Days of Our Work Lives: An unvarnished look at work today: Part I: David's Saga. The final episode: Episode 17: Third Time's the...

Days of Our Work Lives

Part I: David's Saga

Episode 17

Third Time's the...

In the previous episode, David proposed that the end of jobs might possibly be a net plus for society. His next day, however, would not be a net plus. 

It was an ordinary afternoon. Susan was giving a singing lesson on Skype. Adam was quietly doing his homework. (Their parenting-by-guilt was working remarkably well.) David was staring into his Big Data, trying to make more efficient the single-payer health care system his white paper helped get enacted. He was so proud that he helped pass the law that allowed 50 million more people, including 11 million formerly illegal immigrants, to get health care.

And then David felt that pressure in his chest again. But this time, taking deep breaths didn't help. As before his previous heart attacks, it kept getting worse. "Susan, call 911."

But this was Sage River not San Francisco, and five minutes, ten minutes, 15 minutes, and still no ambulance. Susan called again but 911 said, "I'm sorry. The system is overwhelmed. We just don't have enough ambulances. We can't keep up with the demand. It shouldn't be too long."

But when you're having a heart attack, you don't have long. David was getting dizzy and the pressure in his chest intolerable. His skin, normally pale, was now red and shading to purple, with Susan and especially Adam, looking on in horror.

Finally after 20 minutes, the ambulance arrived and a paramedic and EMT moved David onto the ambulance, with Susan and Adam by his side. Unless it's a real emergency, noise abatement rules require ambulances to use their siren as little as possible, but this was a real emergency. The driver turned on the siren and kept it on.

While starting an IV drip to reduce David's pain, the paramedic told the EMT to start CPR.  "No, slower! Harder!," the paramedic coached the EMT. The EMT pleaded, "This is only my second time. I'm new!"  

David got more purple. And then blue. Susan screamed, "He stopped breathing!"  The paramedic pushed the EMT aside and continued the CPR, far harder. But it was too late.

A month later, Susan received a copy of David's will. He had always lived modestly and invested rather than spent. Every time he had an extra thousand dollars, he'd invest it in  Vanguard Growth Index Fund, a widely touted smart place to put money. As a result, although he never had a huge salary, in the 20 years since he started saving, his nest egg had already grown to $500,000. He chose to leave half to Susan and Adam and the other half to the American Heart Association, specifically to fund research on sudden heart attack in men, which kills many more men, earlier, than other diseases, yet receives proportionately much less funding. 

Susan decided that the next plays she directs will be fundraisers for that cause. 

Although guilty for feeling this way, she felt relief that only now did she feel free to live the life she really wanted to live--if only she knew what that was.

 * * * * *

And that ends David's Saga, Part I of Days of Our Work Lives.

Next: Episode 1 of Part II: Susan's Saga.

Part III will be Adam's Saga.

Tim Russert, Sudden Heart Attack, and Sexism Against Men

Tim Russert’s untimely death from a sudden heart attack reminded me of the dramatic 50+-year-long gender disparity against men in health care research and outreach.

Many more men than women die of sudden heart attack and at an earlier age than do women of breast cancer.

Indeed, sudden heart attack is the #1 cause of premature death among men over 40. Yet, more money per capita is spent on breast cancer research.

And regarding outreach, there are a trivial number of prostate cancer ribbons compared with the number of pink ribbons against breast cancer. And have you ever seen even one ribbon against sudden heart attack?

More broadly, men die 5.3 years younger than women, and spend their last decade in worse health. There are more than four widows for every widower.

Yet when I searched PubMed, which indexes 3,000 medical journals over the past 58 years, I found 22,304 articles with the keywords “women’s health,” but only 586
with “men’s health.” That’s 39 articles related to women’s health for every one on men’s. A review of Charity Navigator, the leading database of nonprofits, finds that nearly all the gender-specific health-related nonprofits are on behalf of women.

If women suffer a deficit, for example, the “underrepresentation” of women in engineering, we typically see significant efforts at redress. Yet, when men have the deficit—even the ultimate deficit: they die younger—not only is there not redress, but the opposite occurs: disproportionate amounts of research and outreach are directed at women’s health.

I’ve heard these explanations to justify the double standard:
1. “It wouldn’t happen if, like women, men organized to protest.”
My response: Would you deny redress to women who are “underrepresented” if they hadn’t organized to protest?
2. “Men’s dying younger is their fault—if they’d only take better care of themselves.”
My response: The three major controllable causes of mortality and morbidity are obesity, smoking, and excessive drinking. Men have lower incidences of the first two. In any event, if women are “underrepresented” in engineering, would you deny them the redress by chastising them, “It’s your own fault. Do better in science and math.”?
3. “In the past, most health research was done on men. This only levels the playing field.”
My response: First, as cited, over the past 58 years—the period during which the greatest medical advances have been made—the opposite is true. And with regard to research that’s more than 58 years old, an underreported reason why women were often excluded from many experimental treatments was not lack of interest in women’s health but a concern that an experimental drug or treatment might damage a woman’s fetus.

And en toto, any deleterious effect that came from a smaller percentage of women being subjects in 58+-year-old medical research apparently was small: In, fact, the
life-expectancy gap in favor of women grew during every decade but one from 1900 through 1980.

The big question is why:
— Why do you think that, for the past 50+ years, the overwhelming majority of health care research has been on women’s health, despite men living shorter and in poorer last-decade health?
And consider these other male-death-related questions:
— Why do 92% of workplace deaths occur to men yet we rarely hear that statistic, while we frequently hear statistics such as, “Women earn 79 cents on the dollar compared with men?” (By the way, that statistic is misleading: Most current evidence suggests that for the same work, pay is, on average, roughly equal.)
— Why, still, must only men register with the U.S. military’s Selective Service?
— Why, still, are only men allowed to serve in direct combat? (resulting in the little-publicized fact that 99% of the Iraq War deaths have been men.)
— Why do the media emphasize when deaths occur to “women and children?”

I agree with men’s advocate Warren Farrell, who is the author of nine books including The Myth of Male Power and who has taught at Georgetown and the School of Medicine at U.C. San Diego. He believes the main reason is sexism: “Men are the disposable sex.”

Many of us have the opportunity to be gender-neutral or biased toward or against men in our professional lives.

For example, consider all the choices that higher educators can make:

— Which students to admit to your program
— Which readings to assign
— What content to present in class
— What research agenda to pursue
— Who to select as your research assistant
— What student thesis and dissertation topics to encourage
— Who to hire as a faculty member or administrator
— To whom to grant tenure
— Which studies to fund. (For example, should sudden heart attack studies be given higher priority?)

At this point in time, what do you think is the wisest stance for you, personally, to take?

The Most Deadly Double Standard

Men die far earlier from heart disease, indeed from all causes. Men live 5 1/2 years shorter than women and spend their last decade in worse health.

Yet the vast majority of gender-specific health research and education are for women. Think of the sea of pink ribbons for breast cancer research. Where are the ribbons for the many more men who die earlier of sudden heart attack?

It's sexist and unfair. Imagine that all literacy programs were aimed at whites, even though Blacks have a much higher illiteracy rate. It would never come to be, or if it did, would trigger national outrage and the program pulled. But when women are the beneficiary, there's no problem. Think about it.