Women are the best ambassadors to change healthcare | Angela Maas | TEDxAmsterdamWomen

The male patient has been the standard in medicine for many decades. In the field of heart disease we have learned that sex and gender differences really matter in symptoms, diagnoses and treatment. Evolving scientific knowledge is too slowly translated into clinical practice and this puts women at a serious disadvantage. We need to look at the individual patient, with her/his characteristics, life-course, ideas and personal context and strive for a more tailored, gender-sensitive way of healthcare. Women can act as excellent ambassadors for change, by connecting more straightforwardly with a personal touch to their doctor(s). Angela Maas, MD, PhD is a clinical cardiologist since 1988 and has developed a main interest in heart disease in women over the past decades. She established the first outpatient clinic for women in the Netherlands in 2003. Since 2012 she holds a chair in Cardiology for women at the Radboud University Medical Center. She focuses on the early identification of women at increased cardiovascular risk and stable and unstable ischemic heart disease in women at middle-age. She has initiated several multicenter collaborative projects with other disciplines (gynecologists, oncologists, vascular imaging, epidemiologists, primary care, etc) to improve healthy ageing in women. She has received many awards such as the Dutch Society of female physicians (2010), the Radboud University (2014) and she was knighted by the King in 2017. She is currently one of the most influential female doctors in Dutch healthcare and is the 2020/21 Women’s representative of the Dutch Government to the United Nations. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx