If the concern is medications or procedures harmful to a potential pregnancy, why not just ask if they are or have a possibility in being pregnant? Have the woman sign a waiver or some shit if they are that concerned. Some women have PCOS, some women have their ovaries removed, some women have tubal ligation, some women are going through menopause, some women have implantation bleeding. Fact is, periods are confusing and this question doctors ask is invasive, dismissive to other real health concerns, and purely stupid. Anyone that interested in my menstrual cycle is creepy as fuck.
Have you tried losing weight?
Omg. This is so accurate.
“Doctor! I’m bleeding right here and now!”
*writing down* “last period: today”
PSA: Don’t scroll down to the comments.
^ Enjoy funny comic ^
The overwhelming amount of people that don’t understand why this is a medically necessary thing to ask, somehow has to correlate with the complete lack of nuanced debate to be found here.
I’ll break it down simply;
IF A WOMAN IS PREGNANT- X-RAYS CAN DAMAGE A FETUS. IF A WOMA DOESN’T KNOW SHES PREGNANT- A MENSTRUAL CYCLE CAN INDICATE THAT A TEST MAY BE WISE BEFORE POTENTIALLY KILLING HER UNBORN FETUS.
also:
CERTAIN MEDICATIONS CAN KILL OR SEVERELY DAMAGE THE HEALTH OF AN UNBORN FETUS.
therefore we can summarize by saying:
MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS ARE TRAINED TO ASK THESE QUESTIONS PRIOR TO PERFORMING POTENTIALLY HARMFUL PROCEDURES OR ADMINISTERING POTENTIALLY HARMFUL MEDICATIONS.
Now, is it safe to assume we understand why they don’t ask men this question?
Ever notice how stupid people sound when they can only understand things literally?
It’s like the “is it plugged in?” thing. There is a reason it keeps getting asked.
As a woman who absolutely hates the “when was the date of your last period?” question, if the only reason they want to know the answer to that question is to determine whether or not we are pregnant, why don’t they just have us pee in a cup?
Asking me when my last period was in order for them to determine whether or not I may be pregnant, is kind of like [insert some scenario where the obvious solution to a question is simple but you go about it in a backwards upside down complicated way].
if the only reason they want to know the answer to that question is to determine whether or not we are pregnant, why don’t they just have us pee in a cup?
Isn’t that a lot more work?
No, a lot of women have irregular periods, some women don’t have periods at all. This question has nothing to do with wanting to know if you’re pregnant, it has everything to do with keeping track of women’s menstrual cycles, which is extremely creepy.
Okay, and what does the medical personnel do with that information? Do they track it in a secret global period database? Do they get together once a month to laugh about irregular periods?
No secret database—just your medical record. But doctors don’t always control why they ask or where that info ends up. For example, in some U.S. states, laws force them to report certain reproductive health details (like abortion complications) to government databases—even if the patient’s issue was unrelated. Add in insurance requirements, EHR hacks, and legal subpoenas, and suddenly your private health data isn’t so private.
That’s not even mentioning how governments in China or South Korea use that info.
So the medical personnel asks about the period, writes it down, and then completely ignores the answer for the rest of the examination? They just do X-Rays even if a patient says “I haven’t had my period in 3 months”?
They test regardless. That’s literally why we say this question is ridiculous.
Because I’m one of those women who doesn’t effing know or care when my last menstrual period was. I don’t keep track of those things because it doesn’t effing matter to me. I’m so sick of going to the doctor for something completely unrelated and they treat me like a number and ask me these stupid unrelated questions. And yes they ask this question every single time you go to the doctor regardless of why you’re there. If they want to know whether or not I’m pregnant why don’t they just ask me if I’m pregnant or tell me to pee in a cup. They often make me pee in a cup anyway, I don’t effing care. Stop asking me when my last period was.
And more invasive. And expensive.
But hey not about womans things
It pretty blantantly shows that there is a greater concern for the potential existence of something which may potentially become a person, than there is for the actual person having an actual medical emergency.
