Gender in Healthcare: Complexities, Impacts, & Solutions - Essay Sample

Introduction

The concept of gender has existed in numerous aspects across different fields. In healthcare, the issue of gender is key to the hospital setting and the outcomes of patients. This paper explores gender and gender discrimination by looking at gender complexity, impacts of lack of gender-based intervention, therapy, and management. It will also explore the new healthcare approaches, such as training personnel, and changing the clinical procedures.

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The target audience for the presentation includes healthcare administrators. These are individuals responsible for the management of hospital setting and important individuals when it comes to gender-based therapy. The terms gender and sex have historically been applied interchangeably, although the use of these two terms has become increasingly different. It is thus vital to know the differences occurring in the two concepts. Sex is described as biological, especially between males and females. These differences may include genetic and genitalia differences.

On the contrary, gender is a challenging term to define, although it can refer to the male or female role in a community. This is referred to as a person’s concept of themselves, or gender role, or gender identity. Sometimes, the genetically assigned sex of an individual does not coincide with their gender identity. These people are likely to refer to themselves as non-binary, transgender, or gender nonconforming.

Gender Complexity in Healthcare

Gender has health implications throughout the life of an individual based on roles, norms, and relations. It influences the risk-taking of a person and the behaviors of health-seeking. It also influences exposure to health threats and susceptibility to diseases. Gender usually shapes the experience of an individual concerning healthcare based on access, affordability, and utilization of products and services. The experience also includes interaction with caregivers.

Gender is found to intersect with other aspects that drive inequality, marginalization, and discrimination. This may take the form of age, disability, ethnicity, geographic location, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation. Women empowerment and gender equality can potentially enhance health. The female gender, in most cases, encounters greater barriers to health information and services. The cause of the situation is due to cultural practices such as patriarchal structures, economic dependence, and significant share and burden of domestic responsibilities and roles. Gender inequalities, especially in wealth and income, usually make women more susceptible to poverty. In some areas of the globe, the factors make it challenging for them to gain the necessary health. The social norms contribute to the heavy work burden for the female gender.

Further, gender inequality is likely to restrict access to services that women need most. Many women usually continue to be deprived of primary healthcare due to discrimination and poverty. In this case, women faced discrimination and treated as less valuable than men when it comes to health care.

Gender includes only one facet of gender complexity. It is, in itself, a complex concept. When a patient is admitted to a hospital setting, registration requests to establish their identification, the registration may state that the patient is male, but the patient usually identifies as female. Besides, the electronic medical record only possess female or male fields. The issue arises concerning the identification that the register should select. Gender identity includes the internal sense of a person, of being a woman, a man, both or neither what an individual identifies as might or may fail to be the assigned sex to the person at birth. In recent years, the Affordable Care Act and the Joint Commission have changed their regulations and standards to prohibit patient discrimination based on gender identity. Every healthcare facility is committed to giving the best care to all patients that visit them, without regard to their identity. The challenge arises when there is a need to show via documentation that we offer a care setting for all patients.

One of the gender identities challenges in healthcare includes transgender. This group of patients experiences numerous challenges in the healthcare setting. Transgender persons are legally safeguarded in obtaining healthcare, such as transition-related care. Caregivers are expected to treat these people with respect, such as using their chosen gender identity. A transgender individual may receive services of healthcare at the time of their transition process, but some people may fail to undergo any surgeries or different procedures. A transgender individual usually undergoes a self-awareness process and gender identity confirmation before considering hormones or surgical procedures. This may include psychotherapy or counseling to help in such a process. Healthcare providers need to be aware of this process and understand ways of communicating respectfully. Being transgender, there occurs a discrepancy between the assigned gender at birth and the gender that the individual identifies with. This also involves how they express themselves, instead of how these people are attracted to.

Lack of Gender-Based Prevention, Management, and Therapy

Male and female gender are usually alike in numerous ways. Nevertheless, there are essential behavioral and biological differences between male and female genders. They affect epidemiology, manifestation, and pathophysiology of several widespread diseases and healthcare approaches. Regardless of the understanding, there is little gender-specific healthcare, including management, prevention, and treatment of numerous well-known illnesses. The above-identified areas are omitted and will lead to holding back more efficient healthcare. This is because measures of gender-based prevention or therapies are considered more practical than the typical approaches that perceive all people as one. Gender-based prevention is essential as it benefits patients from the twin genders. When addressing gender in healthcare, there is a need for new strategies at several levels. These levels include training the medical personnel and cut across clinical medicine, drug development, and epidemiology.

