@bitemyarsenic as you are also an hcp can I ask what you think would work to address medical misogyny? Or at least what we as patients can do to ensure we get good quality treatment?
I have been having to fight for DECADES with hcps mainly male gps but also female gps and practice nurses just to be heard!
Medical conditions ignored, misdx, mistreated on numerous occasions mainly because they didn't LISTEN to me.
This includes losing 3 babies to mc when I feel sure at least 2 of them could have been avoided.
@Porcupineintherough I agree gp staffing could be staggered/shift work without necessarily a need for extra staff although I think in many cases surgeries are already understaffed and that does need to be addressed but then it's a v complicated issue given gp surgeries are essentially private contractors to the nhs and aren't actually part of the nhs and never have been
I turn 50 this year I'm dreading my 1st mammogram but feel I really definitely need to go for this as there's a history of breast cancer in the family.
I'd love to know why they have to pressure the breasts to do this given for other radiography this is not necessary, supposedly it's to keep everything still why then not develop special bras that are suitable for radiography that keep boobs in place and have patients hold their breath or do it lying down or something?
I do wonder if people on here who don't have a smear would choose to decline treatment if they did develop a gynae cancer
It would depend on the exact circumstances
it’s not about the nurse it’s about the woman’s feelings!
Good point
I think this bears repeating
Any woman has the absolute right to decide what, when, and in what circumstances, a foreign object is inserted into her vagina by another person
I am actually appalled at the amount of women on this thread who have suffered poor treatment by HCPs.
I'm appalled but not surprised given my own experiences especially with primary care which is INCREDIBLY hard to complain about without risking ending up with no GP!
@heather2908 that situation alone is utterly ludicrous! They really need to get their heads around the fact the job is to suit the patients and not vice versa! But then I think this is a major problem in primary care they've gone into healthcare but want an office job!
I was removed from the roles of my previous gp because i wouldn't have one. Numerous women have had the same problem.
Again appalled but not shocked! They have FAR too much power!
GPs have to get a certain % of women to have them. Otherwise they dont get cash.
I think an awful lot of people don't know this I've had hcps try and tell me I'm wrong about how the funding of gp surgeries works.
I started looking into it way back - again massively off topic I'm afraid - but this is also why it's so damn hard to get a referral to a specialist when needed - because it costs them! And they don't wanna lose that money!
The way the system is funded creates a massive conflict of interest.
Totally agree - but then I'd have primary care fully part of the nhs and salaried and I'd have enacted that in the 50's (had I been about and had the power to do so) the GP's back then who refused to become part of the nhs should have been left to be private, and eventually they would have either passed on their private practices to other private physicians or the practices closed, while the nhs trained and employed its own primary care physicians.
As it stands the nhs/taxpayers pay to train them and they then basically become private practitioners able to pretty much set their own pay and conditions for which they again charge the nhs.
It's a farce!
why can't they do something similar around getting staff to understand the impact of trauma?
Well quite
I experienced Csa but thankfully it never reached the level of full rape - I've had hcps use that fact against me on several occasions. As if I'm exaggerating how I feel or as if not being raped means I wasn't "really" abused.
@123usernamesilly appallingly dismissive and ignorant posts there!
How can it be so painful?
Because our bodies ARE NOT YOURS, because we have scarring, because we have gynae conditions, because we've experienced trauma and however hard we try not to we tense up...
Tons of reasons!
I honestly don't believe you're a woman
@namechanging202020 same goes to you - read the actual thread! Don't make assumptions and DO NOT dismiss our experiences
Whining?! I guarantee you have NO IDEA of everything I and others have been through in terms of pain, medical stuff and trauma your posts are disgustingly cruel and dismissive and I am willing to bet you wouldn't cope with the HALF of what I have dealt with! I've had Mh hcps themselves say they couldn't cope with it all that they're amazed I'm still going!
We're more intelligent and well educated than you are clearly! Given you can't even open your minds one iota to accept that you are wrong!
I'm a former hcp myself patients and their bodies and experiences vary greatly! I worked in elderly care and when I did I cared for people who'd been through wwii. Some had been soldiers, some had been in concentration camps etc
Can you IMAGINE if I had treated them as "making a fuss" when they wanted their care carried out in particular ways?
Bloody insensitive and idiotic to not even try to understand how others feel.
Women: we feel coerced, bullied, minimised, and not listened to.
Other women: shut up, shut up, shut up!
No i will not shut up until women are listened to on this.
Exactly!