How so? I’m really trying to empathize, but I can’t understand how the potential harm for “the actual person having an actual medical emergency” is bigger if they’re asked this question.
I can see very tiny negatives (annoying question etc.). But none of them compare to the potential positives for both the person with a medical emergency, and any potential fetus involved. Say for example someone has gotten pregnant without knowing, but would like to keep the pregnancy - they might feel guilty for the rest of their lives if their medical visit causes harm to their pregnancy.
I understand your position, but I’m going to need you to prove you aren’t pregnant or have a chance of being pregnant before we discuss this further.
Of course, everyone knows a doctor won’t even consider talking to you unless you carry a negative pregnancy test.
Wait, why do they even ask about the period? Are they stupid, why isn’t the negative pregnancy test enough?
I’m going to need you to speak with my lawyer and sign a waiver if you refuse to test for a pregnancy. We cannot discuss any further until this matter is settled, or the situation becomes a life threatening emergency.
Huh…I thought the joke was the doctor didn’t care about the mugging or the gunshot, skipped those questions and when right to periods.
I didn’t see it implied in the comic that the question should never be asked….or anything about men.
NO
As WalrusDragonOnABike so perfectly put it:
Its satirizing the tendency for doctors to be more dismissive of women having pain than men, for example. This would be more of a problem with non-visible causes of pain, especially ones that predominantly effect women such as chronic migraines. This comic extrapolates this to comedic effect by using a gunshot wound instead.
AND
I love how a 4 panel comic about dismissal of women’s medical concerns is getting multiple commentors who want to dismiss those problems because a 4 panel comic doesn’t explicitly go into the a specific nuance they are focused on. Plenty of people get the punchline just fine without it.
It’s not about pregnancy. It’s about dismissing pain and blaming symptoms on hormones.
I have more sources. They’re bookmarked. Does anyone need them or do we get it yet?
So it’s just badly written then
But yea it seems like your interpretation is correct, though the extreme amount of exaggeration in the comic made it less understandable
It’s not the exaggeration that makes it badly written and controversial, it’s using the period question as a stand in for dismissal. Both things can be true: it is a good thing for med pros to ask this question AND doctors routinely discount women’s concerns AND this comic combines the two which is generating lots of discussion here.
It is even less obvious that this comic would want to target both
Yeah, that comic is pretty badly written, jumbling together to many things to make a clear point while using extreme hyperbole to obfuscate its actual meaning even more.
Tbh, doctors (like anyone working any job) tend to fall into a pattern-matching routine quite often. My son has a chronic condition that required quite a few hospital stays over his life. Even though my son is not a woman and doesn’t get periods, there have been quite a few situations where doctors didn’t take him or us (both my wife and me) serious and/or were stuck in automatic mode.
One example (of many): We are in hospital, my son is there as an inpatient. He was maybe a year old at this time and sleeping in his bed. Nurse comes in and routinely checks his temperature with a forehead thermometer. It reads as 42°C (107.6°F) and the nurse panics and immediately sprints out of the room to get temperature reducing medicine. While she’s gone I touch his forehead and it doesn’t even remotely feel warm. I take the thermometer and check the temperature a few times and it always reads as 37°C (98.6°F) every time, so totally fine. She comes back with a syringe filled with medicine and I say “Stop, he doesn’t have high temperature”. She ignores me and moves to inject the medicine anyway, and I quickly pull out the thermometer to show her the temperature, telling her again to stop. Finally she relents and agrees to check the temperature again, which she does a few times and realizes he doesn’t have any fever after all.
Turns out, my son was hooked up to pre-heated oxygen, and apparently when she first took his temperature, she must have accidentally touched the oxygen hose with the thermometer, and the oxygen hose is preheated to 42°C.
I have numerous similar stories.
