and ignored that I've been depressed since 14/15, the over-sleeping had been happening for about 3 months. They also didn't try to refer me to a therapist at all, just 'maybe depression'. They ran the tests I insisted on, and then basically sent me a notice saying I was fine (I fucking wasn't). I didn't bother going back. Luckily the problem went away eventually and I was back to my standard 6-8 hours of sleep. I try to believe the mono test was a false negative, just so I have an answer, but I really have no idea. Going to the doctor should result in answers, not exhaustion because no one will listen

[@pleaseclap3335]

Telling a woman she's hysterical when really she's having an emergency medical issue, is a good way to make her actually hysterical...

[@chaoslord8918]

I liked your comment, but your profile name and pic are priceless.

[@HandthatRockstWorld]

And I should hope such treatment would make a man hysterical!

[@GtaRockt]

my grandpa used to say "if you wanna make a woman real mad, tell her to calm down" he was a really smart fella

[@miguelricardoarandazamudio2552]

This is one of the smartest arguments that can be applied to many different situations that women suffers in the world.

[@AceMoonshot]

hysterical (adj) 1610s, "characteristic of hysteria," the nervous disease originally defined as a neurotic condition peculiar to women and thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus; literally "of the womb," from Latin hystericus "of the womb," from Greek hysterikos "of the womb, suffering in the womb," from hystera "womb," from PIE *udtero-, variant of *udero- "abdomen, womb, stomach" We ain't come as far as we think in many ways.

[@katelynnehansen8115]

At almost five weeks pregnant, I enthusiastically went to my first OB appointment, and received disgusting treatment. She had an obvious racial bias and asked things like “how are you keeping yourself off the street?” instead of “where do you work?” Then she wrote “UNPLANNED” in huge letters across the top of her notes even though I JUST told her we had tried for over a year. I mean we planned down to taking daily prenatals and even having the nursery paint picked out. We’d been married almost five years, had good jobs, owned our house etc. Could hardly have been a more ideal situation and she still still treated me with intense disdain and disrespect. Needless to say, I changed doctors.

[@Anna133199]

What the fuck. Disgusting! Hope the rest of the pregnancy went well.

[@lordlucius1341]

What I hate more is when doctors force their religious practices on you, we live in a pretty liberal state and my sister needed birth control meds not for sex but to help deal with her menstruation pain (she took depo shots and something else too) and our primary stood on her religious grounds and belittled her saying she wouldn’t give her it and was spouting marriage bs, all unsolicited. Funny thing is we went to her husband, who is also a doctor and he had no problem giving it to her. Doctors have to stop looking at race and sex and treat patients as if they were the patient themselves.

[@ImprovementisGrowth]

Katelynne Huh Next time your in a situation like that call for the nurse floor supervisor and the director of patient experience or advocate.

[@jglobetrotter2830]

Funny thing, for those on the religious right, I did things the "right" way. I went on BC almost three months before my wedding, so I could adjust to it (and hopefully fit into my wedding gown!). So a week before my wedding, I'm calling to refill my prescription and they say, no, I can't get a refill until 7 days prior to running out of pills. I told them I was going on my honeymoon and wouldn't be there to pick them up 7 days before running out, and do you know what they said?? I could pay cash for an "extra" refill, or I could go stand in line at an f-ing pharmacy in Hawaii on my honeymoon!! I bought a month's supply and then called my doctor to transfer my prescription to the town my husband and I were moving to. A month later, I try to pick up my prescription at my new local pharmacy and they can't give it to me because my previous pharmacy has already filled that prescription. I called the previous pharmacy and they said "Well you called asking for a refill, so we filled it as soon as we could." I called and you refused me to refill the f-ing thing in time!!! Ugh. I had to drive to my hometown and pick up the prescription there because they refused to cancel it and let my local pharmacy fill it. Thankfully, since then, everything has gone smoothly with the local pharmacy

[@lorimckay2704]

Katelynne Huh My God that is awful.

[@biancavasileva9803]

Funnily enough, that joke about "bring a white man" when you're going to the doctor's office can actually work in real life.

[@Monika-bc3dq]

It's not only US issue... I gained 20kg in 6 months despite not changing anything in my life and when I told him that and the fact that I go to the gym 4-5 days a week, he just smirked and said "what's the point of lying to a doctor?" Basically just saying that the only reason that's possible for my weigth gain is laziness :) I just walked out and for next few years I just didn't go to any other doctor so I don't have to hear some bs like that again. Turned out I have Hashimoto, I have proper meds now (that I will have to take forever) and my weight went almost back to my regular one.

[@Mr.DiughGames]

As a Hispanic person, I can tell you that I don't like any kind of pain nor do I consider it noble or sacrificial.

[@nicolefrank1858]

Mr. Diugh I have red hair and some bitch decided to spread that read heads “experience” pain as more severe than it is. When I was preparing to deliver my child, she was half way out before I asked for pain relief. I was too afraid to ask for help because of that bullshit “study” and not be believed.

[@emhu2594]

Well the medical science is all against you. It is has already been empirically proven in dozens of studies of old white men.

[@AnonURnot]

Em Hu Lol nice

[@hazukichanx408]

The big problem with generalizations tends to be that they only ever have a chance to apply to any given individual... even if not based on incorrect assumptions and thus not applicable to anyone, or anyone in the current time period, and so on and so forth. Generalizations are the tool of people who want to believe life is far simpler than it is. Sadly, they do a great deal of harm in their mad quest for simplicity.

[@erdemmemisyazici3950]

I do think it has a lot to do with who the doctor thinks would give less trouble in collecting payments. If you in any way remind the doctor of possibly being unable to pay due to racist or sexist reasons, you are going to get shit care. The worst medical practices I've seen were performed on my brother by all kinds of professionals. A dentist who put a metal filling in his front tooth. Another doctor who basically left a caterpillar on his wrist just to remove a cyst. Maybe it's the foreign sounding name and living in the South, or maybe it's being a broke college student. Medieval shit happens all the time by medical professionals. Not every doctor is Dr. House, but they certainly get paid the same.

[@whoozyyy]

She says "bring a white man" and its supposed to be funny, but I'm a 31 year old black man and was hospitalized for pancreatitis. The first couple days there the staff was slow to bring medication for pain and to attend to me, but the third day my manager came by to check on me and i told him what was going on. He went on his white man tantrum and everything got turned around that day, got all my medications on time and they would even start to check in on me. It's racist, but its real.

[@petercarioscia9189]

Did you go on a black man tantrum to get medication? You're story contradicts itself.... It shows mr.Whitey wasn't getting treatment and had to fight for it.... Sad you didn't do the same, really.

[@cordlefhrichter1520]

What makes you think it had anything to do with race, racist?

[@mennoltvanalten7260]

Reread it It's ok to smirk! It says 'He went on his white man tantrum', not 'I went on a white man tantrum'. In that sentence, 'He' is for the manager, who was, and presumably still is, white.

[@schisandra]

it's ok to smirk No contradiction. The black male patient wasn’t taken seriously until a white male insisted on it.

[@trillianweatherwax4181]

I am so sorry, this happened to you! As a woman I had an experience with pain and they didn't treat me properly, until my partner lost it. Every time I go to the doctor, I am scared because they may not take me seriously and something terrible happens.

