Doing Harm

By: Maya Dusenbery

Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg

Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's Summary

In this shocking, hard-hitting exposé in the tradition of Naomi Klein and Barbara Ehrenreich, the editorial director of Feministing.com reveals how inadequate, inappropriate, and even dangerous treatment threatens women’s lives and well-being.

Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with experts within and outside the medical establishment, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today.

Dusenbery reveals how conditions that disproportionately affect women, such as autoimmune diseases, chronic pain conditions, and Alzheimer’s disease, are neglected and woefully under-researched. “Contested” diseases, such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, that are 70 to 80 percent female-dominated, are so poorly understood that they have not yet been fully accepted as “real” conditions by the whole of the profession. Meanwhile, despite a wealth of evidence showing the impact of biological difference between the sexes in everything from drug responses to symptoms to risk factors for various diseases - even the symptoms of a heart attack - medicine continues to take a one-size-fits-all approach: that of a 155-pound white man.

In addition, women are negatively impacted by the biases and stereotypes that dismiss them as “chronic complainers”, leading to long delays - often years long - to get diagnosed. The consequences are catastrophic. Offering a clear-eyed explanation of the root causes of this insidious and entrenched bias and laying out its effects, Doing Harm will change the way we look at health care for women.

©2018 Maya Dusenbery (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

One of the most important books ever written

As an endometriosis patient I wish I could give a copy of this book to every doctor I have ever seen, my entire family and both my close friends and all the friends I have lost in my journey. Listening to this book was one of the most validating experiences of my life, because I was finally hearing the vast majority of research I had come across in the last ten years clearly and thoughtfully explained with objective research and patients first hand experiences Thank you Maya Dusenbery for putting together this resource, I will do my part to spreads it's message and use it to push for change in the medical community by empowering patients to demand better.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

This book is a must read.

Extremely important, well researched, reasoned, balanced and interesting book that exposes problems and limitations with modern medicines knowledge and treatment of women's health. Explores areas of medical science that need further and more rigorous research-which should be seen as challenging, important and maybe even exciting frontiers of science and medical research that would expand, build, and round out our knowledge of disease, pain, and human health. This book should be required reading for medical students.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

The more you listen, the more personal it gets

I am a massage therapist. I have learned over the years to listen to my clients. They tell me what they’re feeling and what they need. Then during the massage I “listen” to their bodies. The response to my touch tells me even more about what they need without saying a word.

Unfortunately, many medical professionals haven’t learned to listen to their patients. Maya Dusenbery provides extensive and sometimes heartbreaking evidence that women in pain have been ignored for years. The stories are real and the diseases are fascinating and frustrating at the same time.

I say this book gets more personal because eventually Ms. Dusenbery describes symptoms that someone we know has suffered while we stand by helpless. But she also provides hope by telling us there are doctors and researchers who believe their patients and who can advance the treatment and relieve the pain.

In addition to the content of this book I also commend the narrator, Dara Rosenberg. When a narrator makes me believe that I am listening to the author, then I am doubly impressed, by the writing and the reading.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

I feel less alone!

Listening to this helped confirm that what I’m going through is very real and I’m not the only one being written off by doctors. This is incredibly well researched, back up by numerous facts and studies, but it’s the personal accounts that really make the book. If only this book could be read by many of the Doctors, who dismiss auto immune diseases as ‘all in our heads’.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful