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Feb. 2nd, 2005 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
molly_oYou might think the upcoming rant is about fertility, but you would be wrong; it's really about the amazing arrogance of medical professionals, in particular *male* medical professionals.
So there's this phenomenon where you (if "you" are female) can take your temperature first thing every morning and chart it, and the resulting graph indicates the occurrence of various phenomena related to the reproductive system and can be a useful diagnostic tool. And a woman who is a health care professional wrote a book explaining all of this, and many many intelligent women read this book and chart their temperatures and as a result know a lot more than they used to about how their body works. But you know what? I have met with two doctors to discuss my reproductive system, and I brought eight months' worth of charts to these meetings, and neither doctor spared them more than a glance -- by which I mean they glanced across their desk at the stack of charts in my hand. They didn't even flip through the pieces of paper. They were completely dismissive of the entire process -- politely dismissive, but dismissive nonetheless.
I can't even begin to explain how much this frustrates me. I mean, the practical implications for my particular situation are relatively insignificant -- I'd already read up about how to interpret the charts, and my results didn't point to any particular diagnosis -- but what if they *did*? I mean, I could understand if these guys actually read the charts and chose to withhold diagnosis until whatever the charts indicated had been confirmed independently, but these guys didn't even read the charts. And *that* has nothing do with how useful the charts might or might not be -- how much could it hurt to spend two minutes reading the chart? -- it has *everything* to do with discouraging me from taking an active role in my medical care.
Sometime around the turn of the century, the AMA encouraged doctors to use latin terms for diseases, body parts, etc., because it would remind patients that doctors knew things they didn't and reinforce the public impression of doctors as knowledgeable professionals. It bears repeating: the AMA advocated deliberately confusing patients so that doctors would have a mystique about them. Nothing has changed.
Oh, and the book that explains about charting? It's called "Taking Charge of Your Fertility." I'd love to, but how does my doctor like it? Not so much.
On a totally different topic: Mark and I saw Alone in the Dark. I'm not positive, but I don't think anyone in the movie was ever actually alone in the dark. And Tara Reid? Was just not believable as a "genius" anthropologist. By way of comparison, Denise Richards was infinitely -- infinitely! -- more believable as a geologist in that Bond movie in which it was impossible to believe she was a geologist. I could MAYBE believe Tara Reid was an anthropology intern, but even that is something of a stretch. By comparison, Christian Slater and Stephen Dorff weren't half bad. Though there was one scene in which Dorff angrily overturned a table, and who could think of anything but Britney's video? And then Christian and Tara had a sex scene (my eyes!!) which was mercifully brief (Christian is in decent shape, but he's no Ryan Reynolds, and Tara showed less skin that she does on the red carpet).
It was kinda fun to play spot-the-influence though:
-- bullets with light frequencies (Blade)? check
-- scary cat-and-mouse in a museum (The Relic)? check
-- zombies (Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later)? check
-- scary jaws with glistening, dripping teeth looming behind an unsuspecting someone's head (Alien et al)? check
-- weird reptiles that only come out in the dark (Pitch Black)? check
-- old scientist guy explaining all the gadgets available to Our Hero (every Bond movie)? check
-- geek in a duster (Indiana Jones) AND chase scene through a market (IJ and many, many other films)? check
-- secret government agency opening a doorway to evil (Hellboy)? check
-- the splendor that is Vancouver (where do I begin)? check
and probably many, many more that I'm just not thinking of right now.
Oh! and probably my favorite part was when Mark said, "The smartest thing in the movie was just said by the dumbest person." Heh. If you see it, you'll know EXACTLY when he's talking about.
So there's this phenomenon where you (if "you" are female) can take your temperature first thing every morning and chart it, and the resulting graph indicates the occurrence of various phenomena related to the reproductive system and can be a useful diagnostic tool. And a woman who is a health care professional wrote a book explaining all of this, and many many intelligent women read this book and chart their temperatures and as a result know a lot more than they used to about how their body works. But you know what? I have met with two doctors to discuss my reproductive system, and I brought eight months' worth of charts to these meetings, and neither doctor spared them more than a glance -- by which I mean they glanced across their desk at the stack of charts in my hand. They didn't even flip through the pieces of paper. They were completely dismissive of the entire process -- politely dismissive, but dismissive nonetheless.
I can't even begin to explain how much this frustrates me. I mean, the practical implications for my particular situation are relatively insignificant -- I'd already read up about how to interpret the charts, and my results didn't point to any particular diagnosis -- but what if they *did*? I mean, I could understand if these guys actually read the charts and chose to withhold diagnosis until whatever the charts indicated had been confirmed independently, but these guys didn't even read the charts. And *that* has nothing do with how useful the charts might or might not be -- how much could it hurt to spend two minutes reading the chart? -- it has *everything* to do with discouraging me from taking an active role in my medical care.
Sometime around the turn of the century, the AMA encouraged doctors to use latin terms for diseases, body parts, etc., because it would remind patients that doctors knew things they didn't and reinforce the public impression of doctors as knowledgeable professionals. It bears repeating: the AMA advocated deliberately confusing patients so that doctors would have a mystique about them. Nothing has changed.
Oh, and the book that explains about charting? It's called "Taking Charge of Your Fertility." I'd love to, but how does my doctor like it? Not so much.
On a totally different topic: Mark and I saw Alone in the Dark. I'm not positive, but I don't think anyone in the movie was ever actually alone in the dark. And Tara Reid? Was just not believable as a "genius" anthropologist. By way of comparison, Denise Richards was infinitely -- infinitely! -- more believable as a geologist in that Bond movie in which it was impossible to believe she was a geologist. I could MAYBE believe Tara Reid was an anthropology intern, but even that is something of a stretch. By comparison, Christian Slater and Stephen Dorff weren't half bad. Though there was one scene in which Dorff angrily overturned a table, and who could think of anything but Britney's video? And then Christian and Tara had a sex scene (my eyes!!) which was mercifully brief (Christian is in decent shape, but he's no Ryan Reynolds, and Tara showed less skin that she does on the red carpet).
It was kinda fun to play spot-the-influence though:
-- bullets with light frequencies (Blade)? check
-- scary cat-and-mouse in a museum (The Relic)? check
-- zombies (Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later)? check
-- scary jaws with glistening, dripping teeth looming behind an unsuspecting someone's head (Alien et al)? check
-- weird reptiles that only come out in the dark (Pitch Black)? check
-- old scientist guy explaining all the gadgets available to Our Hero (every Bond movie)? check
-- geek in a duster (Indiana Jones) AND chase scene through a market (IJ and many, many other films)? check
-- secret government agency opening a doorway to evil (Hellboy)? check
-- the splendor that is Vancouver (where do I begin)? check
and probably many, many more that I'm just not thinking of right now.
Oh! and probably my favorite part was when Mark said, "The smartest thing in the movie was just said by the dumbest person." Heh. If you see it, you'll know EXACTLY when he's talking about.