Have you ever felt like you're not being heard, or worse, dismissed by healthcare professionals? Susan Salenger, esteemed author of "Sidelined: How Women Can Navigate a Broken Healthcare System," joins us to unpack the struggle many women face within the healthcare system.
Empowered by her own experiences and the stories of over 50 women, Susan illuminates the often unseen challenges of women's health. From the influence of pharmaceutical marketing to the psychological toll of illness, we dive into a conversation that's both enlightening and deeply necessary.
The journey toward optimal health can be fraught with obstacles, especially for women who often juggle the dual roles of patient and primary caregiver. Our discussion with Susan takes a turn towards the emotional health aspect, as we address the shame and self-blame that frequently accompany women's illness.
We uncover the critical need for self-advocacy and the life-saving importance of speaking up for proper medical attention. Susan's insights challenge societal norms and encourage a shift in how women approach their wellbeing, with the goal of fostering a healthcare experience that is both equitable and empathetic.
Wrapping up, Susan reflects on the remarkable reach her book has had, touching lives far beyond its intended audience.
Whether you're a woman navigating your own health journey or a medical professional seeking to understand the patient perspective better, this episode is a vital resource.
Join us for an inspiring discussion that not only sheds light on the systemic issues in healthcare but also celebrates the strength and resilience of women everywhere. And for those intrigued by the prospect of staying fierce at any age, you won't want to miss hearing about Susan's passion for powerlifting at 81!
https://www.susansalenger.com/
https://www.tiktok.com/@grandma.gains
Have you ever felt like you're not being heard, or worse, dismissed by healthcare professionals? Susan Salenger, esteemed author of "Sidelined: How Women Can Navigate a Broken Healthcare System," joins us to unpack the struggle many women face within the healthcare system.
Empowered by her own experiences and the stories of over 50 women, Susan illuminates the often unseen challenges of women's health. From the influence of pharmaceutical marketing to the psychological toll of illness, we dive into a conversation that's both enlightening and deeply necessary.
The journey toward optimal health can be fraught with obstacles, especially for women who often juggle the dual roles of patient and primary caregiver. Our discussion with Susan takes a turn towards the emotional health aspect, as we address the shame and self-blame that frequently accompany women's illness.
We uncover the critical need for self-advocacy and the life-saving importance of speaking up for proper medical attention. Susan's insights challenge societal norms and encourage a shift in how women approach their wellbeing, with the goal of fostering a healthcare experience that is both equitable and empathetic.
Wrapping up, Susan reflects on the remarkable reach her book has had, touching lives far beyond its intended audience.
Whether you're a woman navigating your own health journey or a medical professional seeking to understand the patient perspective better, this episode is a vital resource.
Join us for an inspiring discussion that not only sheds light on the systemic issues in healthcare but also celebrates the strength and resilience of women everywhere. And for those intrigued by the prospect of staying fierce at any age, you won't want to miss hearing about Susan's passion for powerlifting at 81!
https://www.susansalenger.com/
https://www.tiktok.com/@grandma.gains
I've been there.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello. It's Nadine here, and I'm here with this week's episode of Life, health and the Universe, and today I'm joined by my guest, and I've done it again. I've forgotten to ask how to pronounce your surname before we hit record, so I'm going to guess and then you can tell me if I'm right or wrong. Susan Salinger.
Speaker 2:Absolutely right, brilliant. I do it nearly every time. It's a bit of a thing. So welcome, susan. It's great to have you here. I'm really looking forward to our conversation, thank you. So, susan, you're an author and researcher of a book called Sidelined, and it's how Women Can Navigate a Broken Healthcare System. So you released this book in April 2022. And obviously, this is something that's very dear to your heart, this topic that's brought you to writing a book. So we're going to be here talking about all of the things that are in the book today. Let me tell you a little bit Well, tell our listeners a little bit about you. So, as I said, you're an author and researcher. You were born and grew up in Los Angeles, I believe, and you have had a long-running business with your husband, salinger Films that you had for 25 years. Have you finished that now?
Speaker 1:Yes, we both retired. We sold the business. Oh my goodness, Kitty.
Speaker 2:OK, hang on a sec. There you go. Sorry, I just had a thing that I needed to close on there. Something popped up. So you've got two daughters, you have moved closer to them. Where are you living now with it? I live in.
Speaker 1:North San Francisco, actually in the wine country.
Speaker 2:Oh, nice, very nice, actually. The only times I've been to America, that's the area that I've been to, so it's beautiful, yes, stunning, and you've got four grandchildren. We are not going to exclude your pets. You are joining us today. Cat is called Max, I believe.
Speaker 1:Well, the cat is Max.
Speaker 2:He was climbing up and nuzzling my neck, ready for his dinner, and your dog, jd Right, jd Salinger. Ok, jd Salinger, so welcome. It's been a little bit hairy this morning, as I've mentioned, because I've got some renovations happening, and so I've been ducking in and out just before we hit record. So it's time to take a moment, take a deep breath, take a deep breath Right and align with the topic for today. So welcome, susan. Let me hand over to you. Tell us about yourself a little bit, about your book, and not too much, though. Don't tell us all the things at once, and then we'll get stuck into the knots and bolts.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll just tell you a little bit. Really, you've sort of covered about me, but I certainly can tell you how I got into the book, because it took about 10 years to write. Oh wow, but many, many years ago, when I was in my 20s and 30s and now I'm in 81, so it was a hell of a long time ago I agreed to have some surgery that I absolutely knew I didn't need. I had been taking some hormones for osteoporosis and the doctor said, hey, I've got these new hormones, let's try these. They're better for what you've got. So I said sure, I mean no problem. Then I started some vaginal bleeding and had some other symptoms and he said well, you know, we did a bunch of tests, found nothing, and said well, you need exploratory surgery. And I was positive that it was the new meds. I mean, it had to be. I had with on the old meds, I was fine. I was on the new meds, I wasn't fine, didn't feel that tricky to me, but anyway, he insisted and I found myself. Not only did I agree to have it, but I insisted it be done sooner rather than later. And so we did the surgery. There was nothing.
