Speaker 1: Today On the bright Side, oncologist and author doctor Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Coleman reveals the not so secret history of sexism and
Speaker 1: medicine and what we can do to fight it.
Speaker 2: It's Wednesday, May eighth. Danielle Robe.
Speaker 1: I'm Simone Boyce and this is The bright Side from
Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 3: Bu bu banana, bum bum banana. What I'm spreading the news.
Speaker 3: I'm leaving today. I want to be a part of
Speaker 3: it New York.
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, yeah, we're going.
Speaker 3: We're going.
Speaker 1: We're taking the show on the road. We are doing
Speaker 1: The bright Side from New York for the first time.
Speaker 1: This is so exciting.
Speaker 2: I know. I wonder if it's going to sound different
Speaker 2: in New York. Maybe we should have accents. Hmmm, we
Speaker 2: can have like East Coast bright Side moments. Okay, welcome
Speaker 2: to the bright Side.
Speaker 3: We're here ready on the bright Side, you guys, it's
Speaker 3: what we need.
Speaker 2: Something like that. So well here in New York and
Speaker 2: we have lots to talk about today. We just had
Speaker 2: our coffee and bagel and now we're ready for the show.
Speaker 3: I think that's perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Okay, Well, I know that you are
Speaker 2: prepping to go out of town because you are a prepper.
Speaker 2: What are you doing?
Speaker 1: Let's see, there's so many things. I gotta go pick
Speaker 1: up something from the dry cleaner. I want to wear
Speaker 1: a bow in my hair this weekend, so I have
Speaker 1: to go to the craft store.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's just like one more thing on my list.
Speaker 3: Tashi made me do it.
Speaker 1: You know that that hashtag Zendaiya was wearing a bow
Speaker 1: on her press store and I felt so inspired by it.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm going to try this.
Speaker 2: Does it go with your fit or is it just
Speaker 2: for like a Friday night look elie wk.
Speaker 1: It goes with the fit, it goes with fit. You'll
Speaker 1: probably see it, so you can be a judge. You
Speaker 1: can tell me whether it's a yeah or nay.
Speaker 2: Okay, Tashi made you do it.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: I also have to pack. That's the other thing I'll
Speaker 1: probably end up packing, like way last minute. Are you
Speaker 1: a last minute packer or are you do you it early?
Speaker 2: I am usually early, but you know, so we're going
Speaker 2: for an iHeart event and then we're going to do
Speaker 2: the show, and so we have all these fits. So
Speaker 2: now I'm last minute because I didn't get my stuff together.
Speaker 2: I'm literally gonna leave from here go pack and go
Speaker 2: run to the airport.
Speaker 3: Red eye tonight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm taking a reddite tonight and I'm trying to
Speaker 2: pack food because the last time I was at last
Speaker 2: time I was on a plane, I sat next to
Speaker 2: this wonderful couple in their eighties actually from New York,
Speaker 2: and she had cooked her husband homemade chicken and she
Speaker 2: offered me some. And because they were a little bit older,
Speaker 2: I felt uncomfortable saying no, so I had to eat
Speaker 2: her chicken.
Speaker 1: You ate a stranger's chicken on the plane I did?
Speaker 1: This is really unhinged.
Speaker 2: She was so sweet though.
Speaker 1: Wow, Danielle, Yeah, I'm speechless. I mean, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: that's very courteous of you not to decline. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, who knows could have been in that chicken?
Speaker 3: Girl?
Speaker 2: I know it's the Midwest and me, but last time
Speaker 2: we traveled together, you made me try chicken chips or something.
Speaker 1: I have a bag of chicken chips I'm bringing on
Speaker 1: the plane. Talk about unhinged. So, for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: chicken chips are chips that are made of really flat chicken.
Speaker 1: They've like flattened them out on some sort of machine
Speaker 1: press and they've turned them into potato chips without the potato.
Speaker 2: What I'm learning is that you want to make pizza
Speaker 2: from chicken, chips from chicken, You'll eat anything made from chicken.
Speaker 3: I'm one big chicken. That's just that's who I am.
Speaker 3: I'm just a chicken.
Speaker 2: I didn't say you were a chicken, but I am. I.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm leaning. I'm in my chicken era.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, sure, whatever that means. Okay, speaking of eras,
Speaker 2: Kendall Jenner is in her ex era.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: The Magala was this week and she was spotted cozying
Speaker 2: up at the after party with Bad Bunny, who's her ex.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I don't follow her dating life all that much,
Speaker 1: but I remember seeing them dating and then they broke up.
Speaker 2: Kendall and Benito broke up, uh, but they were seen canoodling,
Speaker 2: and I was just kind of thinking about I don't
Speaker 2: know if that's a good idea, Kendall.
