The Problem

Bias in medical schools and research continue

Women get poorer treatment in part because of bias in medical school training

In the vast majority of medical schools in Canada and the United States, the male body is taught as a default, except for female reproduction. These schools teach that women's symptoms -- if different -- deviate from "the norm", even though women can have different symptoms than men for the same conditions, such as heart attacks.

Despite urging from the NIH and Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to include sex as a biological variable (SABV) in the classroom, only 30 percent of schools do so in the United States and Canada.

Women make up only 35% of practicing doctors.

Despite the hard work of groups like the Education Summit on the Health of Women, who for ten years has been working to change medical school curriculum, change remains slow.

Because of biased training, doctors and providers are more likely to misdiagnose women

Women are more likely than men to be misdiagnosed or have their symptoms dismissed—especially for conditions like heart disease, stroke, autoimmune disorders, and chronic pain. About 795,000 Americans die or become permanently disabled from misdiagnosis in the United States every year, and women are more at risk.

Women and minorities are 30% more likely to be misdiagnosed than white men.

Women are misdiagnosed 25% more often than men for stroke.

Women go 2.5 years longer than men before getting a typical cancer diagnosis.

Few states have laws requiring gender bias training in med schools but some anti-DEI laws ban it

Some states, like Washington, Illinois, Michigan, Maryland, and New Jersey, have laws that requires medical schools to teach gender differences in treatment, as well as implicit bias, which could help women get better treatment.

Other states, like Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and others have anti-DEI laws making the teaching of any gender bias illegal.

Many of these sweeping anti-DEI legislation bills directly contradicts or severely limits the ability of medical schools to even acknowledge gender bias exists.

Other states are considering instituting such bans: North Carolina, Utah, Indiana, North Dakota, and Wyoming.

What does this mean in the real world? For starters, women are more likely to die of a heart attack.

Why? Women present with different symptoms for a heart attack, which are sometimes overlooked by doctors trained to spot male symptoms. Despite cardiovascular disease being the number one killer of women in America, some doctors and many patients don't know about the increased risk of cardiac arrest for women in menopause, or the fact that women can present with different symptoms like jaw pain. Here are a few more disturbing statistics:

Women are twice as likely to die of a heart attack than men.

Women are 50% more likely than men to be misdiagnosed after a heart attack.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that women under 55 were more likely than men to be initially misdiagnosed when presenting to the ER with heart attack symptoms, which can be different than men's.

A survey of American cardiologists found that 84% of their female patients had been misdiagnosed.

Younger women (under 55) are more likely to have their heart attack symptoms attributed to anxiety, stress, or panic attacks, leading to critical delays in care

A 2016 study found that women with heart attacks were significantly less likely than men to receive aspirin, a key lifesaving intervention.

Medical research bias means we know less about treating women - period.

A 2020 analysis of clinical trials published in JAMA Network Open found that women were underrepresented in researching 7 of 11 disease categories, including cardiovascular disease and cancer, relative to their disease burden.

Women made up only 38% of participants in studies for cardiovascular disease, despite it being the leading cause of death for women in the United States.

Even the animals used in medical research are predominantly male animals, like mice, which can skew results.

It's not just a medical school problem. Women aren't studied as often as men in medical research.

Medical schools can't train doctors about the differences between men and women, if they don't know they exist. Across the board, women are underrepresented in medical research to treat nearly every condition including: cardiovascular health, mental health, many kinds of cancer, gene therapy, aging, neurological conditions such as Autism, and auto-immune diseases.

Some clinical trials don't bother to release how many women were included in the study, and even more fail to note if there were any differences between how men and women reacted to treatments.

Women are more likely to have an adverse reaction to prescription drugs than men.

Why? Drug dosages and treatment protocols are often based on male physiology, leading to adverse reactions in women. Historically, women—especially of childbearing age—were excluded from drug trials due to concerns about hormone fluctuations, menstruation, and pregnancy risks.

Before 1993, the FDA did not require women to be included in drug studies. Many drugs approved before then were tested almost entirely on men.

Even today, women are underrepresented in early-phase (Phase I) trials, where safety and dosage are determined—despite the fact that women metabolize drugs differently.

The U.S. GAO found that 8 of 10 drugs withdrawn from the market between 1997 and 2001 were more dangerous for women, largely because testing didn’t adequately include female physiology.

Women are 50–75% more likely to suffer an adverse drug reaction than men, sometimes fatally.

One notable example? The sleeping pill Ambien (zolpidem) remained on the market for over a decade before it was discovered that women metabolize it more slowly than men. The FDA later had to recommend cutting the dosage in half for women—after years of overdosing and side effects.

Women have different body fat composition, enzyme activity, immune responses, and hormonal cycles—each of which can alter how drugs work.

Most drugs are still designed around the “70-kg male” standard model for dosage, which can lead to overmedication, side effects, or decreased efficacy in women.

Also, the United States has the highest pregnancy mortality rate of any industrialized nation by far

For medical conditions unique to women, like pregnancy, death rates are far higher than in other industrialized nations.

The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries, with about 22.4 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2024, compared to countries like Germany (3.5), France (7.6), and the U.K. (5.5).

While maternal mortality has decreased in most industrialized nations over the past two decades, the U.S. rate has been steadily increasing, largely due to racial disparities, lack of universal healthcare, and gaps in postpartum care.

Women of color have even worse outcomes than white women.

Maternal mortality rates are significantly higher among Black and AI/AN women.
Non-Hispanic Black women face maternal mortality rates around 3.5 × higher than non-Hispanic white women—with figures like 69.9 vs. 26.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021—and American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) women also suffer roughly 3× greater risk compared to white women
Across the U.S., Black mothers are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications—even after controlling for education and income levels
Studies highlight that Black patients—particularly women—receive worse healthcare than white patients on more than half of quality measures, including in heart disease, cancer, stroke, pain management, surgery, and maternal health
Clinicians may wrongly assume Black women have a higher pain tolerance, leading to under-treatment of painful conditions and delayed diagnoses in pregnancy (e.g., hypertension, hemorrhage) and cancer (e.g., breast, ovarian). Black women have 40% higher breast cancer mortality, despite similar incidence rates.

The very programs designed to battle gender inequity in medical care have been cut

The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) has suffered catastrophic federal cuts, and might not survive. While a judge temporarily stayed those cuts, and the project is funded through 2026, the threat of dissolvement is real.

The Center for Disease Control's pregnancy monitoring arm, including the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), saw major staffing and budget cuts in 2025. Experts warn these moves will weaken maternal mortality tracking and fertility research.

A recent budget bill targeting substantial Medicaid cuts will affect women more than men, in part because it covers pregnancy and delivery for women at lower income levels, and nursing home care for many women, who make up 2/3 of nursing home residents.

Men’s health programs (e.g., prostate cancer, testosterone issues) have not faced targeted budget attacks of this magnitude or scope.
Budget cuts have disproportionately affected maternal/fertility care, contraception, preventive screenings for women, and gender-specific data systems.
Overall, the 202cut—especially through Medicaid, Title X, CDC monitoring, NIH research, and abortion restrictions—uniquely and sharply targeted women’s health, whereas men's health programs faced no comparable, coordinated reductions.