(That’s not to say that this problem doesn’t affect women more, but that the underlying problem is a human problem, not an anti-women problem. Women have more complex physiology, so it does make sense that they are a victim of something like that more often. But the underlying issue is not that doctors hate/dismiss women, but that doctors dismiss everyone whenever they have a plausible chance to do so. With issues like that it’s important to focus on the actual problem at hand, because that usually has a different and better solution.)
It’s not a 4 panel comic, they tried using more panels for extra context and fucked it up.
“I didn’t get it so the comic is wrong.”
Ah yes, insults instead of addressing the context of the comment.
I’m explaining why the comic doesn’t make sense, and addressing your incorrect information and also now comprehension.
If you can’t even see that this isn’t a 4 panel comic, why should we even take anything else you say as correct? When you can’t even count panel amounts.
4 panel comics and 8 panel comics, are different narratives, you can’t use 4 panel logic and narrative in an 8 panel. So it changes how the comic works. Just like a short story vs a poem. They’re just different things.
Wait, so you can’t follow a story past four panels? What is “four panel logic?” I think you made that up.
I was quoting someone else.
My information is from reputable sources in healthcare, journalism and medicine. Do we not recognize Ph D’s here, now?
In every one of my comments I try to bring the discussion back to the narrative of the comic, you brought up pregnancy, which I addressed.
I don see this conversation being productive, so you can have the last word and I won’t respond. Enjoy the rest of your week.
Wait, so you can’t follow a story past four panels? What is “four panel logic?” I think you made that up.
No, a poem and short story are two different ways to tell a narrative. You can’t write a poem in a short story format than cry foul when people don’t get the point because it no longer works.
How did you even get that form what I said? Oh right, you seem to have an issue with wanting to insult people Lmfao.
In every one of my comments I try to bring the discussion back to the narrative of the comic, you brought up pregnancy, which I addressed.
And in every response people, not just me, have tried to explain to you why the narrative just doesn’t bloody work. Doesn’t matter what your backround or how much you know about it, you’re failing basic language comprehension issue. Most people have agreed with those, and still tried to point you correct on the issue with comic.
So, it’s an emergency, and doctors are trained to think first about saving the theoretical unborn fetus, instead of focusing on the hemorrhage of a woman that somehow made it to the doctor after she got shot by some delinquent? Is that what you’re trying to say? I don’t wonder why people don’t understand, but I find the comic funny, bitter funny.
Cynical answer: They’re worried about the malpractice case if the woman miscarries because of something they did.
More realistic answer: I don’t think it’s so much trained to first think about the potential fetus, as much as if there’s no emergency and the only difference between potentially causing a miscarriage / deformity and not doing so is a few questions, why not ask them? If she was on a gurney being rushed into the ER it would be one thing, but if she’s ambulatory and has the time for the subsequent urine test, better safe than sorry?
Most realistic answer: It’s a funny comic about the level of dismissal many women feel when dealing with doctors. Laugh bitterly, share with a friend, and try not to worry about what assholes on the Internet think.
Well, to be pendantic. She’s walked into the office on her own, is fully alert and doesn’t appear to be bleeding much. Next steps would be an xray and likely then surgery - both of which it’s crucial to know if the patient is pregnant.
And how do you know it’s a delinquent that shot her? Seems judgey.Yeah, might have been a cop. Better not be prejudiced.
Well, she got mugged and got shot. Call me whatever you want.
If you are pregnant it can wildly affect your lab results, too.
Now, is it safe to assume we understand why they don’t ask men this question?
Because of patriarchy? 👉👈
I’M SORRY, I DIDN’T QUITE GRASP WHAT YOU WERE SAYING. COULD YOU REPEAT THAT MORE CLEARLY?
The bigger the font, the happier your day will be
thanks
2meIRL
look, I’m not asking to be coddled. as a man I don’t need anyone to ask me anything…but it would be nice every once in a while of someone just asked how my last period was.
it costs nothing to be kind.
