This book was published by Hachette Book Group in May 2020.

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About this book

Get the right care for your body — and avoid treatments that can endanger women — with this important manual from a physician who is a leading expert on sex and gender medicine.

Sex Matters tackles one of the most urgent, yet unspoken issues facing women's health care today: all models of medical research and practice are based on male-centric models that ignore the unique biological and emotional differences between men and women -- an omission that can endanger women's lives.

The facts surrounding how male-centric medicine impacts women's health every day are chilling: in the ER, women are more likely to receive a psychiatric diagnosis with regard to opioid use, while men are more likely to be referred for detoxification; the more vocal women become about their pain, the more likely their providers are to prescribe either inadequate or inappropriate pain relief medication; women often present with nontraditional symptoms of stroke, which causes delays in recognition by both them and their health professionals; and a government accountability study found that 80% of drugs that are withdrawn from the market are due to side effects that happen to women (a result of testing drugs mostly on men).

Leading expert on sex and gender medicine Dr. Alyson McGregor focuses on the key areas where these differences are most potentially harmful, addressing:

• Cardiac and stroke diagnosis and treatment in women

• Prescription and dosing of pharmaceuticals;

• Subjective evaluation of women's symptoms;

• Pain and pain management;

• Hormones and female biochemistry (including prescribed hormones);

• How economic status, race, and gender identity are additional critical factors.

Not only does Dr. McGregor explore these disparities in depth, she shares clear, practical suggestions for what women can do to protect themselves. A work of riveting exposé with revelatory insights and actionable guidance for navigating the medical establishment, Sex Matters is an empowering roadmap for reinventing modern medicine — and for self-care.

About the Author

ALYSON J. MCGREGOR, MD, MA, FACEP IS A WOMEN’S HEALTH PIONEER WHO HAS BROUGHT THE CONCEPT OF SEX AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE DELIVERY OF ACUTE MEDICAL CARE TO THE NATIONAL STAGE.

She is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and the Co-Founder and Director for the Division of Sex and Gender in Emergency Medicine (SGEM) at Brown University’s Department of Emergency Medicine.  Dr. McGregor is also a Co-Founder for the national organization Sex and Gender Women’s Health Collaborative.

Dr. McGregor’s research focus is on the effects that sex and gender have on emergent conditions. She has been an advocate for this model nationally, speaking widely to both medical professionals and laypeople. Her TEDx talk, “Why Medicine Often Has Dangerous Side Effects for Women,” currently has over 1.5 million views, and has sparked a national conversation around how sex and gender influence medical treatment and outcomes.

She has written or co-written over sixty peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals on the topic of sex and gender. She’s also the lead editor for the medical textbook, Sex and Gender in Acute Care Medicine (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Learn more at www.AlysonMcgregorMD.com.