Speaker 1:I went back on the old meds, excuse me Kind of lived healthily ever after. But then I put that in the back of my mind. I was working, I had young kids, et cetera. So then many, many years later, after we friend and I sold our business, I was retired for maybe two or three seconds. That did not work for me at all. I went back to school. My family said if I didn't go do something they were going to kill me. I was driving everybody crazy.
Speaker 1:So I went to school and I took some anthropology classes. Mostly it was the only thing I could get into, believe it or not, and I loved it. I had never taken Anthro as an undergraduate and as part of one of the classes I did a project, for whatever reason, on women that had hysterectomies. I don't remember why I chose that topic, but I did. And, much to my surprise, a few of them that had agreed to have that surgery, even though they didn't think they needed it.
Speaker 1:So that of course happened as a trigger for me. I mean, mine was fine, but theirs was irrevocable. I mean it was a much different deal. But anyway I began to wonder how is women? Do we make our medical decisions? So that led me. I mean it's truly a journey that led me to interview maybe 50 or 60 more women, all of whom had different diseases. I mean I did that on purpose, because I wanted to see what behaviors they had in common. I wasn't as interested in the particular diseases, but I wanted to know how they behaved, whether they had anything in common, even though their diseases were totally different and of course they did. And then I thought, well, this needs a book. So that's really the journey of the book and the history of the book, and it was fascinating to interview the women.
Speaker 2:And here are some of the commonalities I really enjoyed that, and I feel like you've probably opened up a bit of a can of worms, didn't you, when you started digging in and interviewing women about this particular topic. I love that. I've worked in the health and fitness industry for 20 years or so, and behavior is really the thing that. Human behavior is really the thing that I'm fascinated by as well, and I've often said, if I went back to university, that's what I want to study. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Anthropology for sure, like it must be just absolutely.
Speaker 1:Oh, I loved it. And medical anthropology is fabulous, Right right.
Speaker 2:So this was kind of like an outcome of your studies.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly and actually, after I interviewed the women, some of the things which we'll get into, but some of the things that I heard, that really surprised me. So I did a lot of research Because I had no way of knowing whether because sometimes it can be just the particular women that you talk to and I don't know if what they were saying was common. Was it common and ordinary or was it just I don't know. So anyway, it turned out that everything they said there's been a ton of research on. I mean it really validated everything I have. It was great.
Speaker 2:I know that the health care system in the US is different. We'll have differing health systems, but I feel like a lot of the things that you talk about in your book are probably quite relevant worldwide, especially in the Western world. We've all got things that probably need to be fixed in the health care system. Yes, yes, do you feel like I mean this is I don't know if we want to delve into this straight away, but it's popped into my head Do you feel like it's an issue with the broken healthcare system that some of the outcomes of these questions or findings, or do you think it's more from the perspective of women's behavior within today's society?
Speaker 1:My answer is all of the above. I mean, I truly think and this is I've actually started my second book the healthcare system is broken or damaged anyway. I've broken some of the marketing term. It's really not totally broken.
Speaker 2:Not totally broken.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, but no, women get the short end of the stick when it comes to health research, when it comes to healthcare in general. And I think that at the same time, simultaneous nobody's ever asked me this before and I'm putting it together as I speak but I think, at the same time, women have some tendencies to do things that also put them at a disadvantage. For example, what is? I mean? I didn't in this particular book, in the first book it's not true of the second, but in the first book I didn't do too much about what the doctors or the healthcare system does, because, in reality, as an individual patient, you can't control that. You can only control your own behavior and one of the things that women do. For example, the first thing I found that really surprised me is that women put themselves last, and I don't do that. So I was really shocked and I thought, no, that can't be. And that was one of the things I researched and, much to my surprise, I'm the one that's different. I was dead wrong.
Speaker 1:But there really was a study done in Canada which shocked the hell out of me, to be honest, several women. It was a small study, but several women thought they were having a heart attack and one woman talk about putting yourself last. None of them went right to the hospital. One woman laid in bed all night worrying that she was having a heart attack, but her husband had worked so hard she knew he needed to sleep. Another woman drove herself to the hospital. Finally, I mean, nobody told anybody that they were having these problems, these symptoms, which I would have, of course, screamed at the top of my lungs and called, you know in our country, 911 immediately. But that kind of thing really surprised me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think there's a few things in your book where, yeah, you just go really, is that really happening? I know that's what's really happening, it just is astounding. I have to ask because I know that you said that your experience when you were taking you were recommended surgery back when you were in your 20s 30s like that's quite a long time ago. Right, you must have seen massive changes in the healthcare system within that time, or even I wonder whether people's relationships with their doctors is different. The pressure on the healthcare system is different. There is more prevalence of lifestyle-related diseases, so the pressure on the system is huge compared to maybe 40 or 50 years ago. Have you noticed that?
Speaker 1:I think that, yes, I have, and I think that we've all come a long way. I think, first of all that as women, as women patients, we're certainly more I hate the word proactive, but that's what I mean we're certainly more proactive. We certainly speak up for ourselves and to a certain extent I actually did. But in this particular case the doctor kept pushing at me and I thought he was right. He was looking for ovarian cancer. I mean, if he'd been right, he would have saved my life. If he wasn't right. And my point about myself and that story, which certainly relates to your question today, is I had plenty of options. I mean, I wasn't going to die within the next hour. I could have gotten a second opinion. I could have gone back on the old meds for a week. I could have done a lot of things differently that I chose not to do. I was young and scared. Today, I think more women would be more likely to get that second opinion. Go back on the old meds. I mean I took a big risk.
