Venus or Mars on the Rocks? –
MAR 19, 2018 – March celebrates female achievement: not only is it Women’s History Month but March 8th was International Women’s Day. Today, women worldwide have amassed unprecedented success, becoming billionaires, filmmakers, trauma surgeons and Nobel laureates. Many famous women including Joan Crawford and Lady Gaga were born in March. Despite historic success by the everyday and celebrity woman, as a female physician specializing in addiction, certain disconcerting realities are not lost on me … Mortality from drug overdose remains the leading cause of death from injury in the United States, with opioids leading the charge. Until the 1990s, most research on substance use focused on men – consistent with most historically male-centered medical research. This changed when U.S. agencies required that federally-funded studies enroll more women. Several gender differences are worth noting.
