Doreen Carvajal, a Paris-based journalist who was diagnosed with peritoneal cancer in fall 2017, highlighted the differences in her healthcare experiences with a male physician in the U.S. and a female physician in France in a recent op-ed published by STAT.
Here are five things to know:
1. Ms. Carvajal said that when she asked her American physician at a community hospital about a prognosis for her cancer, he said, "Do you really want to know? Your cancer is incurable."
2. When she asked the physician about alternative treatments at other hospitals or new medical techniques, the physician told her every hospital follows the same standard treatment. However, Ms. Carvajal said she could not accept this answer.
"I raged at the notion of being ushered toward a comfortable death by male doctors from a community hospital who confidently assured me that this was the sole treatment for a female malady," she wrote in the op-ed.
3. Ms. Carvajal researched studies examining treatment of female illnesses and found a 2013 survey of 13,000 women in California with ovarian cancer. The survey showed about two-thirds did not receive standard care.because they were being treated at hospitals that did not see many cases of ovarian cancer.
"The lesson was clear: Low-volume hospitals may not have access to gynecologic oncologists who are aware of the latest treatments with better success rates," she wrote.
4. Ms. Carvajal went to stay with her family in Europe and started seeing a female oncologist just outside of Paris. The physician proposed treating her with an immunotherapy as part of a clinical trial with just six women participating, which proved successful.
"To my amazement, I emerged as the poster girl for my tiny trial," she wrote.
5. Ms. Carvajal later received a hysterectomy as part of her treatment and is now cancer-free. She sent her medical charts to her initial physician in the U.S. to share with the next female patient he encounters with an ovarian-related illness.
"Tell her to seek the research. Give her the latest information. Give her hope," she wrote in an email to the physician.