Speaker 1:I mean, hospitals are rampant with other diseases and you don't just fly in and fly out. As it happens, I got lucky and nothing happened and I was fine. But I do think that's changed. And I think for doctors and I have not done research on this, but I haven't researched doctors but my sense is they're very worried about malpractice, and with good reason. At least in this country some of the malpractice suits have had huge judgments and so he probably wanted to be damn sure that he didn't miss anything. I can understand that.
Speaker 2:It really skews the whole thing, really doesn't it? It just changes it completely. It's like, well, I'm going to tell this person the absolute, because I've had these experiences before, worst case scenario, but they don't say worst case scenario, right right, well, you know, they want to cover themselves. They can't afford to not.
Speaker 1:No, you're right, and this is just an anecdotal experience. This is not from research. But I've never had pain in my body, ever. I'm just really one of the lucky ones. And I've had some rotator cuff issues. So I wasn't and I exercised. So I didn't know if I'd done some Maybe I didn't know if it was bone cancer If I pulled a muscle. I mean I have no idea. So I didn't go to an arthritis guy or not. It wasn't a rheumatologist, actually an orthopedic guy. And they took an X-ray and they said you have arthritis. And we started talking to him well, do you want surgery? And I was just so taken aback because I mean it hurts. I haven't even taken a Tylenol. In fact I said, well, why don't I start with a Tylenol before I rush into surgery? But I mean it was really, it was an immediate response and I think that that is to I actually got angry. I mean I kept it to myself and didn't start a problem, but you know that was an inappropriate response on his part.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Rushing into it.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it seems like often that, yeah, we don't necessarily feel like we get given other options Right right, he gave me that. Yeah, it's one person's opinion.
Speaker 1:He said well, we're surgeons. I mean, well, you know, I'm thrilled for you, but what does that have to do with me? Your mother must be really happy but I'm not.
Speaker 2:I love it, love it. So let's talk about that. One of the things that you talk about in your book is that we generally, as women I don't know if it is the same for men, but from the women that you interviewed we don't seek a second opinion, and this is one of the things that you advise that we do, right, yeah, because we may get a completely different perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I actually not only advise it. If I had the means, I would insist on it. And let me tell you why I think it's critical. First of all, I mean, gosh, where do I begin? There's 12 million patients every year are misdiagnosed, misdiagnosed. These are one of the leading causes of death. Now, I don't know if that's true in Australia, it is true here. So that's the first thing, and I'll tell you why. It doesn't mean necessarily. I mean some doctors are incompetent, obviously, but it doesn't mean that. What it means is number one.
Speaker 1:There's a perceptual bias. I mean, the same symptoms couldn't look like a stomach problem to a gastroenterologist, stressed to a psychologist, to a rheumatologist or an arthritis guy. It'll look like arthritis, which it may or may not be, you never know. So that's the first thing you don't want to be treated for a disease that you don't have. That's a big mistake. And second, which I didn't realize until I did the research, there's maybe and I'm being generous here, I guess but 30 or 40,000 different diseases out there, many of which have similar symptoms. So we all think, well, we'll go, we'll get a diagnosis and we'll go home.
Speaker 1:But for the doctor it's not that easy. It can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. And women in particular are diseases, because we get a lot of autoimmune diseases and they're very difficult to diagnose and their symptoms mimic each other and there's not necessarily a lab test where you can say oh look, she has strep throat or she has whatever. So a diagnosis is not cut and dry, it's not black or white, it's very tricky and I mean I'm not saying if the doctor says you have a cold, go home and take an X-edrid or something, that you need a second opinion, but I am saying if you're going to have surgery or if you're going to have radiation or any kind of chemotherapy, you want to be darn sure that you really have what you think you, what's been diagnosed.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting to me because I did read when I did the research. The research said that women hesitate to get second opinions more than men. Subsequently, I think it's turned out that both genders hesitate Because it can be awkward. But on the other hand, I have been on a couple of shows with doctors and they said that they actually like when their patients get a second opinion. First of all, they're not sure and they don't want to give somebody chemo who doesn't need it, obviously, and if the patient gets a second opinion and the diagnosis is confirmed, then the doctor has some backup if there is a malpractice suit. So it benefits the doctor too, sure yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's definitely well. I think that, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like your book is really a comment on so many things that are going on in so many different contexts in society, and one is like being in a rush, wanting answers straight away and wanting solutions straight away. It's like we're on that go, go, go, go. And so if a woman does take time out of her busy day to go to the doctor, finally because she's found a gap, or in Australia, you could be waiting six weeks sometimes for an appointment if it's not urgent, right, wow, so you've made the time. You want the answer, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Of course, and so getting a second opinion and going through all of that again, absolutely. I understand that, and so the doctors are under pressure to give the answer, and then may miss that one.
Speaker 1:And I think that's why it's totally inconvenient. But not only do we want an answer, but we want the relief that the answer provides.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I mean honestly. When the man said I have arthritis, I was thrilled that I didn't have bone cancer.
Speaker 1:I mean I didn't seriously think I did, but I didn't know. But I'm going to check it out. I'm still not quite comfortable with the diagnosis because he was a bit of an idiot and I don't want to take a chance. So I think and yes, I have the resources in the sense that we have Medicare here and I don't have to pay for it it's inconvenient to go, I have to get there, I have to take a walk out of my day, et cetera, but on the other hand, I don't want to leave a stone unturned when it comes to my health.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a bad fact, and you've got an active life. You're a power lift. I believe, oh, I do.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:I love it so a little bit of a niggle in your shoulder whether it, as you said, rotator cuff, could be a case of doing some rehab and you'll be exactly good to go. You don't need to have it chopped up, and no.
Speaker 1:Right, you're right, chopped up is a good way. That's how I feel.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's what happens a lot of the time, and probably it's really exciting for a surgeon to be able to chop people up and have a look at what's going on.
Speaker 2:That's why they chose that profession. I love it. I love it. All right, let's have a chat about some of the things in your, some of the topics or some of the discoveries that you made in your book. One that really stood out for me is that and I think like we need to pull ourselves together in like I don't know what we need to do, but women the women that you interviewed believe that their illness is a punishment for past behaviors.
