Assistance with Uni assignment topic please

[LadyVymes]

I am definitely not asking for you to basically do my assignment for me but I would like some help choosing a topic.

I have to make an e-poster outlining a biological process and would like to cover one that is female specific but preferably one where the default system explanation has been male but females actually differ. Such as how oestrogen affects cardiovascular system differently or how women experience heart attacks.

It needs to be a process explained in a flow chart like the wash your hands process type flowcharts we have all seen (but with more detail).

Does anyone have any ideas to kickstart me research?

What about pain management from health care?
www.health.harvard.edu/blog/women-and-pain-disparities-in-experience-and-treatment-2017100912562

myheartsisters.org/2017/10/22/is-coronary-microvascular-disease-serious-is-the-pope-catholic/

Updates to this piece are interesting: myheartsisters.org/2012/08/15/microvascular-and-spasm-disorders/

Caroline Criado Perez included a bit in catheters in her latest newsletter, though that's not female specific, how it is applied is for male biology.

She also did something on the COVID vaccine and periods.

Maybe you don't have time to read the whole book but even skim reading would give you some ideas, her work is crucial to understanding the data gap, and a very large part of that applies to medicine.

Have you seen Bleeding Edge on Netflix?

Thank you for the suggestions. I might be trying to be too clever with this thing. I will check out your suggestions though.

pain management during labour is a good one. All the pain management options were designed and tested for use by men while flat on their backs, and so none of them are 100% effective in labouring women who may need to get into different positions. Even gas and air requires you to hold it to your face which is easier when passing a kidney stone flat on your back, but v difficult while squatting and you may need your hands to support you.

Epidurals are also shit because they don’t let you move enough - though walking epidurals are being administered now.

What about sex differentiation in utero?
The male pathway is better studied and more understood than the female pathway.
The theory for a long time is that males and females start the same, until the SRY gene on the Y chromosome triggers a testosterone-dependent developmental cascade.
But, we are learning more about the female pathway, for instance how one X chromosome is ‘turned off’ by the other X chromosome (so females don’t develop two pairs of breasts, etc!) You wouldn’t be able to tell the ‘full story’ though, in your flow chart, because we’re still learning about it.

How about something like the dosages on medicines being what's appropriate for the default average male, without considering how the average female would respond?

Or how male doctors decided the female contraceptive pill had to have a week's break to allow a period, even though there was never any medical reason that was needed?

Or how nobody ever considerethat ibuprofen was a better painkiller for cramps than Paracetamol, because nobody ever thinks about the reason for women's pain?

Or how male doctors used to think there was no such thing as period cramps or morning sickness and women were making it up.

All great answers thank you for your time. I need to get a wriggle on it’s due on Friday but my lymph nodes have gone crazy for seemingly no reason and I feel dreadful. Might end up doing lymph nodes because of the research I’ve done convincing myself it’s not cancer lol