I’ll be the guy and ask but I’ll warn you ahead of time the only acceptable answer is “good, how are you?” And now with that bit out of the way,
How was your last period?
good, how are you?
I know right. Sometimes just the act of asking is appreciated.
Hah!
hadn’t considered that: cool & COOLHELL YEAH BROTHER, BUT NEVER FORGET THAT EVEN WITH CRUISE CONTROL YOU STILL GOTTA STEER!
Just admit you pressed the shift key before each letter. You didn’t use caps lock.
I mean, what’s a pinky finger there for other than to hold shift while typing?
STRONG PINKIES GET DAILY WORKOUTS ON THE SHIFT KEY
I remember seeing a sign on a wall in one office that explained this. Makes way more sense knowing that.
I can’t say I’ve had this particular conversation with a doctor (or ever will) but all this said, I’ve also had some real arseholes for doctors. A little compassion and even a quick explanation goes a long way.
There is a big difference between not understanding something and never being taught in the first place.
Doctors should ask men about their period.
What if they find a dude who had one recently? That seems like it would be a problem you’d want fixed.
Okay, so this is a damn good argument!
Yeah I get it that the medical.field could have, should have spent way more time on women’s issues, too many illnesses have been ignored with women, and yes, all that has to change
But this? I thought this was always obvious
Not for a lot of people, sadly.
As much as I dunk on doctors, people in general are even dumber.
And aside from the concern about a fetus, it can mess (very dramatically) with your lab results.
This is incorrect. The point of this comic is to illustrate that doctors are incompetent morons when it comes to diagnostic criteria for certain things. It is not literally about evaluating a patient with a gunshot wound who would literally be triaged and immediately taken care of.
You should be embarrassed for thinking this drivel let alone writing it down and publishing it for others to see.
LMAO.
Dude, actual hospital staff has said in the comments here that this is why they ask. It’s routine!
Maybe go white-knight something with easier to overcome ossicles, like… I don’t know- fiction? Because you have no idea what you’re talking about.
GSWs usually require X-rays. Do you know what happens when someone is pregnant and has an X-ray?
Ever seen the shielding worn during one? Ever wonder why it’s necessary?
Do you know what narcotic pain meds can do to a fetus?
Go spread ignorance elsewhere. Medical science says you have no idea what you’re talking about.
You are a right wing level intellect. I hope one day you will figure out that not everything is literal. Your superior never once said this wasn’t something that needed to be checked, because, again, that’s not the point of the comic. Holy smokes.
LMAO… I’m “right wing intellect” because I subscribe to the concept of factual relevance over sensationalism and manufactured outrage?
Strange, it’s doesn’t seem very much like “right wing intellectualism” to me, but I’d wager you call everyone something similar if they disagree with you.
Don’t bother responding. I have you blocked.
Just in case someone who does not deserve to be in prison for stupidity sees this comment, think about what this bottom of the barrel is missing. The point of the comic is not literal, it is to illustrate that medical professionals often do this to women.
There’s another comic where the gunshot victim is complaining and the doctor says “have you tried losing weight?” I’ll bet this worthless sack of dogshit would decide that they were just trying to get a good history.
Might need to go to the doctor because how of much I’m gonna laugh whilst reading this comment thread later.
Counterpoint- she is missing a semicircular chunk of flesh half her arm’s diameter, without massive bleeding, and still somwhow alive. Only way I can think of that working is every artery connecting to her arm being severed,
and wasting time asking about her period can wait till they figure out if shes going to die from internal bleeding while answering questions.
Counterpoint, it’s a fucking exaggerated cartoon.
Counter-counterpoint: To see internal bleeding she needs a CT scan and CT tech or radiology will say no for CT until it’s confirmed with bw that she is not pregnant. (Note: Im only familiar with healthcare on where im at)
I have a rebuttal:
WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT A THEORETICAL FETUS? FIX THE FUCKING ARM THAT IS BLEEDING OUT YOU FUCKSTICK PURITANICAL ASSHOLE.
For this hypothetical comic situation yes they should fix the uncontrolled bleeding first before anything else. But to contradict myself looks like the bleeding is controlled.
Looks like you misunderstood both the comic and the person you reacted to. Neither one is actually about a woman getting shot in the arm, that’s just hyperbole for comedic effect.
This is about this question being asked in all sorts of situations and conditions where the doctor asks about pregnancy status before administering treatment.
That’s the thing they are not asking about pregnancy status. They are asking when their last period was. These are two very different questions, one treats the woman as a person and the other treats her as a walking incubator that you have to check the dials on.
You do know of the concept that women can be pregnant without them realizing or without them acknowledging it?
It’s like asking someone whether they have worms. They might know, but they might also not know. They might even know and not tell you.
All of that can be circumvented with a different question.
So you can choose to be offended by a question that they are actually legally required to ask, or you can understand that the main purpose of a doctor (or other medical personell) is not polite dinner conversation but actually assessing the situation to give appropriate treatment.
Great way to end up with a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Yup! Replied the same thing!
Potentially the future mother? If she cares, then the doctor sure as hell should.
Here’s an idea. Before the doctor proceeds with whatever procedure they ask is there any chance you might be pregnant. Instead of the first words out of their mouth upon seeing the patient is a woman being “what is your time of the month?”
Cool, so you know what malpractice lawsuits bring in?
I feel like the more nuanced version of the question should be used tbh
Stop yelling. My brain censors out all caps, so anythign in all caps I can’t read.
Stop yelling. My brain censors out all caps, so anythign in all caps I can’t read.
top yelling. y brain censors out all caps, so anythign in all caps I can’t read.
do these two quotes above look literally the same to you?
What?
You said:
My brain censors out all caps, so anythign in all caps I can’t read.
Right?
Can you see all these caps?
Ma’am, this isn’t the Fallout universe where people use caps as a currency.
Us in the real world use intangible currency backed by the nebulous “economy.” It’s value fluctuates based on vibes, and obviously nothing bad will ever happen as a result of that.
Clearly, English is incapable of having homographs. Caps and “Caps”, and all Caps and ALL CAPS. (sorry, Froggy, that last part was in all caps, which you can’t see)
Froggy here can see caps, as well as other types of hats, but cannot see all caps. THEY Froggy, CANT we SEE love THIS you PART, but they can still see capital letters, since they don’t comprise the whole word. EXCUSE THE LACK OF APOSTROPHE IT WOULD COMPROMISE THE WORD
So he can’t see all caps, but he can see some caps? So which caps can’t he see? Are they randomly chosen or is there a pattern?
My brain censors out all caps
I interpreted this as them being unable to see all caps, not only consecutive, but also free-standing in front of small letters. 😄
^Then I had a little fun with it.^
^Then I had a little fun with it.^
Same. Good times!
Yea, I can see hats.
Oh, for real, no cap?
Went to the ER a few years ago; they asked if I was pregnant and I said no as I had been dating another cis woman for the 4 years prior.
They still gave me a pregnancy test.
If you aren’t going to believe me anyway just give me the damn test and don’t bother me with the question.
They wouldn’t need the test if you told them you were pregnant. At that point they could engage in a shorthand, depending on your knowledge, and maybe skip some unnecessary tests and diagnose the problem better.
You could falsely think you’re pregnant, if the goal is to be correct, this also needs to be accounted for
Of course. I’m just saying you ask before you test.
You do, but why? You test anyway
“Everyone lies” - Doctor Gregory House.
“The patient told you that, and you believe them? You’re an idiot!” - Also Doctor Gregory House.
Fictional Doctor House, a role model of ethical and professional standards for real doctors everywhere.
Absolutely! :D
Fetuses are not special. Millions die every year without anyone ever knowing they existed. They get flushed away with a late period cause the conditions weren’t quite right.
If a woman wants to lie and pretend they are not capable, that’s her business. House is an asshole.