Speaker 1:Some did Amazing. Let me clarify that. Some did believe that. Absolutely Others, but almost all of them, believe that they had caused their illness in one form or another and they blamed it on their inability to manage stress. The woman you're referring to and there was a couple of them blamed it on their what they had done as children. They had hurt this one or that one and they were being punished. My goodness, it was what that was. What surprised me the most out of all of the interviews I did, out of all of the monalities I've found, was the amount of shame that women felt, and it was stress was the most likely culprit. Most of them blamed not all of them, but most of them blamed their illness on their inability to manage their stress. So if you take that a little further, what that translates into is that if I blame my, if I think I'm sick because I'm stressed, and then so now when I tell people I'm sick, right, I'm advertising to the world that I can't manage my stress.
Speaker 1:I can't handle my own life. So to go one step further, it translates into a total embarrassment. I won't tell anybody I'm sick because I don't want them to think I'm such a jerk that I can't even handle my own life. So now I'm sick, I'm blaming myself and I've denied myself any support because I haven't told anybody that I'm sick and allowed them to do whatever people do to support each other.
Speaker 1:I mean, we put together a couple of focus groups and in the focus groups I was really surprised because none of the women, or very few of them, had ever talked to any of anybody about their illness other than their doctor. So in this group they were delighted to talk because, oh, I felt that. Oh, you felt that too. You know that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Wow, amazing. Yeah, we give ourselves a pretty hard time because we're pretty like women are pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Exactly, we don't cut ourselves a lot of slack. We don't cut ourselves a lot of slack. That's right. You've done a lot of coaching. Have you found that? Yeah, have you seen that at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like we can be pretty self-deprecating, you know, we can talk ourselves down a fair bit, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was better at this last week. I mean, you've got the whole hormonal cycle, you know the monthly cycle. That's added to that as well for a lot of women who are still you know, in that part of their life, right?
Speaker 2:So yeah, there's that kind of like I should be able to do more than this. I could do more than this. Yeah, just the negative self-talk is one of the things I really wanted to do yeah exactly. Yeah, yeah, brilliant. What was the age group of the women that you interviewed? And you had some individuals all over.
Speaker 1:Okay, let me be more specific 40 to 70. There were two, there was a couple of younger ones, I mean what are. Two were in their 30s or 20s, maybe I'm trying to remember, but basically it was what I call midlife.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I'm kind of like that you call midlife up to 70, because a lot of people say it's all over by the time it's 45.
Speaker 1:Don't forget, I'm 81. So to me 70,. You're just.
Speaker 2:You're just started going.
Speaker 1:It depends from where you're looking. Let's put it down.
Speaker 2:Totally. I love that. So did you say that they had all had some kind of disease or illness, that they were managing that the interviews were based on? You didn't have any kind of like Well, I would consider when you went you were not sick, right, you had. Oh, I see you were taking medication for your bone density, right, right.
Speaker 1:No, I was not sick.
Speaker 2:So did you have anyone in that kind of category with there? We were just kind of going in for maintenance.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to remember yes and no, because a lot of them had autoimmune diseases, which is episodic. It comes and goes yeah, so it would depend on the day that I interviewed them. So I'd have to say yes, some didn't feel sick at that particular time and others did. Yeah.
Speaker 2:One of the things that. Another one of the things that I thought was really interesting was that when women go to the doctor or healthcare provider, they talk about how they're feeling makes them feel emotionally as well, and so I think I read in the book that the doctor can kind of take that as overreacting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:I thought that was really interesting. Well, I think it's quite connected to our emotions generally, but to be seen as overemotional when it comes to your health is kind of Right, Makes you doubt yourself right, yeah, and I'm doing the second book.
Speaker 1:I'm doing a lot of it's on medical gaslighting. I'm talking about the structural reasons for gaslighting. But women are really not viewed as accurate reporters of their own symptoms. Yeah, when we go in and we're in a lot of pain and we go to emergency, that's obviously in this country, but nevertheless we're not necessarily believed. A lot of women many more women than men are sent home with anti-depressants. I don't know if that's true in Australia, but I would suspect that is true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely know more than a handful of women who've been offered anti-depressants when they've gone to the doctors.
Speaker 1:Right, let me say something really important, because I've been reading about heart attacks for this second book. Okay, and a lot of times this is so important. A lot of times when women think they're having a heart attack, they go to emergency or wherever they go, and the doctor says no, no, no, no, you're just depressed, you're just anxious. I think it's really important and I guess you could do this in Australia. You really need to request an electrocardiogram. The only way to know whether or not you're having a heart attack is through an EKG. There are blood tests, but the EKG is much faster. If you think the doctor is wrong, you really must speak up, because otherwise you'll probably die. Time is of the essence when you're having a heart attack, and I didn't mean to interrupt, but once again no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:That's definitely important. On the flip side of that, when women go to so when women go to the doctors or they think that they're unwell, they express emotionally, which can lead to misdiagnosis or fobbing off, I guess. But when they do have illness and they've been treated for it, they take the opposite approach when they're in recovery, right.
Speaker 1:Right? Well, not quite. But what happens is when women go into the doctor before they've been diagnosed and I'm as guilty of this as anybody I tell the doctor everything that, how I feel about it, what hurts, what doesn't hurt. I mean, I've talked about my rotator cuff, but dinner fearing with my exercise, and it's on my left arm and I'm left-handed, I mean all kinds of stuff and that can, it didn't in this case. But that can lead easily to a psychological diagnosis. In fact and this has happened to me, where I've related so much about what I feel, that the physical symptoms are actually forgotten and of course I'm upset and depressed, my damn arm hurts. I mean, you know, if I felt great, I wouldn't be there, right? I mean, it seems obvious to me. So that's the first thing.