[@casualmime2792]

One of the main reasons women's heart problems are missed so frequently is ERs is that most women present differently than men. Nausea and epigastric pain and more frequent than crushing chest pain which is normally the symptom associated with heart attacks. It's a major focus in medical school (in my experience) now so it is getting better.

[@LovecraftianToenail]

mad respect for Oliver, droppin' "assigned male at birth" in a video with 6 million views.

[@shrimp19921]

Which means “male” in the real world.

[@dexterburk1642]

@@shrimp19921 Fuck off

[@rivahoukes1554]

@@shrimp19921 it means male in the world view of someone who gets angry when others are different. For basically everyone els it means, you have a dick and your body make testosterone. And thats it

[@shrimp19921]

@@rivahoukes1554 it has nothing to do with being angry at others about anything. It has to do with being a male or female has nothing to do with your identity, it has to do with what you biologically are.

[@rivahoukes1554]

@@shrimp19921 being assigned male at birth means you were born male. for some it stays that way, for others it doesn't. This causes gender dysphoria, a depression linked to gender It has to do with your identity, it has to do with the fact that for some being assigned male or female at birth doesn't link up to what they are. The you can't change that

[@dodgeplow]

A professor taught me that if you listen, the patient will tell you what is wrong with them. I tell my students the same and to always keep an open mind when you step into a patient's room and treat them like you would want to be treated yourself. Thankfully this approach has always served me well.

[@KidSnivy69]

Unfortunately, not everyone has your mindset

[@yenthel3]

I thought about 50% (don't know the exact number, it was surprisingly high) of diagnoses can be made just by observation and good anamnesis. (obviously followed by a test/physical to confirm)

[@theautarch7837]

That is a good mindset. I imagine there are many medical professionals that a) think they're God's gift to humanity because they became doctors, or b) get worn down by people insisting their holistic medicine of choice is a universal panacea, eventually becoming defensive and closed minded because they're tired of hearing about how essential oils can cure cancer.

[@yenthel3]

@@theautarch7837 That and also wanting to become a doctor to help people. You rescue someone with a heart attack and the next day you see him smoking cigarettes and eating McDo just outside the hospital. All of that while you couldn't rescue a child with leukemia the same day. That will cause a form of apathy towards patients and even burnouts in doctors.

[@hazukichanx408]

For a nation so enamored with the idea that it is "under God" and regularly blessed by God, according to the president, and with so much of the population happily proclaiming how christian they are... A lot of folks seem to ignore the golden rule. Good to know it's not everyone, at least. :)

[@maivaiva1412]

I'm going to start calling my period the curse.

[@ForeverMe543]

maivaiva it’s funny cause my mom used to jokingly call it that so it isn’t strange for me to hear this 😂

[@Silburific]

I call my the Red Scourge.

[@IvanKrappenchitz]

For some it's a blessing. Especially after a pregnancy scare.

[@emilyb.8219]

I sometimes just call it the "issue". Don't really know why

[@acciousername6776]

I call it Jam Sandwich... I'll see myself out

[@ShelfyAndCo]

I have a new appreciation for this episode after what my black fiance has to go through when he was having a raging tooth infection. His extraction was a week out and they would not prescribe him an opioid even though he was in such extreme pain he just slept all day to avoid it.

[@mr.waffles8739]

As a white man, if any of you feel you need me to come with you to get treatment, I will come along, free of charge, everyone should be treated equally!

[@AskForDoodles]

All clinics should have advertisements for a "rent a white guy" service.

[@mugandaje]

Dr.-It’s definitely not your heart, go home. Patient- Ok, I’m glad- thanks Doc! Narrator- It was definitely her heart

[@maxmarks3503]

One of the darker arrested development episodes

[@kevtb874]

I read that in Ron Howard's voice.

[@DOLsenior]

Or type one diabetes...this happened to a friend of mine. No expensive test was necessary. Friday night Doc- "probably getting your period. Come back Moday if you still don't feel good" Friend's Mom- "but my mother has type one diabetes and the symptoms are VERY similar" Doc- "you are ridiculous" Sunday: Friend (patient) went into diabetic coma and died of type one diabetes 😥

[@yuding6019]

@@DOLsenior I'm really sorry to hear that. Can I ask if your friend's family had filed a complaint or decided to sue the doctor? Because I surely think the doctor did not do what he should have done for your friend. I am sorry if this question is too personal and don't feel obligated to reply me.

[@maxfieldjoyner5244]

I noticed one image was of John Spencer from the west wing, who actually died a year or two later after that image.

[@haphazardlynathan]

I love that John Oliver does so many pieces about problems that don't affect him personally. It gives me hope.

[@felicia3924]

I know right. He kept going on about him being unqualified to talk about problems hes not experiencing, but if talked about in the same way any social group would, why not. For the better even, because it shows thats its possible and normal to care and look for perspectives that arent yours.

[@bertoandon9681]

Same!🙂

[@lyndajones1133]

but i kinda hate npr droning on about stuff unhelpful it seems when its always something that doesn't effect us. a lot like politics.

[@n.a.f.k]

I mean he is a psychologically and physically healthy, white, straight, cis-male what kind of piece would he really make on an issue that affects him?

[@isviewer]

@@n.a.f.k We don't know if he's psychologically healthy

[@whatever9097]

I have chronic pain that started when I was 8 years old. I remember going to the doctors in third grade because for a couple of months I had episodes of stabbing pain in my chest that wasn’t help by pain meds and was bad enough that it made me lighted headed. I was ignored and I told I’d grew out of it. I still have these episodes years later. It’s the same story for the intense pain in my back and neck that started a little after the chest pain did. I told every doctor, nurse, and practitioner I saw that my pain felt like it started at my spine. But guess what they all did, ignored me and didn’t do anything to see if there was a problem with my spine. Turns out my spine is completely misaligned and is the cause of the pain in my chest, back and neck pain. I’ve also suffers for migraines for since I was 10. People didn’t believe me when I’d be curled up with my eyes shut, ears covered, and crying from the pain. I was a young female so I was obviously exaggerating when I said that I felt like my head was being repeatedly smashed by a rock. I’ve been told by medical goddamn professionals that I just had headache and was being dramatic. I’ve been in school countless times and gone to the nurse for a migraine and been told I was fine and to go back to class because I was being stupid. I was also in a situation a couple months ago where my body was eating itself alive and was told I was fine. My muscles weren’t absorbing nutrients and started eating themselves. I ended up going to the ER 10 times in a couple months because of intense pain. I couldn’t walk, it hurt to type, I would get tired by eating a proper meal, I passed out multiple times from pain. I was told I was being dramatic and that it was just hormones or some shit. When doctors finally fingered it out they think if it had taken longer (it’d been 5 months at this point) that it could have killed me. I was fucking dying and I was told I was being a drama queen. Sorry rant over. But seriously please believe people about their pain. A lot of people I know, especially females and POC don’t complain about pain until it gets really bad. I personally don’t start to complain until I start to get dizzy or lightheaded from the pain. Nothing hurts like being told you’re overreacting while inside you’re hoping that whatever this is kills you because it’s too much pain.

