February 2009 – Page 11

Female Heart Patients Experience More Emergency Room Delays

As sad as it is that there has to be an addition to our discussion from last week regarding the gender disparities in kidney transplants, this article about disparities in emergency room care for those experiencing heart trouble does make a nice one, as far as things go.

Researchers at Tufts Medical Center in Boston examined 5,887 emergency calls about suspected cardiac symptoms in Dallas County, Tex. About half of the calls were made by women.

Ambulances arrived just as quickly for women as for men, the researchers found. Patients of both sexes spent an average of 34 minutes in the care of emergency medical workers, including about 19.9 minutes of care on the scene and 10.3 minutes spent traveling to the hospital.

But 647 patients, about 11 percent, were delayed, spending 45 minutes or longer in the care of emergency workers.

Women were 52 percent more likely than men to be among the delayed, said Thomas W. Concannon, an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts University who was lead author of the study, published this month in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

It’s suggested that the delays could be due to a lower rate of professionals recognizing the signs of heart trouble in female patients. This seems plausible to me, as the symptoms commonly described for heart attacks largely don’t apply to women. Further, I think that heart disease is typically framed as a men’s health issue. Just look at which heart attack survivors typically make it on talk shows, are portrayed on scripted film and television, featured in commercials for cardiovascular treatment/drugs, etc. This is the case even though women have heart attacks at the same rate as men and are in fact more likely to die from them.

Of course, as is always the case, other factors could very, very easily be at play both instead of or in addition to the ones above. Some of them ascribe more sinister motives to the problem, and some of them more institutional. But just like with the kidney transplant issue, we’ve got reason to worry and demand both solutions and answers, regardless.

Reminder: Yes Means Yes Live Chat at Feministing

Just a quick reminder that at 3PM EST today, I’ll be live-chatting with Jessica Valenti, Jaclyn Friedman, Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Miriam Perez about Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power & a World Without Rape. All you have to do to participate or read along is head over to Feministing at that time. I hope that I see some of you there . . . and that I don’t say anything incredibly stupid!

UPDATE: Watch the replay here.

Sexist Superbowl Ads

UPDATE: Non-U.S. readers can now view the videos. Apologies for the originals; I had no way of knowing that Hulu.com was so stupid.

Oh yeah, you knew it was coming. I knew it was coming before I sat down to watch the big game. (Though I usually don’t care, the Steelers were playing, and my dad is the world’s biggest fan. We went over for moral support; and thankfully the Steelers not only won, but it was also a pretty good game.)

For the record, I think that my 21-year-old brother and his friends laughed at every one of these commercials. My dad, knowing my political leanings well from many fights, looked nervously my way but also laughed a few times. Which was, you know, awesome. I sat there and grumbled to my thankfully non-laughing husband that each of them was going up on the blog. Which now, they are.

Firestone: “Taters”

Shorter Firestone: Haha, women nag and talk to much! Wouldn’t it be great if they never spoke again? And isn’t it even better that enough men apparently still think this way for us to be able to profit off of it? Oh my, we’re so incredibly original.

Angler Fish, Feminist Icon

Neat factoid of the day:

When scientists first started capturing ceratioid anglerfish, they noticed that all of the specimens were females. These individuals were a few inches in size and almost all of them had what appeared to be parasites attached to them. It turned out that these “parasites” were the remains of male ceratioids.

…When it is mature, the male’s digestive system degenerates, making him incapable of feeding independently, which necessitates his quickly finding a female anglerfish to prevent his death. The sensitive olfactory organs help the male to detect the pheromones that signal the proximity of a female anglerfish. When he finds a female, he bites into her skin, and releases an enzyme that digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair down to the blood-vessel level. The male then atrophies into nothing more than a pair of gonads…

And I’ll bet that castrating fish doesn’t shave her legs either.

I join the feminist coalition of dog-lovers

Renee, I salute you and I am with you.

Now, it’s true that I do have a cat. And my cat is pretty cute. However, truth be told, I have a cat only because I cannot handle the responsibility of a dog right now — I work too much, I travel too much, I go out too much. I’ve been wanting a dog every since I left my family pup in Seattle, but it’s just not realistic until I’m more of a grown-up. So despite a life-long hatred of cats, I recently adopted a kitten who luckily has the personality of a dog (he waits outside my door for me in the morning, he follows me around the house, he likes to play, etc etc).

But he is not a dog.

I never had cats growing up — Percival is my first. We had dogs, and my best childhood memories always include them. We had the same golden retriever — Goose — for most of my life. He died when I was 16, and you still can’t bring up his name in my house without someone crying. He was the Best Dog Ever. Should I ever not live in a tiny apartment, I will get a big nice dog just like Goose.

About a year after Goose died, we got Ferris, a Westie. He’s the opposite of Goose, and out of his damned mind — wild, stubborn, untrainable, and mischievous. He’s mellowed out a lot in recent years (he’s 7 now) and he’s always been very sweet, but he has made it clear that he’d rather live with the neighbors and their dog than with us. He’s also a beast — huge for his breed, perpetually dirty, and kind of muppet-looking. In case it isn’t astoundingly clear, I adore him.

So this is Ferris, the #1 puppy love of my life:

Ferris, originally uploaded by JillNic83.

Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday

Post a short description of something you’ve written this week, along with a link. Don’t just link to your entire blog.