Speaker 1:But what I did find out is, once the women got the diagnosis, particularly with the hysterectomy women although that's a terrible label to put on them but the women who underwent a hysterectomy they didn't ask what the recovery would be like. So one woman asked, like she said, 35 questions, literally technical questions about the surgery. She said she probably could have performed it herself, but she never anticipated or asked about any emotional repercussions. So what happened to several of them? Because they hadn't asked and the doctor didn't say which blew me away because it's messing with your hormones. Of course there's emotional repercussions, but so what happened is after the surgery, when they got particularly depressed, which is a typical response to hysterectomy surgery. They thought it was them, they said. One gal said to me well, everybody's had a hysterectomy, why am I carrying on?
Speaker 1:Well you're carrying on because you had major surgery or hormones are completely screwed up. It was almost like another opportunity for them to feel badly about themselves, and that's kind of that's what I meant in that section of the book during recovery.
Speaker 1:They did feel bad, but it was because they hadn't prepared themselves for it in the first place. I think is what I'm trying to say. Okay, I can't say that the doctor didn't tell them because I don't know, I wasn't there, but they didn't remember it or they didn't hear it. Let me put it to you that way. So they were really upset with themselves. It's such a common surgery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, While you were talking, it took me back to my experience with childbirth, because I ended up having to have two caesareans. One of them was an emergency caesarean and I got induced and I was in hospital for hours on end and there was been poked and prodded and you know all of the things. And just before, just before they were about to give me the caesarean, I cried and they asked me why I was crying.
Speaker 1:Oh my, okay, what's wrong? Oh, that's all. I can't feel terrible laughing, but that's horrible, I know.
Speaker 2:And then you feel like a complete dick pardon me, Of course.
Speaker 1:But you're right.
Speaker 2:Right. It's like well, why am I crying? I'm like because I'm just about to have a baby.
Speaker 1:That could have something to do with it, right? I?
Speaker 2:mean I'm just about to change significantly forever.
Speaker 1:And you're about to have a caesarean or whatever. Yeah, oh, my God, I know there's not much of it Like they just get numbed to the and I think that, like all of us, some people are emotionally insensitive and some are much better than others about stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Oh dear, oh my God.
Speaker 1:It's gracious. I mean, I might have laughed through my tears. What do you mean? What part confuses you? Right, oh dear?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that took me right back. I've been there, okay, you talked about the women being diagnosed or given medications for depression. In your book, you also talk about the fact that women are targeted by drug companies more than men and prescribed more medications than men. Is that specifically like antidepressant medications or just in general.
Speaker 1:Two reasons One, because we have more diseases and we have more like autoimmune type diseases. So we get more medication and, yes, a lot of it is antidepressant medication as well.
Speaker 2:The marketing is directed at women.
Speaker 1:I think it's just here in the States, although I think it was a Canadian study and nevertheless, women make 80% of all the medical purchasing decisions. We're the medical gatekeepers of the family, so all the ads are directed towards women because we're the ones that decide whether or not to buy the drug. So there's a good reason for it. And, incidentally, new Zealand and the United States are the only two countries in the world where drugs are marketed to consumers.
Speaker 2:That's what I was going to say. Like is that prescription medication? And they're still kind of like, if you're going to be prescribed one, this is the one that you want.
Speaker 1:It's fabulously. I mean really. Drugs that are advertised sell nine times more than drugs that aren't, so it's a very successful procedure Technique. I don't know what to call it.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, wow, that's amazing, isn't it? I'm just looking through my notes. I've got lots of notes.
Speaker 1:When you look at a drug commercial, you'll notice that most of them some of them will have couples, but many of them have women. There's always, almost always, a woman, not necessarily for prostate stuff, but otherwise you know, yeah, how do they look like?
Speaker 2:Do they look like excited and happy?
Speaker 1:They look like, yeah, well, that's after they take that. They'll look like hell. And then, all of a sudden, they'll take the med and right before my eyes they bloom and blossom.
Speaker 2:Women are concerned about offending their doctors by questioning their diagnosis.
Speaker 1:That goes into the second opinion.
Speaker 2:I had one woman.
Speaker 1:Really this was interesting. One gal said to me that she would never get a second opinion, Number one. She didn't want to hurt her doctor's feelings, but she also didn't want to be known as a difficult patient and she was afraid they would put something down in her record that would follow her, you know, within her medical. It would be in her medical history for no matter, for the rest of her life. She said she would never, ever ask for a second opinion. Not a good practice.
Speaker 2:No, I can totally understand it from a point of view of like being, as I mentioned before, being time poor and, you know, having to go through the whole rigmarole of getting an appointment, finding the time to go, all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:Like that would be a like. Don't leave out that you're sick and you don't feel good and you have to go back to a different doctor and start all over again. I mean not in any way saying it's a piece of cake. Neither is going through chemo if you don't have cancer or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, yeah, that's yeah. Did you have people that that had happened to like their diagnosis? I did not. No, I did not.
Speaker 1:Okay, but I actually didn't. I only I interviewed some women with breast cancer, but basically I didn't interview cancer patients because it's a different kind of disease. Yeah, it's fatal, and that puts a different slant on everything. It can be fatal. Most of the stuff I interviewed for us could be painful, could be aggressive, but you don't die from it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that autoimmune stuff, as you said, like it can, it can present as so many different things and often is stress related and we don't like talking about it because they're not stressed.
Speaker 1:Right, of course. Of course, they manage their stress perfectly, you know.
Speaker 2:Do you think it makes a difference whether a woman has a male or a female doctor?
Speaker 1:My favorite questions. No, I do. When I do, it's either. It's just never a clear answer. When I began this, when I began my research, the jury was still out and it looked like it didn't matter. Now the newer research does say that women are better off with a woman doctor.
