Center for Gender-Specific Medicine

What is Gender-Specific Medicine?

Gender-Specific Medicine is the science of how normal function and the experience of disease is influenced by the sex of the patient.  In every system of the body, from the way hearts beat to the way medication is metabolized, there are significant and unique gender-based differences in human physiology.  The gender-specific approach to health care includes both men and women.

This new science is transforming the way disease is prevented and treated.  As a "next generation" health care facility, Jewish Hospital Medical Center East is already incorporating the principles of gender-specific medicine in the diagnosis and treatment options we provide our patients. Our Center for Gender Specific Medicine, located off the main lobby on the first floor, is one of the first centers in the world to embrace this new, pioneering area of medicine.  Gender-specific applications may also be found throughout other areas of the facility, including our 12-lead cardiac monitoring equipment that features gender-specific algorithms.  

Assisting JHMCE with its efforts in this pioneering area of medicine is Marianne Legato, M.D., founder of the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University.  Dr. Legato is regarded by both the national and international medical community as one of the foremost experts on gender differences.  In 2002, she was named Outstanding Woman of the Year in Science by the American Medical Women's Association. For more information on Dr. Legato and Gender-Specific Medicine, please visit www.mmhc.com/jgsm.

Scientific Development

The importance of Gender-Specific Medicine lies in research and science. For this reason, the second goal of the Center for Gender-Specific Medicine is to implement new clinical trials and revising current trials to include gender-based components.

Gender-specific is special focus at JHMCE's Frazier Rehab Institute

At the Frazier Rehab Institute located on the first floor of the facility, a special gender-specific treatment program has been developed to help patients in the areas of urinary incontinence, pelvic pain and vestibular rehabilitation.  Trained physical therapists are able to assist patients by using a variety of treatment techniques including muscle re-education and strengthening, biofeedback, electrical stimulation and individualized exercise.  For more information, please call the Frazier Rehab Institute at Jewish Hospital Medical Center East, (502) 259-6601.

How Different Are Men and Women?  Did you know?*

• Women's lung cancers tend to be located in the periphery of the lung, causing their symptoms to be late-appearing compared to those of men, whose cancers are more centrally located.
• The male brain is larger and has more brain cells.  The female brain, on the other hand has more intricate and complex intercellular connections from one side to the other.  This may explain women's quicker recovery of speech after stroke.
• Women's hearts beat faster than those of men, even during sleep, and take longer to relax between beats.
• Smoking damages a specific gene in females, which cause a fourfold increase in the likelihood that a woman who smokes will die of cancer.

*Excerpt from Eve's Rib, Copyright © 2002 by Dr. Marianne J. Legato

Click here to watch an overview about Gender-Specific Medicine.