Speaker 4: I don't know how I.
Speaker 2: Feel about exes getting back together, so rarely does it
Speaker 2: work out.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: At the same I hear you, but like, on the
Speaker 1: same token, don't you go out and you'll meet couples
Speaker 1: who are like Yeah, we like broke up for a
Speaker 1: little while and then we got back together.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's pretty common.
Speaker 2: Do you have any friends who that's happened to.
Speaker 1: I have had friends tell me that they got back
Speaker 1: together with an X. I'm thinking of one friend right
Speaker 1: now who got back together with this really toxic person
Speaker 1: and I like begged her not to go back with
Speaker 1: him because he's just so problematic. But that's a tricky
Speaker 1: situation to be in as a friend too, if you're like,
Speaker 1: don't get back with this person, and then what if
Speaker 1: they get back with them and then they get married,
Speaker 1: and then you always the friend who doubted them and
Speaker 1: their decisions.
Speaker 2: And they know how you felt about it deep down.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's no going back, there's no taking it back. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So are you the friend who says something?
Speaker 1: Probably if I believe that it's a relationship that's like
Speaker 1: truly harmful detrimental for this person, I will I'll say something.
Speaker 1: I'd rather I'd rather stand in my truth, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like only God can judge me. I'd
Speaker 1: rather stand in my truth and tell you what I
Speaker 1: really think, rather than holding it all in and then
Speaker 1: like feeling that remorse or regret over not saying anything.
Speaker 1: What's your stance on that. Do you ever confront your
Speaker 1: friends if you think they're making a bad move romantically.
Speaker 2: I always do, and it's because of this one friend
Speaker 2: who did it for me. You know. I talk about
Speaker 2: this one x on the show sometimes. He was not
Speaker 2: a great guy, but I didn't know it at the time,
Speaker 2: and all my friends kind of I think felt away,
Speaker 2: didn't say anything. And my one friend, Julia, we went
Speaker 2: to a farmer's market one day. I'll never forget. She
Speaker 2: turned to me and she said, do you you can't
Speaker 2: marry him? And I said why. She gave me the
Speaker 2: reasons and I looked at her and I said, thank you.
Speaker 2: That is a real friend, and it didn't change my opinion.
Speaker 2: We dated for I don't know six more months after that.
Speaker 3: So you didn't actually take her advice in the end.
Speaker 2: No, But in the breakup, like in the aftermath, I
Speaker 2: kept thinking about her words and her honesty. I think
Speaker 2: a real friend is honest with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I also think a friendship that's meant to
Speaker 1: last can recover from something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sometimes the repair is even better, like we have
Speaker 2: Danielle Bayer Jackson on and she's talking about healthy conflict. Yeah,
Speaker 2: sometimes relationships are stronger after that. And Julia gets to
Speaker 2: go on her and I Told you.
Speaker 3: So tour and doesn't that feel good?
Speaker 2: Folks?
Speaker 1: After the break, we're uping our clitteracy, y'all with Elizabeth Comyn.
Speaker 3: That's right, I just said, clitterasy.
Speaker 4: Stay with us, Welcome back, Let's get into it.
Speaker 3: Danielle.
Speaker 1: You know we've talked a lot about how little we
Speaker 1: actually know about women's health and our society and just
Speaker 1: how our bodies are frankly misunderstood by the medical community. Well,
Speaker 1: today we are going beyond the stats to trace the
Speaker 1: historical roots of sexism in medicine.
Speaker 3: This is a big one, that's right.
Speaker 2: And today we're joined by doctor Elizabeth Coleman, an oncologist
Speaker 2: and medical historian who makes us hopeful about the future
Speaker 2: of women's health and medicine. She's the author of the
Speaker 2: book All in her Head, The Truth and Lies Early
Speaker 2: medicine taught us about women's bodies and why it matters today.
Speaker 2: Doctor colemyan Welcome to the bright side.
Speaker 3: Welcome doctor Coleman.
Speaker 5: Thank you who doesn't always want to be on the
Speaker 5: bright side.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by your career not only because you're a
Speaker 1: noncologist who specializes in treating breast cancer patients, but you've
Speaker 1: spent years studying the underlying sexism in the medical community.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of a medical historian. What made you
Speaker 1: want to get into this type of work.
Speaker 5: So when I was at Harvard, I majored in the
Speaker 5: history of science, and it was really because I just
Speaker 5: couldn't leave behind my love of the humanities and also
Speaker 5: my interest in science and biology and chemistry. And what
Speaker 5: I really found in that incredible time of my education
Speaker 5: was my real passion for understanding the experience of illness,
Speaker 5: and particularly for women, and especially in the context of
Speaker 5: women's healthcare. It is inextricably linked to history, culture, religion, literature,
Speaker 5: the stories we've been told ourselves about our bodies. So
Speaker 5: throughout my really professional career, I've always held onto this
Speaker 5: tremendous interest in under standing where we come from and
Speaker 5: the legacy that we inherit when we show up as
Speaker 5: patient or doctor in the exam room and in our
Speaker 5: broader healthcare system.
Speaker 2: I think understanding where we come from is the only
Speaker 2: way to figure out where we're going. And for years
Speaker 2: we've been talking about how medicine has been tailored to
Speaker 2: men and the male body. What are some early examples
Speaker 2: that you found in your research of that.
Speaker 5: Oh, my goodness, everything. So Hippocrates and his disciples felt
Speaker 5: that one of the reasons why women were just so
Speaker 5: crazy was because we had this wandering womb, and that
Speaker 5: was the source of all women's ills. And over the
Speaker 5: course of history, when we learned through anatomy that the
Speaker 5: uterus was actually tethered and it wasn't like wandering into
Speaker 5: our brains, it then became other parts of our body,
Speaker 5: our ovaries or estrogen that was bathing our entire body,
Speaker 5: and that's just what made us these unique crazy creatures.
Speaker 1: Well, women then were viewed not as patients but experiments. Experiments,
Speaker 1: but also, depending on the time and history, inverted imperfect,
Speaker 1: more primal versions of the idealized man, and we see
Speaker 1: that today. It wasn't until nineteen ninety three that women
Speaker 1: were even required to be included in NIH funded studies
Speaker 1: women and minorities, And for so much of medical history
Speaker 1: the idea was, well, whatever was happening to men would
Speaker 1: just be similar in women, and we obviously know that's
Speaker 1: not true and so much has been missed along the way.
Speaker 1: When you look, for example, at autoimmune diseases, eighty percent
Speaker 1: of autoimmune diseases are in women.
Speaker 5: Some of these diseases we don't even have names for.
Speaker 5: They're just almost syndromes that we're still trying to figure out.
Speaker 5: And in large part that's because we're having a system.
Speaker 5: And it's not to say that all men were bad
Speaker 5: intentioned at all, but you had a system of men
Speaker 5: largely taking care of women, and in turn, there were
Speaker 5: biases along the way about what was seen as of
Speaker 5: value to be studied.
Speaker 1: Hysteria is a term that really illustrates the sexism that's
Speaker 1: embedded in medicine. But it's also a term that has
Speaker 1: become this loaded insult. It's made its way all the
Speaker 1: way into politics as well. Yeah, I want to talk
Speaker 1: specifically about what you call the long shadow of the
Speaker 1: hysteria diagnosis. What's the history of that diagnosis and how
Speaker 1: does its legacy still rear its ugly head today?
Speaker 5: Well, have you ever been called hysterical before? I?
Speaker 2: Have? You have?
Speaker 5: Of course, I'm a hysterical crazy woman.
Speaker 2: Of course, what do you mean? Who called you hysterical?
Speaker 2: Professionally or personally.
Speaker 5: In every context, I've been told to calm down, behave
Speaker 5: I'm hysterical, I'm too emotional, i cry too much. I
Speaker 5: got all sorts of stories. We could do a separate
Speaker 5: segment on that. But throughout medical history you see the
Speaker 5: specter of the hysterical diagnosis, whether it's hysteria as a diagnosis,
Speaker 5: or the anxious housewife in the nineteen sixties that's being
Speaker 5: given valume, or the anxious woman today that may have
Speaker 5: symptoms that are ignored or dismissed it or are told
Speaker 5: to calm down. The actual diagnosis of hysteria left the
Speaker 5: medical lexicon in the nineteen eighties, but women are still
Speaker 5: called hysterical and lots of different derivatives in our healthcare
Speaker 5: system and in our society.
Speaker 2: As you say, is there a woman in the medical
Speaker 2: history books that we don't talk about enough.
