Dismissed: Tackling the Biases That Undermine our Health Care

Facts—women in pain are much more likely than men to receive prescriptions for sedatives rather than pain medication; Black women are more than three times more likely than white women to die of childbirth-related causes. Whether it's age, body size, sexual orientation, or other cultural factors, bias in healthcare is an uncomfortable truth. In this first-ever book on the subject written from the author's unique perspective of being a doctor, a woman, and Black, Dr. Angela Marshall, a contributing health expert on CNN, Fox5 News and Let's Talk Lives, and repeatedly named a "Top Doctor" by Washingtonian magazine, candidly addresses the life-and-death issue, sharing personal and patient stories and fresh, pragmatic solutions. Have you ever felt you were treated differently by a medical professional due to your skin color, age, ethnicity, gender, or for any other reason? If so, you are far from alone. Here's the uncomfortable truth: Race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, body size, and other cultural factors have a significant bearing on whether you will be diagnosed and treated correctly.
Health-care providers and their patients are human, and all humans have unconscious biases that affect how we listen, observe, and act. Bias impacts patients when they are at their most vulnerable. Health-care bias can mean the difference not just between suffering and relief, but between life and death. For the first time, an author with the unique perspective of being one of America's top doctors, a woman, and Black, candidly addresses the issue of bias in health care, sharing personal and patient stories and pragmatic solutions. Dr. Angela Marshall, repeatedly named a "Top Doctor" by Washingtonian magazine, draws on extensive research, poignant stories from some of the thousands of patients she has treated, and her own compelling personal experience, to examine the bias from both patients' and health?care providers' points of view. She offers a bold blueprint for change, filled with fresh solutions that can help everyone in our health-care system. Dismissed not only explains what so many people feel so profoundly—that the system is working against them. It also reveals what health-care practitioners, patients, and society in general can do to make it right.