[@MissPersephoneParker]

I have legit felt relief and thanked my nurse practitioner for not thinking I was a hypochondriac. I have a lot of medical issues. I told her I was scared to tell her because I thought she'd think I was just making it up.

[@bradleyheater1775]

During my PhD we used male mice for drug testing because female hormones sometime cause anomalies in data. We care more about publishing “sound data” than producing good drugs that work well for both sexes. This wasn’t mentioned in the episode, but this sort of bias happens very early at the drug discovery stage.

[@ChristyKSweet]

And males don't have hormones..

[@bradleyheater1775]

Christy Sweet thanks for the correction, I should have clarified the female hormone estrogen.

[@wendyberrios5957]

Brad Heater The fact that the word “hormone” has an innate female connotation, even to someone in the medical is worrying. How is a finding sound if it is only concerning one half of the population? This isn’t an attack on you, Brad. Just asking rhetorical questions here.

[@tacef100]

Nah he's just stating that he only carried out the experiments on the male mice and not all genders, simply because more consistant results were obtained or that the results were more impressive with this choice in sampling.

[@Blirre]

Men also have low levels of "female" hormones such as estrogen, so it's not that women have hormones and men don't. It's the variation of hormonal levels during the menstrual cycle which has to be taken into account if samples are collected from women. It requires longer testing and more varied data, and the collected data might not look as reliable as it would have looked if collected from men. In any case, even if there is more variety in the data, it still represents women better.

[@Dagg58]

A very effective way to get your doctor to rethink dismissing your claims is to demand they mark down their refusal for tests or declared symptoms in your file. This creates a malpractice paper trail in your record that they can't obfuscate later.

[@celinak5062]

+

[@mozelac5440]

wayward tacocollector I literally DID this. I demanded they mark it all down and give me the ORIGINAL and keep the copies. When it came time I got a malpractice paper trail and that dr had his license stripped.

[@Teenom]

@@mozelac5440 I hope it was worth it for you...

[@Nerobyrne]

this is something I learned from working in IT. But here it's more the actual ignorance of leadership. Whenever you state your claim about a situation, try to do it over email instead of verbally so that there is a "paper"-trail. Pretty insane that you have to do this with actual professionals, but I guess when the system fucks you, you gotta fuck it right back.

[@JJoy-bk8yr]

Thank you! My mother had an enormous tumor but as she tried to explain her symptoms a doctor, he told her "People like you make me sick. I have patients with real problems." He refused to examine her. I wondered afterward if I should have punched him in the face and offered to drop malpractice charges if he dropped assault charges.

[@nicdegrave9310]

My coworkers assumed that our newest worker, a brilliant, beautiful, tri-lingual, kind lady with a sweet husband and two little kids, was faking when she claimed strokelike symptoms. Fortunately I was the highest ranked worker that day and called someone in so I could drive her to the hospital (she was worried about the cost of an ambulance). She never left the hospital and they never found what was wrong, despite her detailed family history and years of experience describing symptoms for professionals. The most disheartening thing was how my coworkers, who'd flocked to support white colleagues through minor ailments, subjected her to vicious rumors of drug seeking and malingering and didn't send a card when--at 28 years old, with hopes for a catering business and the devotion of a young family--she died. I broke ties with my coworkers that day and never renewed them. You can't be in a business like ours and only care about some people.

[@raphaellevine8311]

Hi

[@JohnSydney225]

@@raphaellevine8311 _Hello_

[@meganhulings9670]

For my entire childhood and adolescence, I've been an atypical kid mentally. I hit most developmental benchmarks, but I was super sensitive to light, sound, textures, smells, tastes, etc., and highly anxious, I struggled socially and preferred to just keep to myself. I had really intense fascinations and obsessions, and some OCD-like tendencies and rituals. I was passed around to different therapists and doctors who all just said I was an anxious and sensitive kid and probably a hypochodriac. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and pretty much just ignored after that. When I went to university my struggles got a lot harder. I was having frequent panic attacks at least once every couple days that would last for hours on end, and I wouldn't remember much during or after them. I do know that these attacks felt like my senses and brain were just on fire with too much information. I would go mute during these episodes, and I didn't know how to quite describe them to the doctors as anything but panic attacks. When I was 23 I had a therapist who asked me if I was ever assessed for autism. I laughed at him and told him there was no way I was autistic, they would have figured that out when I was a kid. 2 years later, a new psychologist recommended that I be assessed for autism, "just for curiosity's sake", and so I scheduled for an assessment. Learning about autism became an obsession for me in the meantime, so I was learning a lot about the presentation of autism in boys vs girls and how girls could go undiagnosed until adulthood or were misdiagnosed with something else. Took the assessment, turns out that I AM autistic (high-functioning) with some ADHD tendencies and those panic attacks were actually meltdowns caused by overstimulation. 26 years of believing that I was just a really sensitive and anxious kid and recieving treatment that really wasn't working, and I finally have an answer. I've been doing a lot better, I've found the correct professional help I've been needing, and I've found that I'm easier on myself and not holding myself to other's 'normal' standards because my normal is not nuerotypical.

[@ritamariekelley4077]

So sorry this happened to you as it does to many. Glad you kept pushing and so glad things are better. Believe in yourself! 💕

[@conbonison4378]

"The simple fact that you have to ask that question is a problem." That's god damned right.

[@micmccond7]

It's probably a good thing that AI computing is making its way into the medical field. Irony of computers...you can trust them to not be biased to particulars of human appearances...sure they might want to terminate us all...but it feels good knowing everyone will be fairly screwed.

[@carterwood4197]

*damned

[@kraay89]

@@micmccond7 Actually that' not true. The AI will be made by people who have these same biases. The AI will be trained using existing data which contains these biases. Racist algorithms are already a thing actually. There have been several studies already that support this hypothesis. For example in crime prediction (Guess what...). It's just another can of worms waiting to pop if not dealt with appropriately.

[@faristasairuv5143]

Absolutely

[@akshayshetty9331]

Current 2nd year med student, I want some to know that this disparity and bias in health care was taught in my recent ethics module. Change is starting to happen, though it is late, it is happening.

[@sourgreendolly7685]

Good to hear but I’m willing to bet that depends on where you’re learning

[@yaee123]

Akshay Shetty yay!!! I hope everyone is taking it seriously, for the sake of my children. I’ve dealt with it and have had serious health complications due to being ignored as a black woman, but I have faith my daughter won’t experience it at all-the same way I’ve never experienced water fountain segregation and back of the bus policies of our parent’s days.

[@emeraldofindia]

but i think this is more to do with India. The cultural differences play a key role

[@zenplus6515]

Did they talk about the obesity factor, too? Because fat ppl get colds, neurological and autoimmune diseases, too, not just diabetes and "fat pains", whatever those are.

[@Caliebird]

Yes, but a lot of the time doctor is a lifetime career so we still have the majority of doctors thinking the same way because of outdated education

[@JC-dk4ny]

After 3 yrs of cancer treatment as a teen I was having a lot of pain and a myriad of physical issues. I was sent to a specialist who said it was all in my head, I didn't actually have any pain or issues it was just my body remembering pain from before and that they needed to "retrain" my brain, turns out it was bone disease and I had to have a bunch of joint replacements. And that's just one gem in my horror story of being a patient in this "system" where the onus is on the patient to know what they need and get it irrespective of their situation, capabilities and access. Word of advice, don't get sick as a minor.