@JanisMoplin that's a kind perspective to take thank you
@Sassbott Thank you for both doing that and making the effort to understand
I'm not buying the visual check based on my own experience of numerous checks they've not noticed/missed obvious things - like that I'm bleeding! Also cysts they've missed - sorry @bitemyarsenic maybe they're supposed to ime they don't always.
@KattyR786 Interesting re whether it has actually made a difference to rates too I didn't know that
The NHS should be ashamed of spreading fear, misinformation, and patronising its patients
Please note the majority of the time it's FEMALE patients they treat the worst
Some people don’t agree with you
No! You're not "disagreeing" you're telling us we're wrong that our experiences didn't happen or don't count or that we don't feel the way we do. That's a disgusting way to treat people.
@Bellalasagne1 while I'm sorry for what you have been through please read the thread more thoroughly as you appear to have not done so. We are not avoiding smears merely because they're "embarrassing" or "uncomfortable"
One thing I have noticed is that those of us who do find it painful haven’t accused the ones who don’t of being wrong
Well quite!
@okthx the endo was ignored/misdx for 14 years (despite me going to gps at least once a month with classic textbook obvious symptoms) I've had similar issues with tonsillitis which I usually get regularly at least 2-3 times each winter (funnily enough not this last 2 winters which is one reason why I am gonna keep wearing masks long after Covid is apparently dealt with! My asthma has been less troublesome too!), even after getting the endo dx I've had to fight for treatment and support, ditto the Mh stuff, dds disability was ignored/misdx for almost 12 years, I believe I have a thyroid issue which they keep dismissing, as I said before I'm CONSTANTLY berated for being overweight and pretty much EVERY health condition is blamed on that - everything from asthma, eczema hayfever and allergies (which I've had all my life), to the endo, to the Mh conditions, to my physical disability (result of car accident when I was a size 10!)!
They focus on all the wrong things imo.
but because they are barely in range the GP won’t treat
This is the problem I'm having with the thyroid stuff. There's a family history of other women having the same thing happen. Reporting symptoms for years, decades, being told they're within range and then post menopause condition worsens significantly and they're finally dx and treated but go through hell until the meds are at the right dose.
But even though I have explained all this - nah they don't bloody listen!
Plus nhs ranges tend to be wider than most other countries.
I occasionally had problems with anaemia when younger, when tested in uk was told I was fine, when tested in other countries immediately given treatment as they considered my levels unacceptable.
I feel like they don’t care about me as a person
This is ultimately the problem with primary care. No longer have a named gp, no relationship built, no continuity of care.
I've got around that to some degree by having a particular gp at my surgery as the only one I will deal with for the Mh stuff cos the others are either crap at it or seem to think it's not real!
They care more about their profits, their own pay and conditions than they do about patients in most cases. There are a VERY few good genuinely competent and caring primary care hcps but they are so hard to find! I'm moving house soon and I am DREADING Having to find a GP that :
Listens
Understands mental illness
Doesn't query the medication regime I'm on which mostly works for me - the last thing I need with the stress of moving is this getting messed about!
Let's me have a female hcp for certain well really most things I don't cope well with examinations by males
@bedheadedzombie thank you for understanding - it should be the default but clearly isn't
The lack of compassion among what I am assuming are young, relatively healthy women (maybe 
) who SHOULD be listening to us if only because the way we have been treated by hcps is often going to be your future too!
Because you're treated worse as you get older too! And various unexpected things become more painful, more likely to cause medical issues.
Difficulty getting appointments - another bugbear of mine BECAUSE it's not totally a lack of funding/staff/resources imo. To take the example of me and the endo - at least 10 appointments a year JUST for that, either reporting symptoms and trying to get taken seriously or having to make appointments to get medication to treat the effects (heavy painful bleeding, bloating, diarrhoea, migraine, vomiting, repeated urinary infections and vaginal irritation etc)
If I had been referred to gynae to get an actual diagnosis in the early years many of those appointments WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN NEEDED.
And I am sure the same applies to many other chronic conditions not just gynae ones, the GPS don't refer - again for financial reasons - which is actually a false economy because surely all those gp appointments cost in not only money but also in the time taken up by patients suffering from undx chronic conditions (and yes this usually happens to women! This has been researched and documented)
they essentially forced me into having it by withholding contraception until I had it which I also didn't like.
Totally unethical but I've had the same experience when younger. Now I would tell them to bloody well act ethically and not threaten/harass me but it is not easy!
Sadly it appears they can, there’s quite a few of them on this thread!
I'm not totally convinced they are all genuine posters or even women tbh