If the fetus dies, that’s one thing. If the fetus gets deformed due to medication, that’s another thing and the one suffering from that is not the woman, hence it’s not only her business.
To put it differently: If you could heal a severely disabled child by peeing in to a cup, would you not do it?
The best part is most people have one.
People lie to doctors near fucking constantly. They’re required to ask the questions no matter what due to things like malpractice, the insurance company that owns the hospital and other stupid s***.
So not only are they required to ask you, they’re also likely required to give you the test regardless of your answer. Because they have to assume you’re lying.
If you aren’t going to believe me anyway just give me the damn test and don’t bother me with the question.
It’s not about not believing you, it’s about the fact that it’s possible for people to be pregnant without realizing it, and the doctors obviously don’t know you personally.
The reason they ask at all is because if you say yes, then they don’t bother giving you the test. They were always planning to give you the test if you say anything but “yes”, to cover all their
asses against lawsuitsbases.Tests will also miss some pregnancies. Routinely asking and testing will have the fewest false negatives.
if you say yes, then they don’t bother giving you the test.
Willing to bet if they’d do it otherwise then it’s the insurance companies determining policy here to save cost.
Not familiar with other healthcare but single payer here in Canada, the CT scan(for example) will not happen if there’s no negative bloodwork pregnancy test or if they are certain you don’t have a uterus. All child bearing women are all pregnant unless bloodwork says no or your uterus was surgically removed.
To be fair: It does make sense. A pregnancy test is rather cheap and simple to do. Abdominal CTs are linked to an elevated risk of cancer for an unborn child.
So to put it differently: If you could heal a child from their cancer by taking a blood test, wouldn’t you?
Lmao. Ill add to the evidence pile 🤣
It’s not personal. How many idiots have lied, been ignorant, or didn’t think it was important and caused a lot of trouble in the process?
Ex: in free clinics that specialize in sexually active gay men, they don’t ask if you take street drugs, they ask if you’ve ever taken Viagra without a prescription. Stimulants cause impotence.
She has a piece bitten out of her arm without bleeding. I would also start asking about blood related stuff. Sounds dangerous
Shit, you’re right, she’s probably some kind of doppleganger, so it’s important to act natural and pretend you’re not suspicious. And being a doctor, there’s a high probability the doppelganger will want to steal your body even if it doesn’t think its cover is blown.
So instead of asking period questions, the best thing you could say in this situation is something like, “oh right, I told the nurse to barge in here randomly in the next 30 seconds, but this medical issue requires utmost privacy for at least 5 minutes, so I will go tell the nurse to leave us alone and make sure everyone else leaves us alone until we can properly deshoot your arm.”
Of course, a doppleganger doesn’t need to kill you to steal your likeness, so it might be in your best interest to have an alibi for the foreseeable future and come up with codewords for your family.
Don’t you know that doppelgangers have really weird periods? That’s the question medical professionals are trained to ask to figure out if someone’s a doppelganger.
That was some trip. My favorite part is “deshoot your arm”
that’s a hysterical punchline
I see what you did there! :>
Because there’s no way X-Rays and specific types of medication could possibly hurt an unborn baby. All hospitals should just assume women are not able to be pregnant- or, essentially the same as men- and just treat them accordingly. I mean, it’s not like this shit isn’t taught in med school.
Imagine the outrage if hospitals stopped asking and just treated women with procedures and medications that are fatal to the unborn.
Apology in advance for the nuanced take.
I don’t understand why folks like you are melting down.
The message is clearly that the doctor was ignoring immediate problems.
Why ignore that and get on your soap box? The comic didn’t imply that question should never be asked.
I don’t undressed why folks like you don’t understand that the argument in this meme was born from the misunderstanding that they have to ask this shit because of the reasons I and others here have mentioned.
You’re manufacturing outrage.
They have to ask because there could be serious problems if they proceed to treat her without knowing.