[@ginapolly6887]

The first time my mom got kidney stones, a male doctor told her that it was "female problems" and told her to go to her gyno. We walked into the gyno's office and all 3 female nurses told my mom to go to the hospital just by looking at her. They knew just by looking at her this wasn't "female problems"

[@ziggystardust2556]

I have stage 4 endometriosis. I was having a particularly hard time with pain and knew there was something wrong. I called my gyn (who had already preformed 3 surgeries on me) I'll never forget his advice. "If you have to go to the hospital. Dont tell them it's a uturus issue. Just tell them you have stomach pain. Once they get you into a room, then tell them its endo related. You'll be seen sooner if they think its possibly the flu" I went to the hospital every day for a week. They refused to do anything meaningful at all. Not even an ultrasound. My gyn had to come in to do an ultrasound himself at 2am. Turns out my ovary was twisted and I was rushed into emergency surgery then and there. But even in the prep room, the surgeon was rude, told me I didn't look like I needed emergency surgery. I told him "make that decision when you see my insides"

[@hopeahooper]

Oh my gosh! What happened after!??

[@cara_carambola]

Endometriosis is always a battle.

[@Faesharlyn]

Endo is a suck deal. Glad you have a good doc and hope your ovary stays where its supposed to be. Little buggers get top heavy from extra tissue and just flip over, hurts like a bit..ch : (

[@sanderson4257]

😢Wooooow

[@OlivePapyrus]

This is heartbreaking.

[@furiousbroomstick4841]

Doctor's using male patients to study the uterus: "Ah yes, I can see your lack of a uterus is very healthy and responding great to these medications"

[@exite85]

Furious Broomstick Women rarely subject themselves to studies. The vast majority in studies especially in pharmacy studies are men.

[@madshorn5826]

@@exite85 Oooooh, the poor pharmaceutical industry can't do nothing with the ways things just are? Try again mate.

[@kimberlys8422]

They need to show respect. We've all lived in a uterus for approximated 9 months. LOL

[@momon969]

@@exite85 We need the money! For weights to lift! And for sports cars to compensate for our inadequate penises!

[@exite85]

Mads Horn was just stating a fact. Nothing else. Everything else was just your imagination. so relax and try again. Whatever that maybe. I guess this is the way to discuss. Just pretend someone is “trying something”.

[@bethsojourner6798]

I have PCOS and was not until I was 65 years old. I had asked my endocrinologist about the drops in my body temperature and after some discussion she told me I was PCOS. I looked at her blankly and she explained that it was poly cystic ovary syndrome. I had symptoms going back to my late teens, early 20's and no one ever even tried to diagnose what I was experiencing. Not only was I a woman but it also involved a condition that only affected women. I went through my life wondering why I had the problems I had. These problems affected my work. Also since I didn't know what the problem was I couldn't cope effectively. I muddled through but it would have been nice to know that I wasn't just crazy.

[@ritamariekelley4077]

💗

[@nope_118]

My aunt had a heart attack and got sent home because “she needed to lose weight“ complete disregard of pain and symptoms

[@RatPfink66]

Menstruation was called "The Curse" in the 50s, but that was still an improvement over the 30s, when it was called "Lower Gross Throat."

[@adjjal]

Omg... WT ACTUAL F

[@921ktown]

Reaching

[@flowerwithin2911]

🧐

[@ceciliaarvidsson269]

WHAT?? That doesn’t make any sense. Please tell me you’re joking. Personally I’ve always been fascinated by the 1700’s ”Punishment for the sin of Eve”. Seems legit. They should have called male premature ejaculation, and impotense, Punishment for the sin of Adam.

[@RatPfink66]

> Please tell me you’re joking. You really couldn't tell?

[@torotteson]

He joked about the analogy they used to portray 83,000 deaths saying it was unnecessary, but I think that was actually a great way to portray the gravity of it. when numbers get too big it's harder to really grasp it emotionally, though I think that jumbo jet metaphor was pretty effective.

[@OlivePapyrus]

Agreed

[@mmortal03]

@Tim Evans "Should have used cars and car deaths as an example" Nope, people don't really care about those, either, lol. In 2017, there were 37,133 automobile fatalities in the US -- but at least the standard vehicle safety tech *is* improving.

[@ShawnLH88]

they could've easily said "imagine an entire NFL/college football stadium of people dying every year for no reason"

[@dancepiglover]

I agree with showing the scale of it in a way that we can picture better. It's just that a plane crash is a tragedy in and of itself. So pairing the two together, I feel, takes some of the attention away from the issue at hand, because now you're thinking about plane crashes, too. You can talk about size like filling the seats at a certain stadium 10 times over, or something.

[@mrworldextrawide2815]

I agree. Plane crashes are a great way to portray gravity.

[@elicather8168]

I’m transgender, and if anything did happen to me that I needed to go to the emergency room, I’d be terrified about having to tell them that I have “female” anatomy. They’d probably not even know what to do with me. There is so little research related to trans people, that our healthcare is pretty much just a shot in the dark. For example, we still don’t know the long term effects on organs like the liver that taking testosterone has. Because nobody has bothered to research it! And don’t get me started about going to a gynecologist. I never have, but I’ll keep pushing it off as long as I possibly can!

[@danab.9827]

Hugs. I'm so sorry.

[@Nitro-Blue]

Me too friend, me too.

[@pjaypender1009]

I'm a trans masc enby. I see you.

[@rosegarden69]

as a fellow trans dude, go to a gynecologist, i know it's scary and most of them are shit but when you find a good one its awesome. a good gynecologist will be able to help keep you informed about what's going on down there which trans masc people really need, if you want bottom surgery then it's even more critical because some conditions will make it impossible to get bottom surgery and a good Gyecologist can alert you before that becomes the case

[@colakoi1605]

@@rosegarden69 as a third fellow trans guy, I absolutely agree. One should also go to the gynecologist before starting hrt since it might result in complications if you have an undiagnosed issue such as chest cancer. They should ALWAYS give you the green light to do hrt. A gynecologist isn't always looking between your legs, they do a lot of other things too.

[@CherryBomb_Games]

You know, John's so right! He has been very brave! He deserves a wowwypop!

[@tippyd2770]

I had serious eye pain and went to urgent care. Had a male doctor dunce my eye and say “stop wearing makeup you probably got eye makeup in your eye” and charged me 190$. Had to go to the ER the next day cause the pain got worse. Got a female doctor who flipped my lid inside out to check the spot I told her the pain was centralized and she found a massive, pointed stye. She was pissed I had my time and money wasted by someone who wouldn’t listen to me,

[@serenityviolet1304]

I agree with her. And it's not like other purchases where you can go back and demand a refund either.

[@mtoohill]

@@serenityviolet1304 I was going to say the same thing. Why would Doctors take anyone seriously if there's no financial risk if they don't. I'm actually a white male, and am surprised that my medical treatment is supposed to be better. I can't find a doctor to take me seriously, they do tests that can't find anything, and prescribe meds that only cause side effects.

