My girl friends and my friend who works in the ER say the same thing: doctors ignore women. They are fucking horrible to women.

Friend who had Lyme disease was told it was all in her head and she should stop being hysterical.

Sister who had to get her gallbladder removed was told there’s nothing wrong with her, she’s obviously a drug seeker, and they aren’t falling for her BS. They did the tests and found the issue but didn’t even look at the results of those tests, just chased her out. Her GP looked at the actual imaging work done and told her it was clearly visible, right there, and they should have seen this. But nope, not going to happen.

Ladies are just inconvenient to medical practitioners. They aren’t respected as human beings.

Sweet, this article is going to be fantastic for my anxiety!

Despite repeated trips to A&E, Lily’s concerns were dismissed as anxiety, linked to her mental health history.

Eventually, through her mum, who also works at Watford General, she was booked for scans and blood tests in a different department, which led to a Stage 4 melanoma diagnosis.

This should never, ever happen. A history of mental health issues should never mean "oh, these serious symptoms should not be looked at more thoroughly". And this is widespread, not just in the UK, I think most people with a history of mental health issues have heard dismissals like that. Just another factor of many, reducing our life expectancy and quality.

There is a huge issue with available resources and resulting dismissiveness, and the way mental health is used - even if you present with symptoms and don't have a history of mental health issues, it's used as an easy "out" by some doctors.

Yes, there is anxiety that can manifest as obsession with illnesses, and it is tricky to deal with. But every article I have read prescribes that mental health issues, especially fuzzy things like anxiety, should only ever be the diagnosis after having ruled out physical ailments, especially with something as serious as "chest pain and feelings of breathlessness". Especially when there is a history of having had a cancerous mole already, no matter if the patient seems to be too young statistically. Statistics are statistics, and you have to allow for edge cases - or else, if all you are doing is listen to the symptoms and then choose in your catalogue what seems to fit the best via a checklist, then congratulations, an AI - even an internet search - could probably do 80% of your job. At the very least, after repeated visits as has happened here, what kept the doctor(s) here from saying, mostly to themselves, "well, this can be explained by anxiety, but maybe it should be checked out with a proper screening to make sure."

Now, while I am angry with a lot of doctors for being dismissive like that from anecdotal stories and experiences, there is a real structural problem here, too - with not enough doctors having to service too many patients, almost everywhere. Austerity politics really didn't help there, either in the countries that were affected by them. This of course leads to a lot of doctors not really having the time and energy they'd need to properly do more than the bare basics. So, not just a cultural, but a material problem on top of that.

You're telling me that stage 4 cancer has symptoms similar to anxiety? Boy I'm glad I'm not anxious at all ever about anything and haven't had a healthy fear of cancer my entire life.. :-(

Hey guys I'm more relaxed now; I smoked a cigarette to calm down 👍👍👍