Ask doctors if their male patients ignore big and obvious health symptoms, and they’ll respond with laughter — huge peals and guffaws. Once they regain the ability to speak, these doctors will say things such as ‘I don’t even know where to start,’ and ‘You don’t have enough room in your story for all the symptoms men blow off.’ Conventional wisdom, they say, is true. Women listen to their bodies and go to the doctor when something isn’t right. Men tend to seek medical attention when they’re at death’s door — or when their wives prod them into going. ‘I think it’s a macho thing,’ says Dr. Barron Lerner, professor of medicine and public health at Columbia University. ‘Or maybe it’s denial. Maybe they think if they deny a problem, it doesn’t exist.’ ‘I call it the ostrich phenomenon,’ says Dr. Harvey Simon, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and editor of the Harvard Men’s Health Watch newsletter. ‘Guys are very prone to sticking their head in the sand and hoping when they emerge everything will be back to normal. It’s a very, very bad idea.’ While the list, according to these physicians, […]