Treatment of Women in Healthcare Environments

Abstract

Women consumers of healthcare in the United States comprise a distinctly vulnerable population within every sector of healthcare, including pharmaceutical medicine, insurance coverage, and disparity outcomes. Poor women of color are at a demonstrated disadvantage in maintaining good health and longevity [1]. Medical professionals and staff are challenged to meet the diverse health needs of patients in environments that are sustained by the efficiency of standardized, technology-based means of assessment and then treatment [2]. But how? Medical professionals extend treatment amid pressures of efficiency and the myriad circumstances presented by patients across intersections of race, class, and gender (among other social identity categories); leading health research recommendations on competent approaches to treatment also reflect these challenges (see [3]; Togami et al. 2018). Toward the goal of deepening our understanding of women’s treatment as patients, this chapter uses a pilot survey of providers’ perceptions about women’s healthcare experiences to explore themes in the literature about women’s differential health outcomes and their encounters in healthcare systems in order to imagine providers’ roles as pivotal in managing improvement toward better health.

Appendix: Providers’ Perspective on Women’s Experiences in Healthcare

Questionnaire

Our research focuses on the experiences of women as patients in healthcare, and how social determinants of health impact their lives and treatment within clinical and healthcare settings. We would like to ask you several questions about your perspective on women’s experiences in healthcare, based on your experience as a professional and practitioner in medical settings.

Your answers to these questions will assist us in situating a somewhat abstract literature review in a “living context” of healthcare delivery, to the extent that there may be overlap or excluded categories.

Please answer as freely and honestly as you can. And, if our scholarship suggests realities that you have not encountered in your experience, or contrasts with your experiences, please do let us know in the answer. It is important that this chapter reflect any gaps between analyses of care and your lived experiences of care toward women as patients, to the extent that we can determine if they exist.

• 1. What is your current role in which given medical setting(s)?

  • (a) How many years of experience have you had in this role?

  • (b) In other medical departments or capacities, generally?

• 2. What has your training been for these roles, cumulatively?

• 3. Do you believe that women’s experiences vary from that of men’s, as patients in hospital, clinical, and other medical settings?

  • (a) If so, can you provide examples of how?

  • (b) If so, do you think the examples of difference occur?

  • (c) If so, do you think there are ways that these differences can be addressed? (By your role, in particular?)

  • (d) If you do not believe there is much variance, please move on to the next question.

• 4. In our research, we found that women who live in poverty (or low-income household or neighborhoods) are disproportionately more likely to develop heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and other major illnesses—across racial groupings. Is it possible for you to observe this occurrence in your experiences with women as patients?

  • (a) In what ways are you able to identify the income or educational level of women patients, for example?

  • (b) In what ways do you observe the impact of limited economic resources in their experience of healthcare? Or in managing an illness?

  • (c) If not, please move on to the next question.

• 5. Minority women (with few exceptions) were more likely to experience poverty and bias on a regular basis in society. Our research suggests that the experience of racism and discrimination carries over into the clinical experiences of women as patients, too. Have you ever witnessed what you would consider racial bias in treatment?

  • (a) If so, in what ways?

  • (b) If so, what measures were taken to rectify the situation?

  • (c) If not, please move on to the next question.

• 6. Regarding issues that are specific to women’s healthcare (e.g., breast cancer and screening or prevention measures, sexual and reproduction health, maternity care, etc.), do you feel women’s healthcare also reveals disparities in the specialized clinical setting?

  • (a) If so, what kinds of disparities do you observe in the specialized clinical setting?

  • (b) If so, to what do you attribute the disparities that you observe? (For example, are there less resources and staffing? Or, is it the opposite—stark contrasts to the general care units, for example?)

  • (c) If so, are your observations of disparities also outside of the clinical setting itself? And if so, in what ways? (For example, funding for research? Staffing professionals for care? Health policies? (when it comes to these specialized areas of treatment).

  • (d) If not, please move on to the next question.

• 7. Life situations for women in modern society are rather complicated, often as the “Dr. Mom” role can take a toll on women or other role conflicts (as providers and caretakers in multiple family situations) create strain on women’s health and ability to manage their own health. In what ways do you observe role strain or role conflict in the way that women experience healthcare as patients?