[@snooks5607]

nothing will change if they don't get called out on their BS. if the first doctor never heard the issue wasn't actually makeup (surprise) they might still be believing it was a valid diagnosis and continue saying same asinine things to other patients

[@DiabetoDan]

@@momo1461 oh shit, guess I'll believe you over all the literature debunking female hysteria. Move on back to Victorian London sir. www.rti.org/insights/myth-female-hysteria-and-health-disparities-among-women

[@serenityviolet1304]

@@mtoohill I'm unsuprised that as the supposedly "more believable " demographic that you still get poor results. Doctors need to be more accountable, but in a way that doesn't ruin them financially. There is essentially no feedback loop. I've been diagnosed with things that were totally incorrect. Nobody, including me ever took those doctors to task, at least in part because of the time scales involved.

[@tsianinavibranietsova4087]

A friend's 22 year old daughter was on the track field when she had a stroke. Doctors assumed she was drunk because she was a college student. Sent her home. Family drove her back, went to the ER. Finally got the help she needed. Doctors are the last people on earth who should be making assumptions. It's terrifying to realize that the individuals who hold your life in their hands can assess you without knowing you.

[@learntocrochet1]

Higher recovery rates following stroke depend on the quick action of doctors. This young ladies treatment was absolutely criminal - or it should be.

[@emmanuelobi8346]

They drove her back to the horrible doctors? Should've treated her themselves!

[@jacklovejoy5290]

@@emmanuelobi8346 You can't treat a stroke yourself, it requires medical professional assistance

[@msjkramey]

That's so fucked. It's so easy to test if someone is drunk or not, so what's their excuse?

[@AWesker1976]

@@msjkramey There's also a very quick and easy test for stroke as well. But, because strokes in people ages 30 or less are very rare, most doctors don't consider it until everything else is ruled out, which often leads to delayed treatment and significant physical and mental deficits.

[@darkstar2874]

I’m aware how much work goes into these episodes but could we get a part two on medical bias against the LGBT community? Between the trans community and the MSM blood ban you’d have plenty of material

[@ritamariekelley4077]

💖

[@andrewollmann304]

Good newd! I think the blood ban is lifted.

[@mocahill1756]

my mom’s heart attack was missed in the hospital she had worked at for 30 yrs. no chest pains. nausea, mostly. fatigue that made her retire before she would have. 2 yrs later had another that was caught. had to have her chest cracked open to repair the incredible damage.

[@wizardtim8573]

AT&T: Is he always like this? HBO: Always asking for money for crazy things? AT&T: No, the baby thing HBO: Wait he does more than ask for money?

[@couragekarnga8735]

John's the man!

[@AlwaysANemesis]

@Mar Vill He _'needs'_ to? Based on what grounds?

[@loverlei79]

White Female here. I am paralyzed completely on my right side and literally had a physical therapist come in my hospital room and demand I get out of bed on my right side. After 20 minutes of telling at him that I LITERALLY couldn't move, he stormed out, marked my chart "Hysterical and Uncooperative". I was denied physical therapy because of it and sent home.

[@Toneill029]

Hope you sued the bastard. My mother who is a nurse would have wrung his neck if she witnessed that.

[@dlm4708]

It's almost impossible to sue. If I could have, I'd have done that in Florida several times. St. Joseph's killed my friends' mother, and they couldn't sue. All Children's murdered my sister, and we couldn't sue. My heart failed twice and was almost declared dead by ambulance workers, then at the hospital got told that I'm somehow secretly a drug addicted alcoholic whore who magically is getting a false negative on pregnancy test and drug test. If I demand better, I'm a non-compliant patient and can get kicked out.

[@dlm4708]

@Loverlei79 if you ID as LGBT at all, and there is an LGBT-specific clinic near you, you might be able to get referred out to specialist therapy. After 20 years of fighting docs over a totally made-up "just trying to get attention" disorder... that turned out to be an advanced autoimmune disease in the end stages... you might get better care with an LGBT clinic. The LGBT clinic here took into account my shady AF medical history when my imaging and vitals didnt match what the docs wrote AT ALL. I drive to another county for a specialist to monitor the disease progression, since there's nothing they can really do but medicate now, but at least I'm not crazy! I hope you find a GOOD physical therapist soon, and if you know what your condition is, you might be able to get your own equipment online and look up physical therapy sessions on youtube. A lot of actual licensed doctors post their sessions to teach med students online. It's how I did PT when no doc believed me about my joints bending backwards and my bones breaking from putting on my (flat) shoes. It's how I got my arm back after a TIA that docs blamed on drugs. I WISH I'd had drugs, shit, that would have been a good time! It might help you. Get a friend to physically support your right side as you work. I used the back of my couch as a barre when my left side collapsed. Took the cushions off and put them near me so if I fell, no big deal.

[@TheAppocalyptor]

@@dlm4708 I'm so sorry, my friend, I hope you get better. I'm so sorry.

[@Toneill029]

L M Sorry to hear that. I wish there was something that could be done because a medical precessional should never act like that.

[@BenjaminISmith]

I know two black women where they were told their severe back pain and vomiting was because of "stress", and were given opioids for it. Turns out both their gallbladders ruptured

[@sarahk8053]

I had my GP dismiss my constant tiredness, weight gain and heavy migraines as "that's just because you're on the pill". I had been on it for 10 years without any problems at that point and the problems turned out to be a severe thyroid underfunction. Thanks GP -.-

[@RashidMBey]

*Let's not forget the stark differences in treatment when it comes to mental health, too.*

[@robinmiller1989]

if I go to the dr for any sort of chronic pain I have to pull teeth trying to convince them that it isn't just in my head. you just stop going after a while

[@hippocrates1297]

@@robinmiller1989 I've been getting severe migraines since I was young, several times each month from 9-17 I would have a migraine that would be entirely debilitating. 17 years old was the first time a doctor took me seriously at all and reccomended a preventative medication that reduces my number of migraines by a lot, maybe a few a year since.

[@TitaniaBird]

Or that overweight people might not get proper medical care because of an over-focus on BMI and weight loss.

[@cordlefhrichter1520]

@@robinmiller1989 Same here. You a white male too?

[@cordlefhrichter1520]

@@TitaniaBird Being overweight or obese is the cause of innumerable medical problems. So yeah, if you're overweight, losing weight is likely going to help with whatever problem you're experiencing, statistically speaking.

[@ryangaskin6319]

Ironically, the "default" of embryological development is the female anatomy and the effects of testosterone change this default course. So technically, men are women with pesky hormones.

[@nnaauujjddaa]

oh oh I read that in university! see mom it did serve for something!

[@marigold_exe4528]

You are a wonderful man Ryan. Damn

[@mistresskeke]

Correct. But clinical trials almost always initially recruit male adults because they don't want to waste time & money on subjects that would drop out if they got pregnant, & to avoid the potential risk of harming a fetus. I think that's what JO means when he says "pesky hormones", because men have hormones too, obviously.

[@Milkikomori]

Kia E IF he was comparing men, to pregnant woman he would have said so. He compared men to women broadly. He is also apparently not very well educated considering men and women have the same hormones just in different levels.

[@mistresskeke]

@@Milkikomori true. I did my doctorate studies in pharmaceutical science so I tend to view broad medical discussions from that angle.

[@BeGlamourlicious]

Wanda sitting behind a desk and talking to us feels very natural. She should have her own show.