Speaker 5: One of the challenges of writing this book was reading
Speaker 5: these heartbreaking stories and textbooks where women who were presumed
Speaker 5: to have something wrong with them when they did not,
Speaker 5: or they had normal human behavior and were really stigmatized
Speaker 5: for that was wondering, gosh, where were these voices. Even
Speaker 5: the field of American kindecology was built on the backs
Speaker 5: of black slaves with Mary and Simms. And yet where
Speaker 5: are the voices of these women? They are lost, and
Speaker 5: how would I honor them in this book where I
Speaker 5: don't have their voices? So I think there's countless, countless
Speaker 5: women that I wish we could hear from. There are,
Speaker 5: of course, some incredible heroines, like Elizabeth Blackwell, one of
Speaker 5: the first female physicians. They're incredible midwives whose stories we
Speaker 5: can try to capture. But I think what I am
Speaker 5: most haunted by are the women whose legacies we will
Speaker 5: never know. That we can imagine how much they suffered,
Speaker 5: how much they were torture in some instances, and how
Speaker 5: much we have to honor their legacy even though we
Speaker 5: may not know the details of it.
Speaker 1: I want to see biopics of all these women. I
Speaker 1: feel like that's fertile ground for narratives. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: we also have to talk about the history of women's
Speaker 1: sexual health. The clitterist has this long history of being
Speaker 1: both ignored and misunderstood at the same time. Can you
Speaker 1: walk us through that specific history.
Speaker 3: I love that you.
Speaker 5: Asked me about the clitterists, because let's talk about the
Speaker 5: only organ that is for pleasure. Unique like why are
Speaker 5: we not considered superhuman? Why are we the inverted imperfect sex?
Speaker 5: If you go back to I know, I'm getting really excited.
Speaker 1: We love that you're getting fired up about clitteracy right now.
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 5: If you go back to like Greek literature, there's a
Speaker 5: famous physician Galen who literally talks about like women being
Speaker 5: almost like a hidden mole, like our anatomy, that we
Speaker 5: are inverted, tucked in and you know, men are like
Speaker 5: the cooler, better sex because it's all kind of like
Speaker 5: externally present. But hello, we are the ones that have
Speaker 5: an organ which is not just a tiny pearl. By
Speaker 5: the way, it was mapped not until two thousand and
Speaker 5: five by a female urologist to show just how expansive
Speaker 5: those nerve endings are and just how all encompassing that is.
Speaker 5: You're the only ones that have this like pure pleasure
Speaker 5: thing going on the fact that it's been lost and
Speaker 5: found and dismissed. There was even this one doctor who
Speaker 5: became the president of the Endochronology Society who claimed that
Speaker 5: more primal women had a clitorist and that with higher evolution,
Speaker 5: the glitterists would basically just kind of go away and
Speaker 5: therefore as you become more evolved, we would lose it.
Speaker 5: Is this guy just out of his mind.
Speaker 2: I took a bunch of women's health classes in college
Speaker 2: and one of my professors was telling us that the
Speaker 2: glittorus is a small penis inside of you.
Speaker 5: That's cute.
Speaker 2: Well, but it's still default male. We still talk whether
Speaker 2: that's true or not. We keep talking about it like
Speaker 2: it's a male part.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And the number of times that men in the Renaissance
Speaker 5: and beyond claim to like discover label lose find again
Speaker 5: the clitterists, it's just amazing to me. And then when
Speaker 5: I was in medical school, so much of the anatomical
Speaker 5: drawings that we saw of like the heart or the
Speaker 5: lungs were in a male body and you only saw
Speaker 5: the female form and it related to our reproductive function.
Speaker 5: But yeah, the clitorist was like this tiny little pearl.
Speaker 5: It's way more than that. It's way more than that. Thankfully.
Speaker 1: I want to keep going on this thread here and
Speaker 1: just talk about empowerment, Like where we go from here
Speaker 1: with this knowledge? Did you find examples in history where
Speaker 1: women were not only seen but able to shape the
Speaker 1: medicine that we practice today? I mean I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: the rich history of doulas and midwives and the role
Speaker 1: that women have played in helping us better understand childbirth
Speaker 1: and the postpartum period.
Speaker 5: Yes, I think with the rise of gynecology as a feel,
Speaker 5: which was really a male dominated field, what you saw
Speaker 5: was that these extraordinary midwives who had ancestral knowledge passed
Speaker 5: down from thousands of years through women taking care of
Speaker 5: other women. They were sidelined at the rise of medical science,
Speaker 5: when we had germ theory and the idea that you
Speaker 5: should wear gloves or wash your hands. There were so
Speaker 5: many things that midwives didn't have the chance to learn
Speaker 5: because they weren't even allowed to go to medical school,
Speaker 5: and yet they had profound knowledge. And I think what
Speaker 5: you see now is a movement to reinvigorate our healthcare
Speaker 5: system with these voices, with this knowledge, with this sense
Speaker 5: of empowerment, the idea that women should be trusted with
Speaker 5: understanding their own bodies and having agency over their own bodies.
Speaker 5: So I think there is a counter movement. There is
Speaker 5: that haunting thread in our history that we can expand
Speaker 5: upon today and use to empower women moving forward.
