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Article
Archives 2005 » Men's Health |
Why
do Men Shun away from Doctors??
We often hear that "Men consult their family
doctors pretty rarely than women do, notwithstanding
the fact that they are much more adhesive to accidents,
violence, and disease." They have a reputation
of being poor patients, intolerant of pain or discomfort.
Added to this are fear, denial and embarrassment. Researchers
believe that from a young age men are taught to hold
their heads high and 'get tough'.
Admitting to pain or any other problems is seen as a confession
to being weak and threatens male pride and machismo. Medicinal
herbs, diet
pills, therapeutic fruits, meditation, yoga, exercise
have helped them in one way or the other to maintain fitness.
Men are disreputably cagey about attending the doctor's
surgery compared to women. Possibly because of an outmoded
sense of stoicism or pride, many men will not seek medical
attention for their ailments until their physical condition
seriously worsens. Obviously this is not sensible, yet
men continue to eschew the doctor except for the times
when there is no other alternative remaining. Why is this?
Let's explore some of the reasons in this article.
Traditional Role: One reason why men
do not attend the doctor is because it has been the
traditional role of women to bring the children to the
doctor and to look after the health of the children",
he acknowledges. "That connection between mother
and child could exclude men from familiarity with the
surgery". It comes down to a conditioning thing
that could take another generation to resolve, he says.
Stoicism: Male traits like aggression,
stoicism, competitiveness and emotional reticence as
barriers that prevent men from looking after their health
properly. Men's rigidly stoical stance contributes to
some physical and mental disorders that are disproportionately
experienced by men.
Refutation and Fatalism: Male unwillingness
to confront health issues may be attributed to a combination
of refutation and fatalism. Men do not want to 'go looking'
for medical problems in case that is what they find.
They would rather prefer to seek health advice from
friends or by reading.
Lack of Familiarity: Basically, it's
always the women, who generally are in contact with
the doctors, between attending for gynecological reasons
or to get smear tests done, and bringing sick children
to the surgery. Men, on the other hand, are more apprehensive.
The lack of familiarity with their doctor is also a
factor that puts off men attendance in the clinic.
Pain threshold: One reason why men
and women respond to doctors so differently might lie
in their varying responses to pain itself. Men and women
clearly experience different pain thresholds and this
influence both how they deal with pain and how they
respond to treatment.
Research has shown that there could be physical reasons
why the stereotype of men being like babies about pain
compared to women might be true. It seems that women
routinely report feeling much higher levels of pain
than men do, which implies that one or other gender
is not truly representing their true pain experiences.
Less Attention: Generally the clinics
and hospitals are pretty women-oriented. Most often
hospitals and clinics do not feel like 'male-friendly'
places, causing men to shy away even more from visiting
the doctor altogether. Thus the feeling of ignominy
prohibits them from visiting such places.
There seem to be metabolic differences between how men
and women deal with these drugs. There may come a day
when the choice of a painkilling drug is at least partly
based on a patient's sex".
Impotence:This attributes to a large
section of society that prohibits them to visit their
GP's. Two main reasons: Incomplete or no knowledge about
it AND the embarrassment caused due to it are the main
reasons behind this.
So, try to eliminate these shortcomings from you, check
back to the clinics regularly. Clearly the benefits
of visiting the clinics outweigh the possibility of
any disease. So think again...Are we going the right
way??
About the Author
Chris Read, An associated editor to Hateweight.com.
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