I’ve noticed over the years that in general men die (heart attacks, strokes) and women get the disabling diseases (autoimmune, arthritis, age-related dementias). If you don’t believe me, look in the nursing homes and ask an insurance actuary—life insurance is cheaper for women, disability is cheaper for men.

So take your pick: quick death while still relatively healthy, or lingering on for 20+ years in poor health. Neither of which is an absolute. So living longer does not mean living better, and it isn’t a contest between men and women. The simplistic analyses and blame-throwing serve no purpose other than to distract from how to improve the disparities in health care, whatever they may be, among various groups, whether gender, economic or ethnically based.

And ANON, it doesn’t matter if you’ve had one or a hundred previous women with vague complaints that weren’t from a serious illness. This is a PERSON in front of you you’re treating, not an assembly-line widget. They aren’t alike and aren’t supposed to be. If you LISTEN to your patient and know the right questions to ask, you’ll have a working diagnosis most of the time before you even examine them. The key is to be aware of your prejudices and biases and work around them. And anyway, just because a person is a hypochondriac doesn’t mean she can’t get sick. And true hypochondriasis IS a mental illness, treatable with medication, and not limited to women.

By the way, Allie, I’m a woman.

It IS her show, and she is a former supermodel. I find her over the top, but I find most talk show hosts over the top. That’s what makes them entertaining.

And for the record, 5’10” and 161lbs is a normal weight, not even the upper limit for a woman with a medium to large frame.

I am so sick of young girls thinking that any weight over 120 something is fat. Most models who aren’t overtly anorexic-looking and are over 5’9” weigh at least 140lbs, no matter what lies their publicist may tell.

"it is true that women's complaints are discounted, which is sometimes unfortunate, but it is also undeniably true that given two equal complaints, one by a man and one by a woman, the man is much more likely to turn out to have something wrong or more seriously wrong than the woman."

"the higher death rates for men suggest that overall there is no evidence that women get worse care than men when measured by outcomes"

Statement one has no basis in fact, no data backing it up,and unfortunately because it is written as if it is fact, some people will assume it is true, because the prevailing stereotype is that women complain more than men.

Statement two takes a statistic and draws a conclusion from evidence that is not there. A higher death rate without any further information is useless in determining quality of care unless many other things are considered.

This lazy thinking and knee-jerk stereotyping is a major problem in not only healthcare, but in the media. As I said in a previous post, awareness (not denial) of your own prejudices goes a long way toward reaching impartial conclusions.

A rhinoplasty is the operation that changes the appearance of the OUTSIDE of the nose.

A septoplasty straightens the INSIDE of the nose.

If they are done together it is called a septorhinoplasty or nasal reconstruction.

If someone says they had the outside of the nose changed just to breathe better, they're usually lying and don't want to admit that they had the operation done for cosmetic reasons.

Ms Dickerson, from your musings it seems as if you feel the only authentic Black experience is that of the poor Southern or poor urban Black person. Perhaps you were raised in an economically poor environment, but that is NOT the experience of many Black Americans of your generation.

The many professionals in the arts, law, medicine and other disciplines did not just arise overnight, all one generation removed from welfare or sharecropping.

Expose your children to your family. If your family is too poor to travel much, TAKE YOUR CHILDREN TO THEM!! If you like gospel music, play it in your house. Learn to cook soul food without the grease, as my mother and other mothers in my neighborhood did even back in the 1950's. Teach your children about Crispus Attucks, Benjamin Banneker and Phyllis Wheatley as matter of factly as you do Betsy Ross or Benjamin Franklin. There is no need for your children to have such a totally white experience, but it will take energy on your part to make it otherwise.

And for God's sake, stop lying to them!! There's a Southern saying, "it's much easier to tell the truth than to remember a lie." If you lie about something as innocuous as a tattoo, how on earth can you approach the big issues?

Children of that age are very literal, concrete thinkers, and when you feed them bullshit it confuses them and makes them anxious.

I think you should acquaint yourself with biracial people or very light-skinned people of your own generation so you can get some understanding of how your children will perceive the world. You have a very limited view of what being a person of African descent in America means, and your children deserve to not have that limited view imposed on them.