[@Br0nto5aurus]

A key phrase that is polite but doesn't mince words: "This is interfering with my ability to live my life the way I want." I say that when I want my doctor to realize that the issue at hand isn't just something I'm noticing or want to discuss, it's a problem that needs solving. That being said, I've never been accused of looking for drugs so your mileage may vary.

[@NocturnalEmissions]

Black woman here, I had mind-blowingly painful abdominal pain every few months, I thought I was dying, I begged the doctors to give me something or cut me open. The doctors said there was nothing wrong and sent me to a gastroenterologist who, I swear to God, told me to eat less broccoli. At a dinner party with friends, I described my symptoms and a woman at the table that was a registered nurse, told me I had an ulcer. I went to the hospital and was told the untreated ulcer was near rupture and would have killed me. So screw every doctor at UPMC medical clinic in Pittsburgh, PA for almost killing me because they thought I was some histrionic black junkie looking for attention or drugs.

[@McRaeJim]

White male here. I work in medicine. What happened to you is outrageous. I, myself was misdiagnosed for horrible abdominal pain and the third specialist MD figured out the issue but the first thing they ALL did was check me for an ulcer. My issue was unusual so no one I can blame. No excuse for your experience and that should have been caught right away. Bad medical providers just breeds mistrust to the public. I seriously hope you are better.

[@roflchopter11]

Even the ones that didn't have the opportunity to review your case? The ones who sent you home are to blame.

[@lazymillennialjobseeker9282]

roflchopter11 Strictly speaking, yes. However, any individual can doubt that they happen to get only the bad doctors in a clinic. Also there are systemic problems that reduce the faultlessness of every doctor in that clinic, if not the profession.

[@DerKommendePark]

@@ColonelPaynus you are a fucking moron.

[@Candorsmayhem]

D Gulley you got it wrong, stupidity made him racist.

[@TheGhjbkl]

I destroyed my knee - meniscus and ACL - when I was running at 17. The attending in the ER told me I was being overly dramatic for a scraped knee. They sent me home. I went to see an ortho who was so pissed when my MRI results came back. It took two separate surgeries to fix.

[@royaneekhalil6488]

You should have taken the results, made copies, gone to that ER and thrown them at his face and told him he should can the condescension in future.

[@emiljorgensen5340]

Dude that sucks. Tore my ACL 2 months ago, lukily i have gotten grear care for it so far

[@gaufehansguaf507]

U have a nice orthodontist...

[@texasowl5356]

TheGhjbkl why didn’t you sue for malpractice

[@bradhaines3142]

@@gaufehansguaf507 orthopedist or something more likely, don-teeth, there are other parts to words you know

[@Lizzie-ve7kt]

Actually I'm ok with bringing back calling periods "the curse" seems more accurate since unlike an actual period which is small and signals the end of a complete sentence or thought while periods never seem to end unless you're pregnant or hit menopause, I literally had someone ask me why I had ANOTHER period a month later as if I only get it once a year.

[@time2rowco999]

I have sickle cell disease and I can't tell you how many times I've been to an ER and they tell me that my "numbers" indicate that I shouldn't be in pain or that I'm only there to get drugs. The best way to combat these racist, biased stereotype believers is to know your rights as a patient and to respectfully, intelligently and passionately stand up for yourself. If they aren't going to help you, might as well speak your mind and heart.

[@ritamariekelley4077]

And keep shopping for a doc who has a heart. 💖💖

[@whee38]

Let's study uterine cancer, without uteruses! Best joke of the night so far

[@fartface8918]

That was funny but not a joke

[@michaelzellman2150]

The joke is the journal that published that study. Edit - I mean "study"

[@myopinions1]

sadly not a joke or funny.

[@AnthonyGoodley]

Yep while funny it was reality and not a joke. Sad but true.

[@vaiyt]

Uteruses are a pesky inconvenience

[@lordlucius1341]

As a person who is forced to use AT&T and only gets ONE BAR SOMETIMES, I live vicariously through Jon

[@bradhaines3142]

i have verizon, awful customer service and pathetic selection for phones, but never a problem with signal

[@raetekusu1]

As someone who once sold phones for AT&T, they deserve fifty times as much criticism as John is able to give them.

[@leaffinite3828]

Brad Haines yeah it’s the best of all these bad options imo,

[@efedra667]

Oh I just love how smart are your lawyer, producer and writers are John Oliver! "You don't need to put a disaster in scales of another disaster" and then..smart! Beautiful! Worth of respect!👍

[@UCH6H9FiXnPsuMhyIKDOlsZA]

It was really nice to hear "here that means assigned male at birth" thrown in that casually. Thanks for helping to normalize trans people, Mr. Oliver. I sincerely appreciate that.

[@daniellerussomanno188]

I’m a rare disease patient, so I’ve been told for the last 25 years that I’m anxious, drug seeking and making things up. THANK YOU FOR HIGHLIGHTING THIS.

[@CookieAsArrow]

@@croatiangambler8059 But isn't there a non suggestive way to ask enouth questions about for example the type of pain and it's exact location together with tests that would confirm that it's an actual disease at least?

[@sourgreendolly7685]

Danijel Mornarić I’m sure OP has NEVER had that explained before and feels silly now 🙄 gtfo

[@trishayamada807]

Danijel Mornarić they are not saying white all white male doctors are racist misogynists. They are showing that it’s built into the system. That even the medical texts are biased based on race, culture, and sex. So that means ALL medical professionals are getting biased if not incomplete information. You can put that chip back in your shoulder now. It wasn’t an attack an you.

[@writer747]

Yeah, it's kinda ridiculous. I've been saddled with a bunch of chronic health problems that includes chronic pain without falling under any one disease label and I've been able to easily get the pain medication I've needed since day one. Heck, i was resistant to the idea of getting some and my DOCTOR was the one saying it'd be helpful (I was suffering from 8s and 9s out of 10 in pain daily and still do today w/o medication). The fact that there are people out there who cant get the help they need is a grave disappointment on this country.

[@skyguy5587]

Danielle Russomanno my wife has had the same issue with her physician

[@ok-ui2ti]

I remember going to my doctor after weeks of abdominal pain, as a nursing student, and having a nurse practitioner it was probably nothing. When i told her my eyes were turning yellow and I needed to be tested for liver failure she told me that African Americans usually had yellow eyes..... I've been Black for 28 years. I know what color my eyes are. So i begged her to do tests and she did. A few days later with no word back from her I went to the er where I was rushed into surgery because my gall bladder was pushing out stones that had lodged into my liver. I had 2 surgeries. One to remove the gall bladder and one to remove the stones from my liver.

