As a new ICU nurse in 2008, I asked a prominent cardiologist why our protocols didn’t seem to serve women patients well. His answer: “women don’t make good research subjects.” He wasn’t kidding — fifteen years after federal law required women’s inclusion in clinical research. We still diagnose and treat based on disease models built on men. Female-specific conditions remain poorly understood, and normal female aging — perimenopause, menopause — is wildly under-researched. If you’re also Black, brown, gay, trans, or disabled, the gaps compound. This isn’t just a clinician problem. It’s a research problem, a funding problem, and a failure of imagination. We can study women well — we just have to insist, loudly, that it’s worth doing.
End of field note 07