Medicine is blind to body diversity—and it’s limiting doctors’ examination skills

In my last year of medical school, I eagerly signed up to act as a patient on a point-of-care ultrasound course for emergency department doctors. My agenda, naturally, was to see my heart in action on an echocardiogram. My enthusiasm was quickly replaced by disappointment when I realised that female volunteers were being kept away from the cardiac stations. It was only when my request to swap midway was denied because “breasts make it harder to visualise the heart” that I recognised the magnitude of the problem.In a room of healthcare professionals about to be certified as competent in point-of-care ultrasound, none of them were going to practise visualising the hearts of people with breasts. “But won’t half their patients be women?” I pointedly asked. I was granted the swap—and then spent all afternoon having my spleen, instead of my heart, scanned. Timid doctors, seemingly afraid to communicate the need…
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