[@rinkwolf]

I'm sorry to hear that and from what you describe this seems like grows negligence. Just to shed some light on why you possibly didn't get a call back about your result is that now days you get provided at discharge an code and instructions as to where and how to set up an account that allow you to access medical results. Most patients just don't bother setting it up but I would strongly recommend they do so that they can see what was done and on those account they go into detail what each result means. Since the liver test was done at a request of the pt and not an intervention that was ordered by the doc the result are most likely posted onto the account and assumed to be have view by the pt through there, if pt doesn't specifically that they want a call back when the result were in. Judging from your statement the clinic you went to doesn't have a lab of their own and have to ship out your blood samples for testing and sometime that does take more than a few days to happen. So, the result could have possibly not been in by the time you went to the ER. Which and ER should have access to a lab and CT scan to have diagnosed you with cholelithiasis (chole = gall balder, lithiasis= stone) with in the hour. What I found peculiar is that the NP statement about your eyes yellowing. If you stated that your eyes were not yellow before and recently turned yellow, they should have suspected jaundice. Unfortunately, it is exceptionally harder to tell if a pt with darker skin tone is experiencing jaundice but the sclera (whites of eyes), palate (top of mouth) and nail beds would be good places to check for jaundice on such an pt. It's just that explaining away a signs and symptom like that puts the NP at risk of liability, much like if you call in and explain your sign and symptoms more likely than not the call will end with them suggesting you come in for a check up, other wise they are liable if something did happen to you and they told you it was okay to stay home.

[@MimiB1974]

Sounds like a lawsuit..... maybe it’ll make her think twice before being so dismissive

[@johnstevens2816]

I personally can tell you years of stories, I think the medical industry is easily the biggest scam this country has ever seen They've pretty much fucked myself and my family over for a long time Problem is they can really get you by the balls if you will where you're reliant on them and that's where I'm at

[@11corvus11]

@@rinkwolf you are part of the problem. It is not "exceptionally harder" to tell if a Black person has jaundice especially if their eyes are yellow. Any white dude with suddenly yellow eyes is going to be tested. As for the online portal, I have a ton of health conditions requiring regular testing and my results are only uploaded about 66% of the time. Even then they are often not uploaded in full. Portals are there for convenience NOT as a replacement for doctors doing their jobs. The idea that she should just read her results herself is ridiculous. OP I'm so sorry this happened to you and I'm really glad you got to the ER in time.

[@teethnclaws]

Wow. I'm so sorry you had to endure that. I would have gone back to her office after and verbally eviscerated her, maybe threaten to sue; telling her she should listen to her patients with a little more consideration instead of dismissing your concerns and OBVIOUS symptoms.

[@jordanjares4114]

My husband just told me in a very excited manner that he could be more depressing than you are. And that is really sad. Frankly I enjoy watching your videos it makes me happy that you are addressing issues that really need to be discussed. However, the world is filled with horrible people and you bring that up many, many times over and that is what's depressing. However, please keep up your work thank you!!:):)

[@andpeggy3840]

I have been going to the doctor multiple times a year with complaints about pain and fatigue since I was 15 (I am now 21) and it wasn't until last month that a doctor bothered to run my ANA and other antibodies. Turns out something is up with my antibodies and I might have lupus (I am seeing a specialist next week to figure out it) which has gone untreated for 6 years. I was told for years that my symptoms are probably just depression or stress

[@marigold_exe4528]

When I was 12, I was molested. A few weeks after the incident I realized I had gotten scabies from the man who had molested me. I went into the walk-in clinic with my mother and an older white doctor (about 65) told me and my mother (without examining me at all) that I didn’t really have scabies and that I was just imagining I had scabies due to the trauma. We had to beg him for the scabies cream and when he finally wrote the script, he mumbled that it wouldn’t actually do anything except for trick my brain into thinking I was cured. Again, I was 12 years old and had just been molested. But because my mother and I were females, we were treated like we had hysteria and were crazy Edit for backstory: thank you for the kind comments and I wanted to address some stuff. Firstly I went to another doctor asfter and was diagnosed with scabies. I did the treatment and it cleared up. The man who molested me had 4 daughters. Two he had also been molesting. One was my best friend. They both got scabies as well. This was all used as evidence in the trial. I called the police and was the only one to testify at 12. He went to jail for 2 years. He was been free since I was 14. I think about it sometimes and it makes my skin crawl. I also gave scabies to my father as i started sharing a bed with him due to being terrified to sleep alone. My parents are divorced so I was going back and forth which caused a lot of issues with the treatment. It is a fact that was proven true in court about what happened and how the std I got was a part of my evidence that a judge ruled on. So for anyone to say I am lying or making it up or whatever are just wrong. They don’t have my health chart or know anything about me other than what I shared. Another note, I was raped when I was 16 and received multiple stds from him. This unfortunately happened after I made this comment. After experiencing this all again, I was very lucky to have female hospital staff who performed my rape kit and searched my whole body for his dna. I was believed, cared for, and I will never forget the nurse who told me I was strong as I had my rape kit performed. They have to put a large device inside you to check for tearing, bruising, collect dna, and various other shit I don’t know about because I wasn’t really paying attention at the time. I have never gotten an std from consentual sex and never dated when this all happened. Just believe women. It isn’t hard and it’s free. It’s free to not be a dick. Sending love to survivors and reminding you that you are stronger than that POS who thought he had the right to your body.

[@TallonQsack]

That's awful :(

[@Brian-tn4cd]

WHO WOULDN'T FUCKING BELIEVE YOU YOU WERE MOLESTED, honestly I am so tired of the stupidity some peopl do, i wouldn't even have an issues as a doctor to give you the prescription cause hey, I'd still get paid, there is literally no reason for them to deny you, even if it's to help relieve trauma (and I'm not saying it is) ID STILL DO IT ANY HELP IS BETTER THAN NO HELP.

[@user-ye6so5uj2k]

I’m so sorry! I hope you’ve been able to get better physically and emotionally

[@Pistolemaster]

Really sad that actual sexism is happening to poor innocent rape victims while old white feminists are claiming that they are being oppressed from a man opening his legs too wide on the bus seats. I want you to know that what that man did was horrible. On behalf of all men, we are so sorry and we are better than that.

[@olivianicholson7957]

MOMO You say that as though it’s a fact, but hysteria in women is a stereotype. Granted, sometimes women get hysterical, but so do men because it’s a human reaction and has nothing to do with gender. Hysteria has historically been attributed to women to strip away their power when they get reasonably angry about, say, not having the vote or being barred from certain positions. And doctors? Doctors aren’t always correct. Misdiagnosis is common, and one must remember that doctors are people, and their judgement can be clouded by their preconceptions like anyone else. It’s not inconceivable that a male doctor with outdated sensibilities would misdiagnose a woman on the basis of assumed hysteria.

[@TheElsiekay]

For women and people of color one thing you can do if you are refused tests or treatments you think you need, you can ask the doctor or nurse to put that refusal in your chart and ask for a copy of the records. They don’t want to have it on record that they didn’t treat you for something and have that used against them later. It shouldn’t be something anyone has to do but it can be very important and helpful when seeking medical treatment

[@cocobenji6123]

Smart

[@mikec9750]

Ah, a la carte medicine. Treat me, we provided you with standard of care... Next step is follow up with your PCP... Treat me! We did... Put in your notes you refused to treatment... But we did treat you. Treat me! Or I'll die and give the lawyer the notes saying you refused to treat me... Fine here's a bunch of unnecessary test to make you feel better about your kondition. Never wonder why medicine is so expensive.

[@opioid01]

Exactly! You should be able to demand any test you think is necessary. After all, you did your homework before going to the doctor, you checked all the results of page 1 and 2 in Google. And they all agreed you have to have those tests to DD whatever you think you have. You demand it! PS. I long for the day when we won't need these pesky doctors. I'll just input my half assed grammatically broken sentences in a search bar and ...voila diagnosis and treatment. They're overpaid anyway.

