French researchers say search of health records finds gender gap
WEDNESDAY, June 22, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Many male primary care physicians regard cardiovascular disease as a man’s issue and don’t assess risk in female patients, according to research published online June 21 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Raphaëlle Delpech, M.D., a general practitioner at Paris-Sud University, and colleagues reviewed data for 2,262 patients seen by 52 primary care physicians.
Information on cardiovascular disease risk factors such as smoking, blood glucose, and cholesterol were recorded less often in the medical files of female patients than males. The patients who were least well assessed for cardiovascular risk were women seen by male primary care physicians.
“Even before the onset of cardiovascular disease, women patients receive less satisfactory preventative management than men do, and these differences are even more marked when the physician is a man,” the authors write. “More attention to the influence of gender stereotypes is needed in medical training in order to combat the inequalities that they cause.”
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