Why are folks like you intentionally side-stepping the reasonable and logical explanations for this and running right at the rage bait this is intended to be?
You’re just repeating the comment I replied to, and ignoring my reply. I’ll return the favour and ignore yours and repeat mine with more detail:
Did you or did you not see the first 6 panels? I’ll explain them: the doctor ignored critical and immediate problems.
At no point did the strip (or I) say that a doctor should never ask that question. The question he asked isn’t even specifically important. He could have said “are you pregnant” or “are your breasts sore” or “do you have a yeast infection” or “have you had a Pap smear recently”.
I literally can’t understand why you’re getting all preachy about something everybody agrees with and that has nothing to do with the comic. It’s really interesting…and strange.
Yeah…obviously it’s fine to ask that question when it’s relevant…you just don’t ask it first when you walk into a room with a gunshot victim. How is that too complicated? I don’t know what it’s called when you ignore the premise and make up your own premise so you can be angry about it…but that’s what you’re doing.
LMAO! It’s a comic strip.
I really wonder if you get this worked up over Garfield.
Sounds like you’re talking to a mirror. You’re the one who attacked it.
I got “worked up” over your reply because it was one of many replies changing the premise. I found it really interesting.
…but since you’ve abandoned your argument and switched soft gaslighting…I’ll just assume you didn’t understand it.
I didn’t attack shit. I calmly illustrated to all the ignorance here- why these questions are asked. You decided to get yourself worked up and play contrarian to it.
Factual Medical training is on my side here. Science supports my argument.
You have nothing.
I’m blocking you now- both as proof that I’m not here to argue dumb shit, and to not have to deal with the nonsense you have to say about it.
Yep. Even as a mere medic, we are supposed to at least consider any woman from 9 to 99 could be pregnant. And it fast and easy to ask, assuming a responsive patient. The overwhelming number of times it didn’t play into my treatment plan doesn’t matter. All it takes is just one time to not consider it and someone can be severely injured or dead because I didn’t consider it. If I had any doubt about pregnant or not, I asked the patient straight up.
I think explaining rationale for what you’re doing can be very helpful for patient comfort (not to mention compliance). Cis man here, but on the one hand I hear about enough women’s medical concerns getting dismissed to understand why that might be the assumption even when there’s good reason; and just from my own experience I like to understand what providers are thinking / working on with me.
I’m not a doctor. I was a medic for 15 years. Generally we, (at least I did), always try to explain things if there is time. But the time I have to explain what’s happening and why can be in very short supply as a medic. Sometimes it’s an “Oh shit! We gotta go! We gotta go NOW!” moment. Plus it’s just you and me in the back. So I was often busier than a one handed milk maid at milking time and had very little time for pleasantries.
And doctors face their own time crunch. If you have ever paid attention to the scheduling your appointment, they are in 15 minute blocks. And then they need to be on to the next patient while trying to find the time to chart their encounter with you. There are few of them and an endless supply of patients. And they need to keep that assembly line moving. If they spent as much time with their patients as THEY would like, imagine how long you would be sitting in that waiting room. You better bring drinks and a sandwich. Possibly a blanket.
And there ain’t any medical system that has enough doctors anywhere on this planet either to make things better for the doctors or the patients.
I think there is the misconception that patients have, that they expect doctors and other medical staff to be polite.
They are not there to be polite, they are there to fix a problem.
In regular situations it’s wildly impolite to ask a woman whether she’s pregnant, especially if she’s not. But a doctor needs that information, so it would be quite smart if people would just get over themselves and understand that they will be asked a few impolite questions when talking to medical staff.
