Men Are Less Good At Being Sick

If you’re hiring for anything, this is a cautionary tale: “So Craig won’t be able to make it out tonight – he either has a cold, or I need to call hospice,” our longtime friend Jen quipped about her husband who was apparently sick on the couch. Men as a general rule are less good at being sick if you ask me.  A group of doctors I polled back in 2003 said that they see a lot more men than women with common colds who think they might be dying.  “Many of them are a bit dramatic, but I’m happy to help,” PA Haley Udell told me. Urgent care centers, which weren’t in existence when I grew up, report more worried well males in their clinics than females.  “I’d say at least twice as many guys come in each week with pretty basic symptoms – needing fluids and rest, and part of the issue is they avoid basic care at home and have a much lower pain tolerance” Vu Linnell said. “It’s not really close - women can tolerate much more pain than guys,” Vu said. Hollywood gave the worried well a voice back in the ‘70s with Archie Bunker, who once told his nurse ‘why do they always give me a shot where the pain ain’t…?’ It was classic Bunker – worried, agitated and usually offensive. Imagine a hospital room with Bunker and Taxi’s Louie DePalma? That’d be something. I wonder what they’d make of all the changes in healthcare today – urgent care clinics, for one, are more often than not staffed by allied health providers. Bunker only wanted ‘regular doctors’ as he called them and, even though he didn’t know it, he had a bit of managed care in him. ‘Do I really need this um needle?’ he said. Personally, my bride says I'm a terrible sick person - "not a day that goes by that you aren't claiming your sore throat is the beginning of the end..." In my defense, sore throats can become strep and, if not diagnosed and treated, are potentially fatal. In the history of healthcare we’ve had a lot of innovation and a lot of delivery models today that weren’t a thing 20-30 years ago – virtual mental health talk therapy and urgent care are obviously two that come to mind. So if you’re investing in healthcare or hiring workers you might be wise to study your history, your audience and their behavior amidst the common cold, particularly as you think about how to raise the quality of care and the health of the nation.