[@margaritam.9118]

zomarg Finished? Now piss off.

[@screwupproduction]

Will this work as a white male?

[@lilangeljules8068]

they should do a part 2 of this about bias against trans people in medicine

[@Monica-vt4mz]

As a black woman, I am often confronted with the harsh truth that the color of my skin and my gender shape the way I am treated within the healthcare system. There have been times when I have walked into doctors' offices with obvious signs that I needed medical attention, only to be met with skepticism and dismissal. The subtle eye rolls, the condescending tones, and the implicit questioning of my pain have become all too familiar. My pleas for help have often been met with apathy or a rushed diagnosis without thorough examination. It is as though my voice is muted, my concerns diminished, and my experiences invalidated. The emotional toll of these encounters is immense, disheartening and demoralizing.

[@TVBjak]

A mother dead, a father stricken with guilt and a mother-less child; it's a goddamn tragedy.

[@danmallery9142]

It broke my heart to see him agonizing over his own actions when it was clearly gross malpractice by the hospital and not one iota of blame should put on him.

[@ashenwuss1651]

A completely bullshit tragedy, more like it. I feel so sorry for that man. Poor lady. I hope that child grows up passionate with a powerful and influential voice.

[@JamesDavis-sh9gh]

The husband should sue the hospital for their incompetence

[@Dichtsau]

u should tell a nigerian childsoldier who has neither parents nor medical aid nor school, maybe u could even find one that is starving to death. i bet he agrees that that motherless boy has suffered a tragedy. sorry if this sounds cold but there are simply MUCH much worse things on earth then having "only one parent".

[@andreaskipper7387]

@@Dichtsau dude, i understand what you are trying to say and in some ways i would agree with you. but he lost his wife and that hurts. it fucking hurts no matter how bad other peoples life could be. a few years ago i lost both of my parents to cancer in the distance of just a few months. and i did not give a single shit about how many things on earth are much worse than my situation. it felt like my heart get ripped out and i needed a long time to get over it. sorry if this sounds cold but there are simply many things that can hurt you deep in your heart. and the last thing people need when this happens is " well i am sorry for you kid, but you have one parent left so what?"

[@lordofdunvegan6924]

Wanda Sykes...what a classy lady! Glad to hear her comments. Thank you, John, for bringing her on the show.

[@furrybastard27]

Something jarring actually happened to me pretty recently that wasn’t surprising, but put things into perspective. Both me, (afab non-binary) and my close friend (cis male) are chronically ill. I got a new doctor recently and joked about how they’re gonna suggest losing weight even though none of my problems are weight related *and* I’m not nearly overweight. Despite having similar issues to me, he has never had this happen. But nearly every doctor I’ve been to has suggested I lose weight despite my weight being unrelated to my illness.

[@courtneysimpson88]

When I was 22 (Caucasian female here) I went to the ER with crippling abdominal pain. My mom drove me and had to get a wheelchair for me because I could not walk. The male doctor told me it was gas, and to go home and take Zantac. It was actually me passing my first gallstone.

[@doomedbringer]

There had to be a lawsuit in there somewhere

[@letsomethingshine]

@@johannaschreiber1243 I've hear physician excuses, and that was just such a ridiculous excuse for his bias. He should have confessed instead that he had no idea the extent of your kidney infection, and depending on that extent, you could have even strolled through, but he did not think about your bladder, because in his eyes, you were missing a penis and so the thought didn't even come to mind, unlike for the life-experience form the woman doctor.

[@letsomethingshine]

@@patrickhenry9521 However, sperm cycles are daily. Hence why men largely PMS in the evenings and look to get drunk, etc. Men don't often show up in mornings to doctors, too much testosterone.

[@judythompson5253]

ohhh, I had that. 11 PM and Im in the ER with my scared husband beside me. They told me it was probably the stomach flu, and go home. It happened twice after that, and then never again. I had stronger pain killers then, and took them when I felt it coming on. Turns out I was probably passing a kidney stone or stones. Last year, 50 years later, I had a kidney removed. I asked the doctor how long it would take for a kidney stone that large to form and she said, years. Even decades. Aha. that was it.

[@Linda-jl5lx]

I had problems with my gallbladder for many years. Took me a trip to hospital at 5 am, unable to talk because of the pain.. I was only able to scream.. Then, they wanted to give me an MRI. Before that, they blamed it at stress.

[@prestonlawson1219]

"It's not my job to tell you what's wrong with you." That's......that's *literally* your job.

[@ericsmith116]

its literally half his job lol. diagnosing and treating are his only 2 jobs

[@yenthel3]

ER generally just needs to make sure that you're not in immediate danger. That means first aid, getting patients stable and making sure you don't have certain conditions. So a lot of it is getting patients stable enough for them to get diagnosed by other specialists. And the other part is differentiating people with a heart attack from those with acid reflux for example. So they test and if you don't have a heart attack and your vitals are normal and there is nothing else that's dangerous, they will send you back home. So in that way, their job isn't really to diagnose, after all they don't really treat you, they make sure you don't die basically. They will treat and diagnose a acute heart attack but will not treat any non-urgent underlying cause, but everything after that is a life long treatment and tests done by a cardiologist. I also doubt that any doctor would say that, it's ver likely a somewhat different memory.

[@ellishale2523]

yenthel3 You wrote all that to defend a doctor who literally did not do even the job you describe, considering he failed to determine a heart attack while it was happening.

[@yenthel3]

And how does that woman know she had a heart attack? Maybe she didn't have one, had one later and just assumed the first thing was a heart attack as well. I'm pretty sure any ER doctor would do an ECG. In some cases they even keep the patients for 24h observation with constant heart monitoring even when the ECG was negative. But When there is a ST elevation "heart attack" of only 0.5-1 mm, it can get a bit difficult to diagnose that. And it is a fact that women do get those mild elevations more often than men, who get bigger ST elevations more often on a ECG. But my point is stil valid. An ER doctor's job is to make sure you're not in immediate danger, and if you are, to stabilize you and move you to the correct specialty who will further diagnose and treat accordingly.

[@ellishale2523]

yenthel3 you’re either a REALLY sensitive person in the medical field or you’re trying incredibly hard to disbelieve a woman about a medical issue that you have no reason to believe she didn’t have..... When a random person says they have a history of heart attack, do you ask ‘are you sure?’ You’re literally proving the point of this video simply because you cannot bear to believe there is discrimination despite it being clearly shown in research.

[@crowridley8245]

I need a 10 minute loop of john oliver saying the babadook

[@kurtlistermann7777]

Thanking LWT Staff and You John for the tireless work that you do! 💯🎧♥️🙏✌️

[@eyerobot6622]

As a Jew, I just assume any pain is the result of guilt for not listening to my mother

[@robertmelvin7908]

No comment about taking chicken soup? Or is that just for fever?

[@dukes1993724]

Oy vey!

[@charleskunz9310]

I’m 33 and have not had any children so I’m in constant pain

[@aking3624]

😊😂😃😄😅😆🤣

[@dlm4708]

@@robertmelvin7908 Matzo soup is for EVERYTHING. If it doesn't work, challah is for everything else.