Speaker 1:But, I want to add a caveat to that, because the most important thing and this is also recent, comes from my research the most important thing is your relationship with your doctor. And if you like your doctor I don't care about their gender you will recover better. You will tell them, everything will be better, your treatment will be more appropriate, You'll feel more open talking. It just depends. But the thing also to know is that a woman doctor, the appointment with a woman doctor, will be a little bit longer. They take more time with you because they're more relationship oriented.
Speaker 1:The research says I'm not saying that so if you're on your lunch hour and you want to run in and run out, you're probably better off with a male doctor. If you want to stick around and talk a little bit and really have somebody get to know you, you might be better off with a female doctor. Now that I've said that, a second caveat is that I have both men and women doctors and I have a male doctor that spends about an hour with me, which in the United States is totally unheard of I don't know about Australia. An hour, I mean really. And I have a woman doctor who says you know, hi, how are you, I say fine, and we go on to the thing and then I'm out of there in 10 or 15 minutes at the most. So it just depends on the doctor too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I have to say, over the years I think I've had different experiences regardless of gender. In fact, sometimes I felt like female doctors are a bit more kind of straight down the line they can be yeah, right, no, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It just depends. So that I mean that was not a good answer, but it's the best I can do because it's the truth, you know. Yeah, it really, it's your you want. You want somebody with whom you have a good relationship. Doesn't matter, you know, whether they're black, white man, woman, binary, whatever. I mean I don't care, as long as you like them and you like you whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's probably a bit quite a big challenge for well, certainly where I am in Australia, where it's difficult to get an appointment with the same doctor all the time. Of course, the good ones yeah.
Speaker 1:That's it. I'm in San Francisco. I have so many resources I wouldn't know. I have a pick of thousands.
Speaker 2:you know, or at least certainly hundreds, but it sounds like you go to the same people. Oh, absolutely, yeah, I do.
Speaker 1:I do. Now we do have Kaiser Permanente out here. Do you have that in us? I don't know if they're an international or not.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't heard of that.
Speaker 1:That's where that's like a subscription you pay a certain amount of money for it and you don't ever get a bill. You just pay whatever you pay yeah. And they end up with different doctors. That's one reason I don't go there is because I don't want that. Yeah, yeah, I want to choose who I want to.
Speaker 2:It's almost like a membership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it is Exactly.
Speaker 2:Very well said. Yeah, yeah, okay, oh, wow, what was I going to ask you? Do you feel like over the years you You've changed your outlook on your like? Obviously you've written the book, but, like when you look at your own personal behaviour, when you talk about your relationships with your doctors, do you feel like you're more proactive when you're with your doctor, that you're working together, compared to how you used to be?
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. I feel now I have, because I think, actually because of the research that that reminds me, I'll answer your question. And then I want to say something, but yes, I have much, many more tools in my toolbox to feel pardon that overused metaphor, but I really do. I know now what to ask and I know when somebody says so, you don't want surgery, no, you're right, I don't want surgery. I never would have said that before. I would have said well, gee, do you think I need it? No, I don't need it. I know I don't need it. I'm not a doctor, but I know I'm at it. As I said, I haven't even taken a Tylenol, so I'm much more direct than I used to be Forgot what I was going to say. I said I had something I wanted to say and now I forgot it.
Speaker 2:It will come back as soon as you. It will, it will, it will, it will. What else was I going to ask you? Let's talk about the book in general. So you published it in 2022. Had you always wanted to be an author? Is this?
Speaker 1:I've always. No, I don't think I knew what I wanted to be. I love calling myself a late bloomer because that's what I am. But when we were in business, I did write the scripts for the films. I've always written, but I didn't call myself a writer. I thought I was a businesswoman and I was actually a terrible businesswoman and I'm a much better writer than that. But now when I went to UCLA and did the writing, they were so supportive of my writing and I was actually.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about getting a doctorate and anthro at the time and one of the teachers said to me why would you do that? Why don't you just go write You'reyou know you don't want to restrict yourself. You'll be writing a lot of papers that you don't want to write and I thought you know she's right. So that's kind of what got me started. But I am much more proactive and I mean I'm glad that you asked me that my new mantra for everybody is truly it's your body and it's your choice and you better take care of it, because you got to listen to your guts. And let me add one more thing which we haven't really gotten to.
Speaker 1:When you go to your doctor and it doesn't matter what kind of a healthcare system you have, but you need to do a couple of things to maketo focus the visit and make sure that it goes correctly or the way you want it to Stop. Wakimi, that's my dog. He wants his dinner. He's just so cute. The first thing you want to do is write out a list, and I noticed I said write out, don't memorize it, because again, if you'rewhen I get so anxious, I forget it. So you really want to write down everything that youall your symptoms, what are your questions, what's the family history, whatever that you think they need to know. And then, once you get your diagnosis, you want to ask for the clinical name of it so you can get some access to a computer and go research it, and I'll tell you about the research in a minute.
Speaker 1:But the third thing you want to do is repeat back what you heard the doctor say, and you want to do that for two reasons. First of all, 50% of women leave the office not understanding what they've been told and you don't want to be in that half of the group. You need to know that you heard correctly and you can only do that by repeating it back, and that gives the doctor a chance to confirm that yes, you did hear correctly, and it also gives them a chance to make sure that they said what they meant to say. I mean, we all misspeak, so it's a really good double check.
Speaker 1:But the book is full of resources. The best part of the book is the back end of it, actually, because I've done all of your research for you and I tell you well, this is probably more for the states, come to think of it Because I've told you whathow to research your doctor, how to research your hospital, how to check your symptoms. That's international. You think we can all go to the Mayo Clinic or wherever and look it up. It's just really important, I guess, to feel I know it's dinner time to be in charge and I think that's just so important.
Speaker 1:But I also think it's important to take charge of the doctor, visit a little bit and make sure the questions are answered.
Speaker 2:I think there's that and it's ingrained, I think, in us and maybe it's changing Hopefully it's changing Thatwell that the doctor's the professional and we're just the stupid like layperson right, and so who are we to, like, know better? We're not Somebody said that to me and we're not taught or encouraged to trust our intuitive Right. And you knew, like when you said, right back when you, you know, had that operation, you knew Right.
