Women are more likely to experience longer delays in receiving a health diagnosis and to be told their symptoms are 'all in their heads', according to a growing body of research. This can have lethal consequences, with diagnostic errors causing an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 deaths annually in the United States alone.
A 2016 report by the Brain Tumour Charity in the UK found that almost one in three brain tumour patients had visited a doctor more than five times before receiving their diagnosis, and nearly a quarter were not diagnosed for over a year. Women and low-income patients experienced longer delays, with women more likely to wait over ten months between their first doctor visit and diagnosis.
One 39-year-old woman quoted in the report recalled: 'One of the GPs I saw actually made fun of me, saying “what did I think my headaches were, a brain tumour?” I had to request a referral to neurology. No one took me seriously.'
Implicit bias, particularly regarding gender, is a pervasive issue in the medical system. A 2015 study found longer lag times from symptom onset to diagnosis in female patients for six out of 11 types of cancer. A 2013 study concluded that more than twice as many women as men had to make over three visits to a GP before being referred for suspected bladder cancer.
The tendency to attribute women's physical complaints to mental illness has historical roots in the concept of 'hysteria'. In 1965, British psychiatrist Eliot Slater found that over 60% of patients diagnosed with hysteria were later found to have an organic neurological disease, including brain tumours and epilepsy.