Speaker 2: You know, as I was researching, I learned that heart
Speaker 2: disease is the leading cause of death for both women
Speaker 2: and men, but women are more likely than men to
Speaker 2: die after having a heart attack. Can you explain that
Speaker 2: to us, because I really think this information could save
Speaker 2: somebody's life.
Speaker 5: Thank you for asking that. So despite my field of
Speaker 5: oncology and taking care of breast cancer, heart disease is
Speaker 5: the number one pillar of women in the United States.
Speaker 5: And when I was in school, was taught how women
Speaker 5: present with a heart attack, it's with atypical symptoms. How
Speaker 5: are we freaking atypical in our presentation when we're greater
Speaker 5: than fifty percent of the population. It's the number one
Speaker 5: killer of women. That in and of itself is ridiculous.
Speaker 5: If you look at the movies and the late public
Speaker 5: presentation of a heart attack, it's that crushing elephant on
Speaker 5: the chest imagery. Women may not have that They may
Speaker 5: have fatigue, they may have indigestion, they may have other
Speaker 5: symptoms that they may not know are associated with a
Speaker 5: heart attack. Women are more likely to call an ambulance
Speaker 5: for their husband's symptoms than for themselves. They also are
Speaker 5: often the primary caregivers in their family and are less
Speaker 5: likely to have people to take care of themselves. So
Speaker 5: there are so many factors that go into what happens
Speaker 5: before a woman has a heart attack, When she has
Speaker 5: a heart attack, a late diagnosis of those symptoms and
Speaker 5: a heart attack, and in turn, who's caring for her afterwards.
Speaker 5: We got a lot of work to do.
Speaker 3: A lot.
Speaker 2: I've heard that sometimes symptoms can present in women as
Speaker 2: anxiety and so they're not believed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, that's that's the vicious thing. That's why my
Speaker 5: book is called All in Her Head, because so much
Speaker 5: of women's symptoms are dismissed as anxiety. And sometimes we
Speaker 5: are anxious, but maybe we're anxious because something's really going
Speaker 5: on and someone's dismissed us, and maybe we are just
Speaker 5: purely anxious. But we need to not have that as
Speaker 5: a default diagnosis when we don't know what's going on.
Speaker 5: There were so many doctors that I spoke to that
Speaker 5: said that becomes a default diagnosis when we are not
Speaker 5: certain of what is really happening to a woman. And
Speaker 5: sometimes that's because we haven't unpacked the biology of them enough,
Speaker 5: so we don't understand it, and therefore it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 5: she's just crazier, she's just anxious. And we don't really know,
Speaker 5: so that's our default.
Speaker 2: We've talked on the show before about how you have
Speaker 2: to be your own best advocate in the doctor's office,
Speaker 2: or bring somebody with you that can be your advocate.
Speaker 2: What do you make of that idea.
Speaker 5: I can tell you from my own experience, which I
Speaker 5: chronicle on the conclusion of the book, which I had
Speaker 5: written the whole book, and then I had this horrific
Speaker 5: medical experience happened to myself, and I was horrible. I
Speaker 5: shouldn't shame myself, but I was. I could not advocate
Speaker 5: for myself. I did everything that I said not to do.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to bother anybody. I diminished my pain.
Speaker 5: I knew exactly what was going on for me, both
Speaker 5: from my gut but more importantly from my years of
Speaker 5: medical training, and I believed somebody else who had absolutely
Speaker 5: no experience in it, and I believe what they were
Speaker 5: telling me about my body. So I think when you
Speaker 5: are in pain, when you are suffering, having somebody else
Speaker 5: advocate for you with you is so important. Because I
Speaker 5: don't care how smart you are, I don't care where
Speaker 5: you went to med school. I don't care any of that.
Speaker 5: If you are anxious and in pain, it's impossible to
Speaker 5: then be forced to advocate for yourself. So the more
Speaker 5: we can have somebody with us to help do that,
Speaker 5: it's incredibly important. And I think yes, we've built a
Speaker 5: system that has not allowed for the space for women
Speaker 5: to express themselves in fifteen minute appointments. We don't have
Speaker 5: clinical trials that are necessarily set up to always include women.
Speaker 5: We don't have the laboratory experiments caught up to close
Speaker 5: the gender gap. For years, we've been using male mice,
Speaker 5: male human subjects to study, including female specific conditions, and
Speaker 5: so this system has made it that it's incredibly hard
Speaker 5: for women to advocate. And again these default become, well,
Speaker 5: she doesn't really know or she's just anxious, when in
Speaker 5: fact we just haven't spent the time on women, both
Speaker 5: in the research setting, the clinical setting, and in the
Speaker 5: exam room.
Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1: I read in your book that one of your goals
Speaker 1: is to reintroduce women to their bodies system by system.
Speaker 3: What do you mean by that, Well, I.
Speaker 5: Think so much of the way we think about women's
Speaker 5: healthcare is bikini medicine, that we've been taught that it's
Speaker 5: our breasts and our reproductive function, and maybe a little
Speaker 5: bit of our genitalia. And it's going to callologists who
Speaker 5: handle women's health, but our entire bodies head to toe
Speaker 5: are different from men. We are not small men. Our
Speaker 5: biology is different. We have female specific conditions, female predominant conditions,
Speaker 5: conditions that are unique to women only. And I wanted
Speaker 5: to really highlight for women that women's health is not
Speaker 5: just your breasts and your uterus. There's so much more
Speaker 5: to understanding that. And it's not just your gynecologists that
Speaker 5: should know about women's bodies, but your gas reentrologists should
Speaker 5: know what can happen during menopause. Your cardiologists should know
Speaker 5: the menstrual cycle as it relates to the presentation of
Speaker 5: cardiac arrhythmias or changes in the rhythm of your heart.
Speaker 5: It's not that women's health should be inelective in medical school.
Speaker 1: So thinking about how we empower ourselves when we're in
Speaker 1: the doctor's office, can you give us three ways we
Speaker 1: can advocate for ourselves and perhaps even other women when
Speaker 1: we're interacting with the medical community.
Speaker 5: First thing I would say say is bring somebody with you,
Speaker 5: a family member or friend, to take notes. I would
Speaker 5: say Secondly, come prepared with questions. Again, if it's especially
Speaker 5: something new or different, or you're worried about it. A
Speaker 5: lot of times we want reassurance, and if you feel
Speaker 5: like you're not getting that, it's important to ask your doctor.
Speaker 5: Can you explain to me the rationale for why what
Speaker 5: you're saying is true. If you think that I don't
Speaker 5: need this extra test or I don't need this blood work,
Speaker 5: and you really understand what's going on with me, walk
Speaker 5: me through your rationale and understanding of what you think
Speaker 5: is wrong with me. Thirdly, I think it's very important
Speaker 5: in our imperfect complicated healthcare system now to ask how
Speaker 5: information is going to be communicated with you. Now, we
Speaker 5: have often these my charts or this instant access to
Speaker 5: our healthcare results, but that's not going to be in
Speaker 5: context of an explanation from a doctor or a nurse
Speaker 5: or a nurse practitioner really understanding how you're going to
Speaker 5: get that information, how you want that information, and how
Speaker 5: you want to have a dialogue with your provider about
Speaker 5: what's actually going on with your body as a opposed
Speaker 5: to having to google word by word random medical language
Speaker 5: that you might see in a report.
Speaker 1: What can we do to influence medical research and make
Speaker 1: sure we're represented there as well.
Speaker 5: So there's enormous movement and pressure to make sure that
Speaker 5: we are including women in clinical trials and also that
Speaker 5: we are voicing what we need to have happened before
Speaker 5: clinical trials even are designed. We need to make sure
Speaker 5: that we're listening to women to understand what the problems are.
Speaker 5: But if you are part of a medical system where
Speaker 5: somebody asks you to participate in a clinical trial, it's
Speaker 5: incredibly important that we do. We know that often women
Speaker 5: are underrepresented, minorities are tremendously underrepresented, especially in the cancer world,
Speaker 5: and we need to make sure that the research that's
Speaker 5: being done is of course with informed consent, that people
Speaker 5: understand that they are not quote unquote guinea pigs what
Speaker 5: the research is about, and that the results of that
Speaker 5: reflect the diversity of our society as well.
Speaker 2: What gives you hope when it comes to what's being
Speaker 2: done in the medical industry to close the gap between genders.
Speaker 2: What are the bright spots that you think we should
Speaker 2: know about.
Speaker 5: There are so many bright spots, and I think a
Speaker 5: lot of it has come from this groundswell in our
Speaker 5: society saying this is not good enough. There are incredible
Speaker 5: female specific startups that are happening right now. You see
Speaker 5: entire movements in academic medicine to focus on women's health.
Speaker 5: You see in medical schools that it's not just a
Speaker 5: random elective, but that all medical subspecialties, all medical students
Speaker 5: are being required to learn about women's bodies in a
Speaker 5: more holistic way. There's tremendous momentum and lots of reasons
Speaker 5: to have hope.
Speaker 2: Doctor Coleman, I was so interested to read that you
Speaker 2: ask your patients this question, what brings you joy? Why
Speaker 2: do you ask that question?