Speaker 1:You just need it, I did.
Speaker 2:I did, and. I did have and you didn't feel like you had the.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't, and today I would have. But you know, I did have somebody say that to me. Well, I'm not the doctor. I didn't go to medical school, and that's true. I mean, most of us didn't. But that doesn't mean you gotnot only do you want to go with your gut, but you want to educate your gut, so you go to the resources, whatever you have Mayo Clinic, the one I use a lot, or Harvard, and I find out gee, do my symptoms really match with this person's, as the doctor said? And obviously most of the time they do, but not always. And that way, when I go in I could say you know? When I go back I can say I did my research and I know you've seen a lot of people with my symptoms, but are you sure that it's disease A? I don't know if any of them had disease B. Does that make sense? I mean, there's ways you can phrase it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good tips. So you published your book in 2022. So nearly two years ago, right, right, how's it going. Like where is it available? And like who is buying this book and who do you want to buy this book?
Speaker 1:Like I think you know when I started out thinking it was just for people in midlife, but I'm wrong, because more than for young people, it was just that's just been in our paper having heart problems, oh wow. And now with COVID, a lot of people at any age. At this point I'd say it's for mostly women because it's all. It is definitely women oriented. But anybody from 25 to 81, you know, yeah, I mean, why not? We all get sick. We're not sick now. We either will be or we know somebody that is, and it's how it gives you tools to match your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also like a bit of a more awareness about what we might be doing, our own behavior and how we might actually be.
Speaker 1:And I think that's really important. I mean, if you're one of those women that blame yourself when you get sick, stop it. This is random, you know. Yeah, that's how I feel, and I mean not that you can't cause your own illness, because of course you can. I mean you know, but, on the other hand, what Some people get COVID and some don't, some drinkers get liver disease and some don't, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, you know, certainly, be careful. I'm not suggesting we all go run amuck, but by the same token, it's not necessarily you.
Speaker 2:When you wrote it, did you Like I get a sense from it that that's, although you've taken this particular context that this is kind of like a bit of a message for women on a much larger scale, like in today's society yes, I did. We need to start taking care of ourselves, not just when we need healthcare, but like in general, and sort of like drawing women's attention to this is this is my take on it, and so I'm kind of curious as whether there is you do have that kind of underlying message as well, drawing women's attention to how we do behave sometimes and how that doesn't always serve us, and that can be like not just when it comes to our health, but just our lives in general.
Speaker 1:Yes, that was not my message when I began the book, but I have to admit that after I read it I thought, gee, I had the same take on it. It's funny. People kept saying, you know, I kept worrying that I wasn't going to find my voice and apparently they said don't worry, it'll come through, and it did, because nobody was surprised at me. But what I've learned, and I mean, that's it we do need to take care of ourselves, and I should get this little tidbit in too, because really, particularly when it comes to medicine, first of all, as I said earlier, you've only got the one body for going to say take care of it. But secondly, women get women research. This is there's so much less research money that goes to women's diseases most of them not most, but a lot of it goes to men's diseases and women researchers get less money than male researchers. Women researchers are published less often than male researchers.
Speaker 1:We know a lot less about women's bodies which is why women are misdiagnosed 20 to 30 percent more than men are.
Speaker 2:And I would expect that, even like during our menstrual years, like with that cyclical change in our hormones each month, trying to do a oh, your cat's looking at me, I know, I know. Trying to do a study on a group of women who might be in different parts of their cycle and getting straight down the line results could be pretty difficult, but we generally apply a lot of stuff to research that's been done on men and treatment as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely no, a lot of the drugs. You know it's much better in the states now. It's much better because it's there's new rules that women have to be included, but we're still living with that unfortunate history. Yeah, and not only men. It's white men who are about six feet tall, and so if you're a black woman who's five feet, you've got problems. Yeah right, exactly, exactly. Well, you know, years ago I went for some tests and I had to drink a bunch of gook and they gave me like a big bottle of stuff and they give everybody the same bottle. I'm four ten, I weigh a hundred pounds and I'm getting the same bottle as somebody that plays football, I mean, are they?
Speaker 2:crazy.
Speaker 1:I mean, I only drank like half of it. I mean I'm good God, I would have drowned. I mean it's crazy, makes no sense. But that is the result of women not being allowed in clinical trials and research not being done on women's bodies as much as it should be.
Speaker 2:So I think that your book really kind of can open our eyes to those kind of things as well and just our behaviour in general, as you said, when it comes to these sorts of things, can you? We're getting close to the end. There's a couple of other things that I would love to hear you talk about, and it's one of the things that you talk about in your book and you kind of touched on it, but we didn't get specific, and that was women, all of the things that they put before themselves.
Speaker 2:So, in order of importance oh, you liked that, oh yeah, well, I was just like what the.
Speaker 1:I know, I know it's so true. No, what you're talking about is there was a study done where researchers asked women to. They gave them a list of five things to prioritise. You know what would they put first. You know what would they take care of first. Let me be specific.
Speaker 1:Well, the first thing they take care of is their children. The second thing believe it or not is their pets, which that surprised me. The third thing is their elderly parents and being an 81 year old mother, I took a very dim view of that, let me tell you. I mean, I can see my daughter saying hey, mom, I'm sorry you're sick, but you know FIDA has to go to the vet, so you'll get better, don't worry, I didn't like that. So first was their children and the second pets. Third were elderly parents, fourth was their significant other and fifth was themselves.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I mean, as I was wrote in the book, I think even the airplane tells you to put your own mask on before you put your kids mask on. And you know we are the caretakers. Women do 80% of the caretaking in the world. That's universal. And if you don't feel good, if you're feeling like crap, I don't understand how I mean, you can't take care of other people, you're irritable, you have no energy, you're exhausted, I mean. So you have to take. It seems to me to do a really good job of taking care of others. You have to take care of yourself first. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Definitely it's amazing, isn't it? Yes, amazing, yeah, I think that's a really important message in your book actually.
