An Open Conversation On Pregnancy Loss

Pregnancy loss affects millions each year – so why do so many women have to suffer in silence after a miscarriage or stillbirth? According to a 2021 Lancet Study, an estimated 23 million miscarriages occur every year worldwide: 44 pregnancy losses each minute. For those who have experienced a misca…

The Pink Pill: De-stigmatizing women's libido

You may know Viagra as the "blue pill" but what about Addyi, the "pink pill"?  Addyi was first approved in the U.S. in 2015 to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) – the medical term for women experiencing low libidos. According to the National Institutes of Health, it is "the most commo…

What's it like to try and get diagnosed with endometriosis?

Because the male body has been the default in medicine, conditions that primarily impact women, like PCOS and endometriosis, are under researched, misunderstood and under funded. Even conditions that are commonly understood in men like autism, ADHD and cardiovascular disease are misunderstood, misd…

Why is it so hard to get care for the menopause transition?

In the last few years, menopause has become a big business and the global market for it is worth billions of dollars. Yet the people who need care during this transition are still struggling to get the help they need. In a special live episode of (MIS)Treated, we talk about how women's health is h…

'A Dream Realized': A conversation with Canada's menopause pioneer

Until recently, menopause was a whisper between friends and trusted ones. And if you were going through it, there was an unspoken secrecy about saying that you were. This stigma still exists in some communities. But menopause is more than just hot flashes. It is associated with increased risks of l…

Why researching sex and gender differences matters

Women are diagnosed on average 2 to 4 years later than men in over 1300 different disorders. These include conditions like depression and anxiety, and Alzheimer's disease, which disproportionately impact women. Most of our medical knowledge, including how to diagnose someone, is based mostly on sym…

Why are gynaecology wait times so long in Canada?

In Ontario, family doctors are the gateway to the healthcare system, including providing a referral for a specialist. If you are one of the nearly 2 million Ontarians without a family doctor and need to see a specialist, say a gynaecologist, it can be incredibly challenging to get the care you need…

How does gender bias harm women's mental health?

Until the early 1900s if a woman had symptoms like cramps, depression, or a headache, a doctor would probably diagnose her with hysteria, which was removed as a medical diagnosis in 1980 by the American Psychiatric Association. When you consider that women weren’t included in clinical trials until…

Why did science ignore girls and women with ADHD?

Consider that while the symptoms of ADHD were first identified back in 1798, it wasn’t until the 1990s that science began to study how ADHD presents in girls and how it might be affecting them. Nam Kiwanuka speaks to writer Carla Ciccone, who became one of the growing numbers of women to be diagno…

The haunting legacy of gynaecology

Much of gynaecology was built on surgical experiments conducted on enslaved African women. These procedures were done by Doctor James Marion Sims, who has been called the "father of modern gynaecology". His legacy lives on today with the Sims position, the speculum and the surgical technique to tre…