Speaker 5: Oh, it's my favorite question to ask, because that's where
Speaker 5: life is. We are all we all have this fear
Speaker 5: of death in varying existential ways, but we're here because
Speaker 5: we want to We want to thrive. We want to
Speaker 5: have those incredible days that are never perfect, but have
Speaker 5: these bright sides and moments of just pure bliss. When
Speaker 5: I ask my patients what brings them joy, it gives
Speaker 5: me this unique window into who they are, whether it's
Speaker 5: you know, dancing at home to Latin rhythms or playing
Speaker 5: the piano or going for a hike. And especially in
Speaker 5: my field, there's so much focus on surviving, surviving, surviving
Speaker 5: and getting through some horrible treatment, when in fact people
Speaker 5: want on the other side of that to feel like
Speaker 5: they are still alive and they are not just surviving
Speaker 5: but thriving. And for me personally, I have a hard
Speaker 5: job of talking about really anxious topics and fear of
Speaker 5: death and mortality and recurrence. And to be able to
Speaker 5: have those moments of energetic connection with the patient, to
Speaker 5: know what they love and what they enjoy, gives me
Speaker 5: so much pleasure and often I learn about cool things
Speaker 5: in New York City that I can do too. You know,
Speaker 5: who doesn't want to swing from a pole everything?
Speaker 2: Now and then? So I want to ask you, because
Speaker 2: you did mention you have such a tough job and
Speaker 2: you're with people at some of the worst and hardest
Speaker 2: moments of their life. What brings you joy?
Speaker 5: I love to dance. I'm definitely a little bit of
Speaker 5: a WEIRDO.
Speaker 3: What kind of dance? Ooh?
Speaker 5: Everything? I'm really good at hip hop. I grew up
Speaker 5: dancing hip hop. I love sausa dance, I love Latin rhythms.
Speaker 5: I'll pretty much dance to anything. And I you know,
Speaker 5: there's like those diaries that are like dance like no
Speaker 5: one's watching. I will dance like no one's watching, and
Speaker 5: like everybody's watching.
Speaker 1: Doctor Comyan, thank you so much for joining us and
Speaker 1: just enlightening us today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Doctor Colemen my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Doctor Elizabeth Coleman is an oncologist, medical historian, and the
Speaker 1: author of its All Inner Head, The Truth and Lies
Speaker 1: Early medicine taught us about women's bodies and why it
Speaker 1: matters today.
Speaker 2: We just talked about the importance of advocating for ourselves
Speaker 2: and each other in the doctor's office.
Speaker 3: That's right, Danielle.
Speaker 1: After the break, we're going to open up about our
Speaker 1: own personal experience with what it means to have each
Speaker 1: other's back in the workplace.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. All right, besties, We're back, Danielle.
Speaker 1: I think we got to end today's episode a little differently.
Speaker 2: Yes, we are not doing what we usually do because
Speaker 2: we had an experience unlike anything we've ever had.
Speaker 1: It was an experience that I don't want to speak
Speaker 1: for you, Danielle, but I feel like it brought us
Speaker 1: closer together and in talking with some of the women
Speaker 1: that we work with, I think a lot of women
Speaker 1: can relate to what happened.
Speaker 3: So yes, I want to include you. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in the spirit of honesty, I feel like
Speaker 2: when Channy came on this show, one of the things
Speaker 2: she told us was to not shy away from hard topics.
Speaker 3: This is one of those tough conversations. So here we go.
Speaker 1: We were doing some press interviews for the show, right,
Speaker 1: and we did a bunch of interviews, and then we
Speaker 1: got to the last conversation, and that's when things got really,
Speaker 1: really bizarre. One of the hosts said the most degrading
Speaker 1: thing that has ever been said to me in a
Speaker 1: professional setting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This host told me that he's been following my TV
Speaker 1: news career over the years and that he has a
Speaker 1: recurring dream about me where he bends his head down
Speaker 1: and I pat him on his head and say, good boy.
Speaker 1: He said this in an interview to my face.
Speaker 2: I know you're even shaking recounting it.
Speaker 3: But it gets worse.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, he said, tall, gorgeous women are supposed to just
Speaker 1: be on the cover of Vanity Fair or Cosmo or
Speaker 1: something like that, not there on my TV telling me
Speaker 1: interesting stuff.
Speaker 2: How did you feel in the moment when he said
Speaker 2: it to you?
