The Egyptians believed that a woman’s uterus wandered through her body and caused mood swings. “Hysteria” was thus coined, and became the basis of a majority of medical diagnoses, until modern medicine made it evident that the uterus did not, in fact, wander through the body. This discovery, however, did not stop the practice of dismissing a female patient’s pain or symptoms. For example, female symptoms of heart attacks (nausea, vomiting) are often different from the typical male symptoms of chest pain, but they are dismissed as hormonal or dietary imbalances.

A 2021 study published in The Journal of Pain, titled “Gender Biases in the Perception of Others’ Pain” illustrates how female patients are more likely to be prescribed psychotherapy, and their expression of pain is often underestimated and dismissed. Stereotypes about the mental states of men and women – women complain more, men are more “stoic” – often influence how the doctor reacts to the patient’s pain. This stereotyping means that doctors dismiss female patients as being over-sensitive and neurotic.

This dismissal or misdiagnosis of female patients can be traced back to the clinical tests and medical studies that students encounter before they embark on their journey as licensed doctors. The female anatomy was for a long time dismissed as a variation of the male anatomy, and most textbooks echo this, with a marked lack of detail on how females are affected by different diseases and issues.

This lack of awareness in Indian medical syllabuses results in a generation of doctors who do not consider female patients as reliable sources when they present their symptoms. Their unreliability supposedly stems from a belief in the weaker nature of the sex. This creates a generation of doctors who believe that it is hormones or simply a female’s lifestyle that is causing the outward symptoms without looking at possible underlying causes. For example, the symptoms of Cushing’s syndrome – overproduction of the hormone cortisol due to possible tumours in the pituitary gland – are often dismissed as being caused by Polycystic Ovary syndrome or a metabolic malfunction, and patients are advised to exercise more to reduce their weight.

Increasing the awareness towards such health conditions by including female symptoms and gender-sensitive information in textbooks would be a good first step. It would help in creating a generation of doctors willing to act on what they see and covering all bases and possibilities. The responsibility also falls on the patient to be clear and precise about what they are experiencing and demand proper testing and care from their doctors.

While the onus of finding a doctor who they believe they can trust and who will be accepting of them falls on the patient, it circles back to the fact that it should be the responsibility of the doctor to create an environment where the patient is comfortable.

Another troubling factor is the lower number of female specialists in India. Information from the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences revealed that in 2020, the percentage of female students in medical courses dropped from 59.4% in 2015 to 44.8% in 2019, and over 50 per cent of graduates do not go in for postgraduate studies or specialization. When this is the state of affairs, it is hard to expect the female patient to track down a female specialist who will not dismiss her symptoms. Rather, the existing doctors should be made responsible for treating the patient with sensitivity and diligence.

Gender sensitivity in medicine is, however, not a losing battle in India. CEHAT (Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes) is a research centre based in Mumbai, which intends to ensure socially relevant health training. Through workshops and constant discussions and revamping of study material, they are seeking to create a more inclusive, sensitive generation of doctors in the country. It is this sort of initiative that can help make sure that no patient’s health is put at risk because of a lack of awareness or because of personal prejudice or stereotypes.

The patriarchy has much to answer for, in a country where doctors are more willing to conduct tests and be thorough only when a male from the family is involved. A woman should not have to have her brother, father, or husband accompany her on all her medical examinations just to ensure that her symptoms are taken seriously. The syllabi of medical students have to be modified to ensure gender sensitization, both in the treatment of patients and in the detection of diseases with different symptoms for different genders.

The Hippocratic Oath is one of the oldest binding documents in history, and one of its tenets is to “treat the sick to the best of one’s ability”. It is time for doctors to be able to uphold that oath to the best of their ability, and for that, we must move into a society with a new generation of doctors who are responsible, thorough, and who respect their patients, regardless of sex or gender identity.