Obviously, I am not a woman, but I have spent a lot of time in hospitals and agree wholeheartedly with your article. Women, and especially those who are non-white, consistently get the short end of the stick.

But let me tell you my story which, but for the gender difference, closely parallels yours.

I had been seeing my dermatologist for almost 20 years (years surfing and sunning when young and not knowing the dangers). He would take off a basal cell now and then. He was an outwardly pleasant man, though very egotistical with kind of a hippie-ish presentation. But I trusted him.

Then, I developed some bumps behind my ear that bothered me a lot. I went to see the doctor. He always has an intern with him as he visits his patients. On this day, the intern was a pretty young woman, and the doctor was all about her. He spent 2-3 seconds looking at the bumps and proclaimed them normal and no big deal. I insisted that was not so, but he was already out the door with his intern/target.

For once I was smart enough to not trust his quickie opinion and went to see other doctors. Sure enough, it turned out to be melanoma, stage 3-4. The new doctors did surgery on me, and then put me in radiation therapy for 2 months. Very painful experience, and I am still suffering heavy aftereffects over a year later. They doctors think they got all the cancer, but you never really know.

There may be some differences between your experience and mine, but I was definitely jeopardized by the same male ego which damaged you and has perverted our world.