Right to Life

[Sibling Chatty]

Some do, some don't.

Depends on how much they buy into the Macho Bullshit that IS medical school in the US.

Medical education in the US is and has been, male dominated since the beginning. Women have been expected to be just as competitive and macho as the male students. Most female medical students/residents, until the past 10 year, expected to be summarily dropped from EVERYTHING if they became pregnant, with an invitation to 'reapply to the program when you're through there, and are serious about your career".

The "we had to do it, so YOU have to" school of thought that puts interns on duty for 36-48 hours straight, there to make YOUR life or death decisions at a moment's notice, and on no sleep--just another facet of that mindset.

OK, so the Bully School of Training. Some women give in and are completely co-opted by the Masculine Attitude. They have even MORE scorn for the 'inferior' female than some of the Macho Males. OThers, and some of the males, play the game long enough to get the cred they need, and then refocus their abilities and attitudes on being proper doctors that DO recognize the difference between the genders.

The medical attitude for centuries is that women are just smaller, leakier and irrational versions of men. And that children have a different kind of leakiness, are a LOT smaller, and are a step above wild animals...

So, obviously, by THAT philosophy, women's medicine and children's medicine suffer. (Try to find a pediatric surgi- pak or resusci-pak in most hospitals. There MAY be ONE, somewhere... Yeah, it's getting better, but, of COURSE, if you need to be intubated and you're 5, you'll just have to deal with a tube meant for a regular adult. Yes, it's getting better, No, it's not fast enough, and HELL yes, it took WAY TOO LONG.)

Now, back to gyns...depends on the individual and how she reacted to her training. I've had both. the ones that do the same macho bullshit? they can be OK doctors, technically brilliant. They'll never make the woman feel secure emotionally, but they're technically adequate. The ones that stood the crap and decided to care for women as THEY would like to be cared for? Word gets around, and you can't get in to see them---except they'll bust their asses to see you if you need them. They're superior not just because of skill, but because they LISTEN, and they REMEMBER what it's like to be in the 'turkey needing trussing' position that you get into to see a gyn. Talk about vulnerable?? Talk about NEEDING to trust the person that's at the end of that table??

Yeah, it depends...

[pieces o nine]

I had cryosurgery¹ when I was young, pathologically shy, totally cowed by [male] authority, and not as well informed as I am now. (This was after the receptionist called out my first and last name and the reason for my appointment when I was allowed to leave the reception area for the inner medical sanctum².) A week later a nurse or lab tech called me at work to cheerfully leave a message that I had terminal cancer and needed to come in IMMEDIATELY if not sooner³.

The [male] resident at the out-of-town cryosurgery office, whom I had never seen before, expressed considerable irritation that I wasn't 'relaxed'. Mortified and in spasms of acute pain, I apologized for making it more difficult for him.  If that were happening today, I would offer to let him turn his head and cough while I shoved that metal probe up next to his prostate, delivered 10 minutes of freezing, and asked him to demonstrate 'relaxation' for me. Bastard!

As it turns out, I wasn't dying right on the table from uterine cancer after all; it was a false positive. Oh yeah -- some delay in getting the insurance company to pay their share of the bill as the genius handling my account kept refusing to authorize payment. Months later, I finally got through to her on the phone and demanded that she settle the account. "But Ms PoN," she whined, "I *can't*. You haven't *had* a C-Section."

I rather knew that, and was understandably confused as to why it had arisen as a topic of contention for her. "What? WHAT?"

"I *can't* authorize payment. The form is requesting that the physician fill out the C-Section and you haven't *had* one."

More confused than ever, I consulted my copy of the forms again. "Mrs. Idiot Receptionist, this doesn't ask for the physician to fill out the C-Section.  It asks the physician to fill out Section C  of the form, WHICH HE HAS ALREADY DONE."

"Oh," she giggled. And, apparently, authorized payment.

::facepalm::


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1:  From About.com: "Next, liquid nitrogen begins to flow through the cryo probes at a temperature of approximately -50 degrees Celsius."  and "You may feel some slight cramping"  please excuse me while I laugh hilariously about the word 'slight'.  Mine was 10 minutes of nitrogen in a 2-minute-freeze/1-minute-rest cycle.  ::shudder::

2:  "Annual Pap"; she enjoyed doing this to all single women in my college town. You will be stunned to learn that many young women avoided seeing the doctor because of this, and that many of that group dropped out of college with an "unplanned pregnancy". I'd like to think the practice has long since been discontinued.

3:  My newly Born Again SBC boss leaped to all kinds of ... interesting ... conclusions about "what kind of girl" would even think of seeing a gyn in the first place, let alone require a follow-up visit. Oh yeah, recuperation was fun, fun, fun.

[EDIT] As an afterthought, the resident causally told me that there might be scarring from the procedure which would interfere with pregnancy in the future. This wasn't mentioned in Our Bodies, Ourselves, nor have I seen it mentioned in other resources. I've wondered whether he though he might have caused damage himself, whether he was misinformed by his instructor(s), and whether his other patients assumed they were sterile, did not use contraception, and incurred "unplanned pregnancies" of their own. Did I mention that these gleaming examples of professional medical care occurred in Nebraska, although not this town? [/EDIT]

[Sibling Chatty]

My newly Born Again SBC boss leaped to all kinds of ... interesting ... conclusions about "what kind of girl" would even think of seeing a gyn in the first place, let alone require a follow-up visit.

I was attending a Baptist college in Texas. Deep in the heart of SBCLand...

I was also (precursor of my later massive ovarian carcinoid) having such period problems that I HAD to see a gyn. Ok, to TRY to get my hormonal conditions to even get to the place where they could DO any testing, they put me on oral contraceptives. They were in my desk drawer, right by my bed in the dorm. IN THE DRAWER.

My roommate (assigned, not chosen, freshman year) and her mother found them and went to the Dean's office about it. Hello?? And I was the one in trouble???

There was a rule about not changing roommates for the first 6 weeks. It was waived when I called my gyn, who got on the phone with the Dean and explained that his wife was a lawyer, and she'd be on her way to the school (300 miles away) that afternoon, with Federal Court injunctions in hand.

Some people are...stupid. To the extreme.

[Griffin NoName]

OOooooooo Chatty - never hide anything exciting in your drawers

[Sibling Chatty]

Honey, at this point, there ain't a dang thing exciting in mah drawers...