Doing Harm

Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick by Maya Dusenbery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have rarely read something so galvanizing, validating, and maddening. There are lots of things that objectively should bother me about how Dusenbery writes this screed of the medical community. There is a lot of repetition--but it just underscores her points. Over and over she gives valid, objective evidence of how women are ignored, their diseases not researched or treated, and the devastating results of these failures. Dusenbery also uses sarcasm and head shaking, which normally discredits authors in my view as being too biased, but honestly I don't think you could NOT be a little cynical given the overwhelming data. I only wish that there was another volume that explores question from alternative medical practices and also addresses the role of hormones in a lot of these conditions she outlines. A must read for every woman and medical practitioner.

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If a woman attempted to resist her feline role, this mental conflict could emerge in a number of symbolic ways--particularly in disorders affecting her reproductive system.  According to the textbook, in cases of dysmenorrhea (painful menstruation) " a thorough study of the women's attitudes toward femininity is often necessary." Nausea during early pregnancy..."may indicate resentment, ambivalence and inadequacy in women ill-prepared for motherhood."

To be sure, depression, anxiety, and prolonged stress can cause specific physical symptoms, but these symptoms are not limitless, nor are they actually unexplained.

psychogenic diagnosis tends to be what's known as a "diagnosis of exclusion".  AS Jutel explains, "It is a diagnosis made not ton the basis of what is but of what it is not.  The absence of explanation, rather that the presence of an ell-defined feature, defines the condition."

psychogenic diagnosis is a particularly sticky one because the only exoneration evidence that could show it be false--proof of an organic pathology--is exactly what doctors have now ceased looking for.  

In short, either all women are sick, or some women are crazy.

loss of knowledge that has resulted from medicine's distrust of women's accounts is staggering to think about.

The Longest Night

 

The Longest Night by Andria Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this book solely for the location it was set in: Idaho Falls, ID. Growing up in Boise, ID, I was convinced that nothing much happened of note in ID and so I'm drawn to evidence that states otherwise. The Longest Night tells about the nuclear reactors located outside of Idaho Falls, site of the INL now. Apparently there was an explosion in one of the reactors in the 1961 and was the deadliest (immediately) of all of American nuclear disasters. Weirdly, I never learned about this despite growing up in Idaho! What was slightly disappointing is that Williams took that real event and created (a mostly interesting) story that largely fictionalizes what actually happened. (She even calls the reactor something different--(CR-1 instead of SL-1) so just by reading the book, I still wouldn't have known what really happened. The novel is more of an exploration of trust and fidelity in marriage, with some of those themes of integrity carried through to the various workers at the site. It is an interesting airplane read, but wished it adhered more to real history since it's based on real events.

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Terra Nulls

Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this exploration of colonialism from a new and original point of view. The characters were pitch perfect, the ambiance was of an old-time western, the writing spare yet beautiful. Definitely worth a read.

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The light like blades of ice in their unprotected eyes.

 

Monument: Poems New and Selected by Natasha Trethewey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Trethewey's poems are accessible but still play with words and meanings. She has a particular talent of taking a picture or painting, describing it and transcending it through the lens of her own experiences and life. It is worth it to google the pictures she's describing (most are famous paintings, easily accessible). I truly enjoyed this survey of poems highlighted from previous works.

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