Dismissed: Tackling the Biases That Undermine our Health Care
Description
Here's the uncomfortable truth: Race, gender, sexual orientation, age, body size, income, and other cultural factors have a significant bearing on whether you will be diagnosed and treated correctly. The good news is regardless of whether you are a patient, healthcare provider, or administrator, there are steps you can take today to combat medical bias.
The only book on this subject written by a primary care doctor who is a woman of color, DISMISSED examines all forms of bias – those related to race and ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation, age, disabilities, obesity, and the increasing bias against science – instructing patients, doctors, and administrators alike on how we can all identify bias – and how we can all do better.
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.
Praise for Dismissed: Tackling the Biases That Undermine our Health Care
Praise for Dismissed
“Drawing on her insights from both sides of the doctor-patient relationship, Marshall offers an accessible, wide-ranging, and ultimately hopeful exploration of the biases that harm so many patients and how we can combat them.” —Maya Dusenbery, author of Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
“This is an essential book for providers and patients and should be required reading for all trainees in the health profession.” —Mitzi Krockover, MD, Beyond the Paper Gown Podcast
“Dr. Marshall exposes the many barriers that get in the way of adequate and quality healthcare for all, especially those who have been most marginalized, and offers a prescription for eradicating the biases that undermine healthcare and contribute to health disparities. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants medical justice. “—Dena Simmons, Founder of LiberatEd, visiting professor at the Institute for Racial Justice at Loyola University, and author of White Rules for Black People
“With Dismissed, Dr. Marshall is a champion for Black women. She amplifies their stories and their lives with this thoughtful examination of the ways the healthcare system too often fails us and how we can all make it more perfect.” —Sharon Thompson, MD, National Medical Director, Black Women’s Health Imperative
“History has covered up the tragedies suffered by Native Americans and the bias that has been a source of inadequate access to healthcare, shelter, and food, significantly impacting their quality of life and longevity. Dr. Marshall takes a refreshingly inclusive approach when talking about bias in this important book.” —Andra Rush, Native American Business Leader and Founder and CEO of Dakkota Integrated Systems
"Ignorance and misunderstanding of people with intellectual disabilities is a problem in our healthcare system. Dismissed shines the light on ableism and other biases that seriously affect the meaningful care of individuals with differences.” —David Egan, Author of More Alike Than Different: My Life with Down Syndrome