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Medical misogyny

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Women are increasingly getting surgery for endometriosis.

Why some doctors think endometriosis is being treated with unnecessary surgery

After decades of women’s pain being dismissed, endometriosis operations in Australia have nearly doubled. But some experts warn the system may have swung too far towards dangerous overtreatment.

  • Henrietta Cook and Liam Mannix

Latest

Do women’s hospital really offer the best treatment for women?

Women’s hospitals are meant to redress neglect. In reality, they’re punishing women

As a clinician, a husband and a father of three daughters, I’m frustrated that women are receiving second-rate care.

  • Vinay Rane
The Sydney Morning Herald’s health editor Kate Aubusson, reporter Emily Kaine and Age investigative reporter Aisha Dow.

The story behind the Herald’s award-winning investigations

The Herald’s work has been recognised with national journalism awards – but who are the people behind these stories?

  • Liam Phelan
Jana Pittman competing at the 2004 Olympic Games, and as a doctor today.

As an Olympian, mum and doctor, I know our health system fails women

I’ve had patients who’ve been told, and I’ve been told, that pain is “just part of being a woman”.

  • Jana Pittman
Doula generic

Patchy regulation in the freebirthing sector has put lives at risk

There is a role for doulas in supporting women during pregnancy and childbirth, but clarity on the limits of that role is essential.

  • The Age's View
Stacey Warnecke has been remembered for her warmth, generosity and work ethic.

‘Lighthouse in the storm’: Melbourne nutrition influencer dies after home birth

Stacey Warnecke, known to her 19,000 followers online as NaturalSpoonfuls, suffered a complication shortly after delivering her child in a home birth, her husband said in a post on social media. 

  • Angus Delaney
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Lindsay Tuggle, Olivia Phillips and Rebecca Ballesteros.

Olivia’s extreme pain was fobbed off by 10 doctors. They all missed the golf ball-sized lump

Haemorrhaging in the bathroom, fainting from pain, being gaslit and dismissed by doctors for so long that they can’t have children: thousands of women shared their medical misogyny stories with us. This chronic condition was the single most common.

  • Kate Aubusson, Emily Kaine and Aisha Dow
Often women aren’t taken seriously by medical professionals.

Women have the need, men seem to have the power

The single most common disease shared by Australian women in response to our ongoing investigation.

  • The Herald's View
Polycystic ovary syndrome is believed to be the most common endocrine condition in women of reproductive age, affecting between 6 and 13 per cent.

A doctor said I was ‘too skinny’ to have PCOS. Five years later, I received a diagnosis

Despite having many symptoms associated with polycystic ovary syndrome, the absence of one left me in limbo for too long.

  • Hannah Bambra

Fatima was left for hours in extreme pain awaiting treatment. She almost lost her ovary

Complex medical cases are being missed in Australia’s emergency departments, resulting in agonising pain, traumatising surgeries and infertility.

  • Carrie Fellner