Published: 23 July 2026
Author(s): Maria Rosa Ballester-Verneda
Issue: July 2026
Section: Beyond the Guidelines

Medicine has traditionally relied on standardized diagnostic and therapeutic protocols perceived as universal and neutral. However, this presumed neutrality reflects a structural bias in the production of biomedical knowledge, whereby evidence derived predominantly from male populations has historically been established as the implicit clinical norm. As a result, diagnostic thresholds, symptom profiles, and therapeutic criteria have often been defined according to male-centered models, while biological sex differences and gender-related determinants of health have received limited attention.

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