About
This course will provide students with a basic understanding of how gender differences play a role in manifestation of disease and health outcomes. They also play a role in health care delivery including issues associated with access. Women are perceived as the decision-makers for the source of health care for their families. Women often delay self-care as they attend to the care of their family or children. Women are not just men with reproductive capacity, and not all women are alike. Women share many experiences (e.g., domestic violence), which cross-economic and racial lines. Additional examples of issues that impact all women are listed as follows: a lack of economic parity with men, the responsibility for childrearing, delaying of self-care because of accessing health care for others (e.g., children) and domestic violence. Delineating between the commonality of being a woman and the difference or uniqueness of health issues of the individual woman is a key for physicians and other health care providers. Health care providers need to assess the global health risks of the individual patient in front of her or him. Most useful are the skills and strategies to gain information from the patient, and appropriate data collection as needed from the laboratory or radiology.
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