Speaker 1: In the moment, I was really shocked and flustered, and
Speaker 1: I kind of froze, to be honest, it broke my
Speaker 1: spirit because I've worked so hard over the past fifteen
Speaker 1: years to be taken seriously, and when you hear a
Speaker 1: comment like that, it just makes me think about all
Speaker 1: the other women who are working so hard to be
Speaker 1: taken seriously and to just gain an ounce of respect.
Speaker 2: You know, I actually learned something from the interaction too,
Speaker 2: because you reported it, and I have felt uncomfortable in
Speaker 2: so many situations over the last ten years of my career,
Speaker 2: and I've never reported anything. I get mad at myself
Speaker 2: for how I respond, because I should have said something else.
Speaker 3: That's what I was feeling too.
Speaker 2: I could feel that in you, you're more mad at
Speaker 2: yourself than you are them, which is the messed up
Speaker 2: part about it.
Speaker 1: It's a messed up part because I shouldn't be mad
Speaker 1: at myself, but I still, of course I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: all these you know, great shower comebacks that I I
Speaker 1: would have said if I didn't feel so damn conditioned
Speaker 1: in the moment to just.
Speaker 3: Be a good girl.
Speaker 1: But thank God that you were there, because I felt
Speaker 1: so supported and cared for by you in that moment,
Speaker 1: because you really came to my defense.
Speaker 3: In a really big way, in a powerful way. Danielle,
Speaker 3: you're gonna make me cry.
Speaker 1: No, but you said you pushed back, and you said, listen,
Speaker 1: the reason why we're doing this show is to combat
Speaker 1: everything you just said, and and to let people know
Speaker 1: that women can be multi dimensional, that we can be
Speaker 1: attractive and informed, that we can be funny and smart,
Speaker 1: that we can be direct and curious. So thank you.
Speaker 1: How did you find the words in that moment? It
Speaker 1: seemed like it wasn't hard for you.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I just want to I'm I
Speaker 2: cry when other people cry empathy crying. I'm also crying
Speaker 2: because I felt you so deeply, like you always have
Speaker 2: the words, and so I could feel you not being
Speaker 2: able to find the words. And I have been there
Speaker 2: so many times. The reason I found the words in
Speaker 2: that moment, I think were because I hadn't found the
Speaker 2: words countless other times when I've felt put down and
Speaker 2: disrespected and degraded at work. And I also think it's
Speaker 2: a lot easier to find the words when it's not you,
Speaker 2: Like you got the brunt of it. It was a
Speaker 2: lot easier for me to have your back than it
Speaker 2: was for you in that moment to have your back,
Speaker 2: and I think being a woman as a team sport.
Speaker 2: I have one more question for you, though, Yeah, how
Speaker 2: did you find the courage to not minimize it and
Speaker 2: to report it?
Speaker 3: I think I'm over it. I'm thirty six years old.
Speaker 1: You reach a point where you're just like, no more,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to let this happen anymore, you know,
Speaker 1: like we have let it happen, sometimes to preserve our
Speaker 1: own safety, sometimes to preserve the safety of others.
Speaker 3: But I'm over it. I'm done.
Speaker 1: Like we should be calling out this behavior, we should
Speaker 1: be declaring it as unacceptable.
Speaker 2: I feel amped up by what you just said. No, really,
Speaker 2: that's because that's kind of like the whole freaking point
Speaker 2: of the show, you know, like we're all so over it.
Speaker 3: It is over it.
Speaker 2: I'm never not having the words anymore, like I'm not,
Speaker 2: We're done. And I think the more we have each
Speaker 2: other's back in that, like there's so much power in
Speaker 2: numbers and support. I think part of the point of
Speaker 2: the show is regardless of what industry you're in, like
Speaker 2: we are making a shift. Hello, Sunshine has given us
Speaker 2: a huge platform. I'm an opportunity and kind of lit
Speaker 2: the torch for that. I think the takeaway for us is,
Speaker 2: let's come to this show every day and do that.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, So the more that we look for ways
Speaker 1: to do that, to edify, to unify.
Speaker 3: That's powerful.
Speaker 2: Get you with all the words again, edify. I love
Speaker 2: the word outify chi vocabulary, so do you.
Speaker 3: I'll look here.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm sitting next to an sat prep
Speaker 2: over job.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening, besties. We are so
Speaker 1: happy to be on this journey with you. That's it
Speaker 1: for today's show. Tomorrow we have Peloton instructor Ali Love.
Speaker 1: She's giving us insight into how to up the anti
Speaker 1: on energizing our lives. Listen and follow the bright side
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. I'm Simone Voice. You can find me at
Speaker 1: simone Voice on Insta, Jaga and TikTok.
Speaker 3: I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's r O
Speaker 2: B A Y. We'll see you tomorrow. Keep looking on
Speaker 2: the bright side.