It is not easy to separate the impact of gender and sex. Sex influences health, primarily through behavior modification. Therefore, it is important to approach healthcare based on gender to avoid misunderstanding of the best treatment approach. For instance, testosterone leads to aggressive behavior that is linked to risk-seeking and neglect of the individual's health. Besides, failure to understand gender during the prevention of therapy may contribute to ineffective treatment. Genomic modifications in males and females occur differently since sex hormones modify epidemic mechanisms and DNA repair.

When it comes to healthcare service, gender-sensitive therapy, management, and prevention is different from taking into consideration particular needs exhibited by women. This may include during menopause or at the time of pregnancy. Gender-sensitive medicine means that it will take into consideration the two sexes. In most cases, the therapy may require providing greater attention, especially to the female gender. In this case, the focus will include where specific data concerning women is lacking.

On the contrary, more attention will be given to the male gender, where the specific information concerning men is lacking. It is established that gender and sex impact a wide range of physiological functions. Besides, they affect a wide range of illnesses, such as pulmonary, cardiovascular, and autoimmune systems.

The lack of gender-based interventions impacts healthcare for the sexes negatively. When treating any patient, it is essential to understand their issues and how illnesses affect them. This is because women and men exhibit differences in particular diseases. The management of diseases should incorporate the concept of gender to attain effective therapy. Healthcare professionals, such as administrators, should ensure that gender-based management is upheld. Focusing on a specific issue in a given sex works in discouraging discrimination in health. Lack of proper management in the case of gender therapy will contribute to significant differences and lead to discrimination incidences. This amounts to unethical practices that leave a given gender receiving less attention in care. Some conditions impact men and women differently. When developing a therapy approach, you will be required to take this into consideration, which ensures every gender receives maximum attention.

New Approaches to Gender-Based Care

Training medical personnel is one of the new approaches to gender-based care. The approach is key as it enhances the productivity of healthcare staff, improves their motivation, and guarantees that their employer always values them. As a result, staff loyalty and retention improves. Hospital staff requires training to allow their performance to increase, increase knowledge concerning their work, and enhance their work-related skill set. Healthcare provision requires employees to learn the requirements in their profession. With the advances in technology, human resources in a hospital setting are among the most affected individuals. Changes in the hospital setting require continuous training of personnel such as healthcare providers to adapt to such developments.

Nevertheless, modern healthcare is faced with changes occurring in terms of gender and healthcare. New concerns and focus have emerged, especially on gender therapy and how different sexes need to be perceived in a hospital. Caregivers should be continuously trained about how they should address different genders when treating them. They need to be well equipped with the necessary skills that facilitate effective therapy across all genders.

The next approach includes changing clinical procedures. The approach is also depended on the skills that healthcare personnel possess. New approaches will guarantee improved healthcare towards different genders. Altering therapies in gender-based care seeks to establish the appropriate therapy for a given gender. Changing the clinical procedures is essential as it allows the treatment to fit the given patient. Therefore, since the clinical procedures change, caregivers should undergo training and development to ensure they offer the best services under the new clinical procedures.

Further, drug development is crucial in treatment that involves males and females. It is essential to adopt new ways when dealing with different genders in healthcare. Male and female genders display distinct patterns in their development, and special therapy is required for each.

Conclusion

The Healthcare sector is among the fields that are affected by gender discrimination. Both male and female genders are likely to face discrimination when it comes to treatment. Sex is described as biological, especially between males and females. These differences may include genetic and genitalia differences. On the contrary, gender is a challenging term to define, although it can refer to the male or female role in a community. This is referred to as a person's concept of themselves, or gender role, or gender identity. Gender identity includes the internal sense of a person, of being a woman, a man, both or neither what an individual identifies as might or may fail to be the assigned sex to the person at birth. Lack of gender-based intervention, therapy, and management may lead to a negative outcome. It is important to consider both sexes to address the issues that affect each individual.