AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Laura W. Bush Institute for Women's Health hopes to spread the word about women's health across the state.
Last month, the institute signed an agreement with Texas Health Resources, based in Dallas/Fort Worth, to help further promote women's health.
"To help them with research, professional education and outreach in the community in women's health and sex and gender-based medicine," explained Executive Director for TTUHSC Laura W. Bush Institute for Women's Health, Laura Street.
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center is one of the nation's leaders in sex and gender-based medicine and because of the, Street said, it's important to let others know how important some of the medical differences between men and women really are.
"We know that 80 percent of adverse reactions in drugs are with women because all the studies that have been done have been done on men," said Street.
Dr. Arlene Betancourt with Texas Health Resources also explained how women not only respond differently to medications than men, sometimes they also experience different symptoms to severe medical conditions, like heart attacks.
"What we see in men, they have the classic chest pains," said Dr. Betancourt. "But with women, sometimes they experience more nonspecific symptoms. They will experience shortness of breath, nausea or just profound fatigue."
Now, with the collaboration between the institute and THR, the groups hope to keep the 6.3 million residents of the DFW area (half of which are women) and current medical providers up to date on continuing research in women's health.
"We've got a lot of information to get out there," added Street. "We can get more information to the practicing physicians, the practicing health care providers and we can also get it to the consumer so the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center with this, is reaching out beyond West Texas into the state."
