Older women's health: 'taking the pulse' reveals gender gap in medical care.

In the United States, for every 100 men age 65 and older, there are 147 women, a ratio that has social and medical consequences. Five panelists "take the pulse" of older women's health in general and in the offices of primary care physicians in particular. They assess the status of medical education and the need to include older women in research and drug trials, issues of gender bias in health insurance and quality of treatment, ways to improve the use of preventive health services--such as mammography and Pap smears--by older women, and the role of office physicians in identifying and helping victims of domestic violence.