(SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE) 9 May 2008:

In the general population, men commit suicide about four times as often as women do.

However, among doctors the rates are about equal between men and women and much higher than they are for the general population. There has been some puzzlement about this: doctors are highly paid and well respected, not the sort of things that tend to drive people to taking their own lives.

The explanation now offered is that doctors actually know how to do it swiftly, cleanly, and painlessly. It’s thus not so much that more doctors attempt suicide, but that more succeed. In this scenario, the difference between male and female is thought to be a combination of women being less successful when they try and their not using the more effective but messier and violent methods that men do.

(BBC) 21 April 2008:

The revelation that John Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister of England, suffered from bulima (a disease normally thought of as afflicting only women), might make men come forward in talking to their doctors. British men, never the most forthcoming about themselves, have in recent years found that diseases normally though to affect women do affect men as well: for example, breast cancer killed more men last year than testicular cancer did.

The problem is that they feel diffident about talking to their doctors about such things. Further, the doctors themselves aren’t trained to look for these “female” problems in men and finally, all of the treatment is aimed at women (breast cancer clinics are almost universally pink for example).

(NEW YORK TIMES) 16 February 2008:

The major cause of people needing a knee replacement is osteoarthritis, a condition which if untreated can be excruciatingly painful. However, given the risk of knee surgery, and the way in which the titanium replacement knees may also degenerate, the advice is to wait until the pain is making normal life impossible before electing for the procedure.

However, doctors are finding that women are waiting much longer than men, a problem as waiting too long can make full recovery almost impossible. The reason seems to be that women bear the pain better than men and thus it takes longer for them to agree that normal life is impossible.

But then everyone’s grandmother knows that: men are wimps really.

(THE GUARDIAN) 28 January 2008:

One of the age old questions is why the gender pay gap persists. One of the reasons may be apparent in the UK health service. A trend in the past 20 years: A majority of new doctors have been women. This group of first generation female docs is now rising to the top of the profession.

What is being found is that the female consultants treat 20% fewer patients than their male counterparts. It might be to do with working hours, with child care responsibilities, or it might be to do with methods of treatment. It could also have to do with the fact that female doctors actually take the time needed to fully consider the patient in front of them.

Unfortunately, whatever the case, some may use this as yet another excuse to pay female physicians less in the UK.

(TASMANIA MERCURY) 24 January 2008:

Teenager Demi Brennan is believed to be the first person ever to have her immune system completely changed as a result of an organ transplant. She had a liver transplant at the age of nine in 2001, and several months later her doctors discovered that her blood type had actually changed to match the blood type of the liver donor.  Doctors also discovered that stem cells from the donor liver had penetrated her bone marrow, resulting in a spontaneous and naturally occuring bone marrow transplant.  She’s been able to discontinue the use of the anti-rejection medications that are so much a part of all organ donation recipients’ lives.

(MSNBC.COM) 15 November 2007:

Chinese doctors who expected to find an inflamed appendix during a patient’s surgery instead found a 33-pound tumor. Reuters reports, “Her family had not noticed anything wrong with Xiao Wen’s stomach as at 251 pounds, she was already ‘comparatively fat,’ the paper said.” The paper Reuters refers to is the Beijing Times.

(THE INDEPENDENT) 24 June 2007:

In the UK, new figures show that 58 percent of newly qualifying doctors are now women. This is up from 51percent in 1995. This trend has been apparent in all of the professions (and in college graduations generally) but it is causing special problems in medicine.

Traditionally, interns put in a lot of hours,  regularly working 60 hours a week. This is not something that can be accomodated with child care needs. Further, it has been seen as a profession where career breaks and part time working are to be discouraged: difficult to tie in with the need for maternity leave and again, child care.

(DALLAS NEWS) 6 June 2007:

Some people believe that men won’t listen to advice while women will. It’s less well known that this leads to the death of some men. Research shows that the strong silent guy stereotype does indeed exist, and it’s this type that tends not to listen to what people, even doctors, are saying about his health.

This not listening is what leads to men being greater risk takers and thus at greater risk from such things as car crashes, the effects of smoking and stress related illnesses.

Some might say that women’s greater willingness to listen leads to their similar and opposite lower risk of such diseases as they modify their behavior.

(INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRUBUNE) 26 May 2007:

Some may tend to class Algeria as being at one with the highly conservative nations of the Arabian Gulf but despite (or perhaps because of?) the war against Islamic terrorists there it’s becoming, in societal terms, very much like the US.

The average age at marriage for women has risen to 29, birth rates are as a result falling steeply, 60% of university students are now female, and a majority of both doctors and lawyers are now women. All of those numbers are much like those in the US or Western Europe and different than those in most other Arab countries.

(REUTERS) 19 April 2007:

A Montreal woman has frozen her eggs so they can be used by her 7-year-old daughter, who cannot have children because of a genetic condition.

Doctors at McGill University Reproductive Centre in Montreal, which has pioneered a freezing program for cancer patients and those who want to delay childbearing, say the decision by 36-year-old Melanie Boivin is unprecedented in North America and raises ethical questions.

If the girl chooses to become pregnant using her mother’s eggs, she will be giving birth to her biological half-sibling. Boivin will then become a mother and a grandmother.