Speaker 1:Well, and the women that laid there who thought they were having a heart attack they could have killed themselves. You have about when you have a heart attack.
Speaker 2:You know You're not taking care of anyone.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, but you have a four hour window before you start doing real damage to your heart muscle.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So the women that laid there all night, you know, I don't know, I mean, I don't know the result, but Wow, okay, you've got two adult daughters and some grandchildren.
Speaker 2:Yes, how has your book impacted them, do you think, and their approach, or has it not?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, well, it did, but we've always been a proactive family, yeah, so they actually helped me with the book I mean they read it and read it, my grandchildren, I think a little bit it did impact them. Well, do they like having a grandmother that wrote a book too? I don't think they've read it, you know. Yeah, oh no, I mean God forbid, but they know it. They're more interested in the fact that I'm powerlifting. They like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I reckon that's pretty cool too. This is like life goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they think that's fabulous. So there you go. What do they care about a book? I mean, they're teenage boys, you know and here she wrote a book for women you know, yeah, boring. Yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 2:What about your daughters like with? Do they follow the advice from the book? Like you said, they were pretty proactive family, yeah they do, they do, yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:So we are a proactive family we really are, and you mentioned that you sorry to cut your, then that's okay. I just want to say we all research, that's all.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say, yeah, great, you mentioned that you've had interviews with a couple of doctors. I just wonder, in general, what the how it's been received by medical professionals.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting. I mean, I was a little worried about it because my book is not anti-doctor.
Speaker 1:I don't feel that it's all on my two brother-in-law's or doctor's. Both of them read it. That it was not, because I mean, I am definitely pro doctor. I'm pro-western medicine. I don't know much about Eastern, so that's why I'm saying Western no. But I am only interested in how women can take better care of themselves and get out of their own way, particularly when it comes to their health, and that is my interest and that has not, you know. So the doctors thought they really liked it. That's why they have me on the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great, isn't it? Yeah, no, it was great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Because in fact, when I got books on the shows I was the first couple. I was worried. I thought, well, you know, are they going to?
Speaker 2:be a chance for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you, but not at all. On the contrary, they couldn't have been more supportive. Oh, great, that's really good yeah that was nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to know a little bit about your powerlifting just before we go. I was excited to talk about it Because I think you know what you've. You've mentioned that you're 81. Yes, you've just published a book. Like I love that, like we've talked about all of the things about the book and about your, your message and how passionate you are about that, but I also love that you are 81. You are a powerlifter and you've, like, just written a book. You know you're not sort of going oh well, that's it, I'm done, I've retired.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh no, no, no, no, never, never. I love that because I think that we, well, you know just society's view, as I mentioned, that the midlife being 45 and then it's game over, kind of thing, no, absolutely, we can be quite blinkered right into. Well, that's it, I'm done.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not. But being 81 is scary, you know. You know what changes. I will say this and then get into I love the powerlifting, but what changes is your perspective? I mean so when you're 25 and you get a cold, you think, oh hell, I have a cold. When you're 81, you think, oh, my god, is it going to go to pneumonia? Is it COVID? Is it really cold? I mean so your perspective changes. But the best way to prepare for that is through exercise.
Speaker 1:I'm convinced. I mean I've had good luck, I haven't been hit by a truck or whatever you know, and I've got good genes. But I've also worked at it. I mean seriously, I started powerlifting in my weightlifting not really powerlifting weightlifting in my 40s when they told me well, I guess they had. I guess I was in my 30s, because when they told me I had osteoporosis and I got scared, they actually said I'd be one of those women that would step off a curb and everything was crumble and I thought not me you know May my research and I found out that resistance training is, you know, and I have a website, it's called grandmagains.
Speaker 2:Oh, we need to put that into the. I know this is about your book. Can we put that in the in the?
Speaker 1:in the, in the, in the in. In. Case anybody doesn't know what gains mean, because I did not it's like I'm gaining muscle my grandchildren.
Speaker 2:What's it grandma gains? Is it with a Z? Is it with a Z? With a Z with a Z? G I N Z.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I don't know what that is you lost me on that?
Speaker 2:It's just a you know funky spelling.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh, oh no. G I N S grandma gains and grandma gains. Yeah, no, my kids. That was what I had to name it. So there it is, and I mean I really like it. It's, it's fun, it is. I'm strong. I can't open my own applesauce, but I could probably bench press you. I love it. I'm like I'm a little old woman.
Speaker 2:I know, don't you? Don't you love that when someone says, don't we carry your groceries, and you're like, no, I could carry you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, would you like your bags lighter? Heavy, they say, and I go oh, heavy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's brilliant, so I love that. That, you know, is that, yeah, for the listeners like part of the message is like life is to be lived, yeah, I mean I'm going to be 81 anyway, right, yeah, I can only control what I do with it.
Speaker 1:I mean seriously, no matter what. I bet it's funny, because what I was thinking about the PhD and the NAA on throw and everybody said not everybody, but a lot of people said, well, you know, it takes seven years by the time you get it. You're going to be whatever but I'm going to be whatever anyway, so I might as well.
Speaker 2:I as well do have fun while you. Yeah Right, love that. Listen, it's. We've pretty much hit the hour and I know that Max and JD Salander are getting hungry, so I'm going to let's close for now, but I've really enjoyed our conversation. I knew I knew I would. I'm really grateful for you being here and, yeah, good luck with this.
Speaker 1:It's probably available on Amazon and Australia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it is yeah great, thank you.
Speaker 1:We're going to put all of those?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great. I'll put all of the links in the show notes so that people can access your find your book. And yeah, we'll put the link to grandmagainz in there as well.
Speaker 1:I know it's so funny.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thank you, susan, take care, enjoy it. Bye.