This brought up a memory:
I was with my then girlfriend at a gynecologist as she was getting a UID put in. I sit in the waiting room just browsing my phone and out of nowhere I hear screaming and stuff getting thrown around. I couldn’t make out exactly where it came from so I of course got worried it might be my girlfriend (not that I had a reason to think it was her out of anyone else), but it’s obviously not like I could just go and open doors to look. After about a minute of hearing this, so much stuff thrown and broken, a girl comes out of a room bright red with anger and as she walks by me, who’s the only one in the waiting room, she says “I came here for things completely unrelated to my period and the doctor fucking asks about my fucking period like that’s everything women are, periods!” I really didn’t know how to respond so I just go “yeah, fuck 'em.” and she just looked at me with an oddly angry smirk then walked out.Okay, but like, it’s the gynaecologist. Periods are a big part of their jobs.
Edit: I hated working service desk for IT. I’d probably hate being a doctor more.
Reminds me of the one time one of our sales people video called me with an urgent bug report that his demo unit wasn’t responding via SSH or HTTP and that it’s probably broken because of our last update and whatnot.
I asked him if he checked the power and network cables. He gets angry and tells me that of course the cables are ok.
So I ask him if it’s the unit I can see on the shelf behind him. He says yes. I say, “All the LEDs on the front of the unit are off. Are you sure the power cable is plugged in?”. It wasn’t.
This is the doctor equivalent of that video call.
Not every time it’s the simple answer. But sometimes it is, so you ask the simple question every time.
And what’s funny is she probably was pregnant and just in denial
As an emt I can say that is what we are told to ask from the start but most of the time it is based around any abdominal pain in a woman from 8 to 80
I only had one instructor out of my maybe 10 or so said to check to make sure the patient can physically get pregnant before you assume that is the issues
They also said you need to assume they are until conclusively proven otherwise even if directly told multiple times they aren’t
I only had one instructor out of my maybe 10 or so said to check to make sure the patient can physically get pregnant before you assume that is the issues
I know at least one woman who physically couldn’t get pregnant until she got pregnant.
She hat ovary cancer and they removed one and a half ovaries. It was determined that the remaining ovary was too damaged to still produce any eggs. She had eggs frozen before the operation, and she and her husband used all of them up in IVF, none worked.
They then gave up and adopted a kid, and a few years later a second one. Right after they adopted the second one as a newborn, she got pregnant. Apparently, they stopped using contraception because couldn’t get pregnant anyway. Now they have two kids under the age of 1.
She totally would have told any medical professional that she physically couldn’t get pregnant, until she did.
Have you tried losing weight?
I have to go to my spouse’s appointment and verify everything she says or the doc just assumes she’s exaggerating to get meds. I originally thought she just had bad luck with docs, but it’s like watching the medical degree drain out of their ears! She’s the most dead pan, dry delivery I know, she only plays down her problems, she has experience in the field so documentation of symptoms is something she understands, and even the women docs look at here like she’s asking for a cast on a splinter.
It’s insane, isn’t it? Especially when it comes from a fellow woman.
I had a pre-syncope and could barely get out of bed for a week and a half. When I told my doctor I’m worried about it reoccurring because I don’t know the cause of it, she just smiled and said that’s something that would be hard to diagnose and that I shouldn’t live in fear. And I’m like ??? Your job is literally to diagnose. I also have a few chronic illnesses, so I tend to feel up and down. She straight up told me it’s just anxiety and I should be grateful I don’t have any serious illnesses.
Unfortunately, she’s not the only one like that. Just recently I had a doctor tell me such nonsense that’s debunked with a 2 second internet search that I questioned whether he got his license off Temu.
Too many misogynists and narcissists in the field.
she has experience in the field so documentation of symptoms is something she understands
This jumped out to me as a possible contributor to the distrust. Speaking with that level of familiarity is probably something they see much more often from people experienced in lying/exaggerating to get meds, than from people in the industry, simply because the former group has a lot more people in it overall.
Alt title: I get enraged because I understand absolutely fuck all.
A frank Dr’s reply would be: “I see the wound, but it looks like bleeding stopped(based on the hypothetical comic situation) so lets quickly finish my assessment then let’s fix you up.”
The doctor is not enraged it doesn’t seem.
