Miss Danica Davies1
1University Of Otago
Persistent pain remains undertreated in women (Samulowitz et al., 2018). Maya Dusenbery has argued that the undertreatment of women’s persistent pain is the product of two related problems: the knowledge gap, whereby women’s health problems are less understood by the average doctor, and the trust gap, whereby women’s accounts of their own symptoms are often not believed by health professionals. These gaps illustrate gendered patterns in the recognition, diagnosis, and treatment of persistent pain. The trust gap is an example of testimonial injustice (Fricker, 2007) whereby women receive an unfair deficit of credibility as sources of knowledge about their pain experience. The wrongs associated with testimonial injustice are greater for pain than other medical conditions because the pain experience is largely subjective. Instead of external data, doctors often only have patient testimony to base decisions upon. I provide a novel Foucauldian feminist analysis of women’s undertreatment of persistent pain, using Foucault’s analysis of social power and knowledge to help explain the phenomenon. I argue, contrary to existing concerns in the literature, that a Foucauldian account is compatible with feminist goals of empowering women in their experience of persistent pain. This Foucauldian feminist framework provides direction for adapting clinical practice to improve the treatment of women’s persistent pain and empower female patients in the clinic. Distinctive elements of this account include conceptualising the doctor-patient relationship as a collaborative partnership (consistent with tenets of patient-centered care) and guiding clinical decision-making with patient self-knowledge and experience rather than predominantly clinician expertise.
Biography:
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