The New Rules of Women's Health: Research Bias, Systemic Failures, and Becoming the CEO of Your Healthcare with Meghan Rabbitt
Women were were excluded from federally funded medical research until 1993. Health journalist Meghan Rabbitt interviewed over 100 female experts to create a manifesto for women's healthcare everything from why we're still learning anatomy named after dead men to why your gynecologic history affects your heart disease risk decades later.
Meghan is a health journalist who's been translating complex medical topics into accessible language for 25 years. She's spent her career asking doctors the questions patients want answered and helping women understand their bodies better. When Maria Shriver asked her to write a manifesto about women's healthcare, even with all that experience, she was shocked by what she learned. Women weren't included in federally funded medical research until 1993. Autoimmune diseases disproportionately affect women, but we still don't know why. Heart disease kills more women than all cancers combined, yet awareness is declining.
We talk about what it means to become the CEO of your own healthcare and why that mindset matters.
Meghan shares practical strategies for making the most of short doctor visits and navigating the flood of health information online. We discuss why shame keeps women from getting care, why we need to stop normalizing pain, and how perimenopause can be a window of opportunity instead of something to fear. The conversation covers everything from why your pregnancy complications matter for heart health decades later to why medical devices are still designed without women's bodies in mind.
Highlights
Most doctors don't proactively discuss lifetime breast cancer risk with patients.
70% of autoimmune disease patients are female, but research is severely underfunded.
Anatomical eponyms like "fallopian tubes" actually increase cognitive load for medical students.
Making a prioritized symptom list before appointments helps maximize limited doctor visit time.
80% of the 10 million Americans with osteoporosis are women.
Gynecologic history, like preeclampsia, impacts heart disease risk decades later.
Start thinking of yourself as the CEO of your own healthcare. That means educating yourself, showing up to appointments with a prioritized list of what matters most to you, and stopping the apologizing. Your body isn't something to be ashamed of. Your symptoms aren't an inconvenience. If you're a woman of color facing additional barriers in the healthcare system, bring someone with you to appointments who can advocate alongside you.
Make sure to subscribe to the podcast and share this episode with any woman who needs permission to stop normalizing pain and start demanding better care.
