Narjust Florez: Gender bias like this example affects lung cancer diagnosis in women

Narjust Florez, Associate Director of the Cancer Care Equity Program at the Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center, shared a post by Arghavan Salles, Special Advisor for DEI Programs at Stanford University Department of Medicine on X, adding:

“Gender bias like this example affects lung cancer diagnosis in women – many of my young patients were told that it was anxiety and even 1 was sent home with a Lexapro script. It wasn’t anxiety – it was a 5.8 cm tumor.”

Quoting Arghavan Salles’s post:

“I am trying to study how often this type of error happens. I don’t think it’s rare, but I’m not aware of systematic data. We need a major change in how we view and treat women patients.”

Source: Narjust Florez/X and Arghavan Salles/X

Narjust Florez is the Associate Director of the Cancer Care Equity Program and a thoracic medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center. She is the principal investigator of the Sexual Health Assessment in Women with Lung Cancer (SHAWL) Study, the largest study to date evaluating sexual dysfunction in women with lung cancer. She received the 2020 Rising Star award by the LEAD National Conference for women in hematology and oncology. In addition, Dr. Florez founded the Florez Lab in 2019. The laboratory focuses on lung cancer, social justice issues in medicine, and medical education.