Every fucking time I see anyone other than my primary and OBGYN, despite having a hysterectomy three years ago. Read my chart if you don’t want me to make it weird for you.
“I can’t help you until you lose weight!”
Really, we should just remove the mandatory pregnancy tests before giving medical care to women, and instead inform them before a procedure, that can affect a pregnancy, what the risks are and offer a free pregnancy test before scheduling the procedure.
But then how will we shame queer (or worse childfree) people for having ambitions in life other than birthing and raising future minimum wage workers?
Given the plethora of other ways to marginalize women (and LGBTQ people). I don’t see this being a major issue. We’ll just have to rely on tried and true options like dismissing sexual assault, pay inequity, and pockets.
remove the mandatory pregnancy tests
What does that solve? According to webMD 1/2500 pregnancies are undetected until labour. Meanwhile 1/500 don’t know they are pregnant until week 20.
Obviously doctors shouldn’t be gatekeeping healthcare, and women should be able to opt out, but I don’t see how collecting less data benefits patients.
edit: Like in Canada they started taking blood pressure at everything not just medical doctors. Dentist, physio, everyone. Cuz they weren’t getting enough historical data by the time issues arose?
I don’t see how collecting less data benefits patients.
It takes time and effort to collect and consider that data. You’ll note that we don’t do full body MRI scans of everyone at the ER or when they visit their PCP, and that benefits patients because it reduced costs, respects their time, and makes their Dr. more available. There is a tradeoff to collecting that data, sure, you can argue that administering a pregnancy test is fairly short and consequence free interaction. However, the over-the-counter tests are advertised as “99% accurate” so about 1/100 women are going to get a false results, complicating the care for a lot more people that the 1 in 500 undetected pregnancies.
It also shows preferential treatment for a hypothetical person over the actual person seeking immediate care. Imagine being in pain, confident that you aren’t pregnant, not giving a flying fuck if you are, and the people you are paying hundred of dollars an hour to help you are slow rolling your care because of potential consequences for a statistically unlikely fetus. You would rightly be very fucking pissed off about it.
Asking a woman if she is pregnant should happen before anything is done that will affect her health if she is, and the testing should be opt-in, instead of opt-out with a slew of lawyers and waivers.
You’ll note that we don’t do full body MRI scans of everyone at the ER or when they visit their PCP,
Strawman fallacy. Pregnancy tests are cheap and quick.
There is a tradeoff to collecting that data, sure, you can argue that administering a pregnancy test is fairly short and consequence free interaction. However
Unsubstantiated argument.
“99% accurate” so about 1/100 women are going to get a false results, complicating the care for a lot more people that the 1 in 500 undetected pregnancies.
Another unsubstantiated strawman. An unexpected result can easily be retested.
it also shows preferential treatment for a hypothetical person over the actual person seeking immediate care
Red herring. Already said opting out should be a right.
Imagine being in pain, confident that you aren’t pregnant,
AND BEING WRONG. Which statistically happens as per web MD. 1/500 pregnant women spend half their pregnancy unaware they are pregnant. ~7000 women per year in the USA
the people you are paying hundred of dollars an hour to help you are
Exclusively American problem bro.
and the testing should be opt-in, instead of opt-out with a slew of lawyers and waivers.
Strawman. Again sounds like an exclusively american problem. Opting out in canada is as simple as the doctor clicking a checkbox.
Every problem you’ve described has nothing to do with pregnancy testing.
AND BEING WRONG.
Yeah assuming all women are going to be wrong about the last time they had sex is a problem.
I think they were more concerned about a very small number of women being wrong, not all women.
Which is even worse in my opinion, as a very unlikely problem (1/500 pregnant women didn’t know they were pregnant) affecting a small number of patients (~9% of women visiting the ER are pregnant) is more important than all the reasons not to do a pregnancy test. Some rough math says that’s about 1/5000 women that visit the ER will not know that they are pregnant. We’re administering 5000 tests to catch 1 pregnancy. Low-end estimate puts the cost of administering those tests at 500,000 dollars. Half a million spent on a 1/5000 chance, that someone does not know they are pregnant.
4,999 women will have their care delayed to save 1 statistically likely fetus. 500 of those women will get a false result on their test, creating more delays and issues with their care.
We are disrespecting women’s health so fucking much on the off chance that there may be an unknown potential person in them, it’s ridiculous. And those numbers even assume that the 1/5000 person wouldn’t opt for the test just to be sure when prompted.
From the Wikipedia page about a Strawman fallacy…
A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction
Your literal point that I copy/pasted as a quote in my reply.
I don’t see how collecting less data benefits patients
My point, copy/pasted from my comment.
It takes time and effort to collect and consider that data. You’ll note that we don’t do full body MRI scans of everyone at the ER or when they visit their PCP, and that benefits patients because it reduced costs, respects their time, and makes their Dr. more available.
I am literally providing a very compelling reason on why we collect less data in order to benefit patients.
I refute your ability to understand a strawman fallacy.
After reading your whole comment, I have low confidence your ability to construct an argument, and you seem to repeatedly rely on misunderstanding (or mischaracterizing) of my arguments and the fundemental fallacies you’ve accused me of using.
Rather than dive into your gish gallop, I would ask that you demonstrate your commitment to arguing in good faith by apologizing for accusing me of creating the first “strawman”, and admitting that you either did not understand my argument, did not understand what a strawman is, or admitting that you accused me while intentionally knowing that it was based on false pretenses.
Some people will then refuse the test, wrongly believing that they aren’t pregnant.
Some people are getting the test, and wrongly believing that they are pregnant. What’s your point here?
Some people may be absolutely sure they aren’t pregnant. Testing is necessary because people are unreliable.
Testing is necessary because people are unreliable.
It’s not necessary if the issue is not related to being pregnant.
No shit. But if it is, the test should not be optional.
No, fuck that.
They should tell you “if you are pregnant, this procedure may have these risks to you or the fetus, would you like to take a pregnancy test beforehand?” And if they say “no” then that is the end of it.
Eat more apples
Honestly sometimes I’m glad people mistake me for a cisguy so I don’t have to deal with this bullshit.
Not often, but sometimes.
I’d trade it for passing in a heart beat.
Yeah, much better than the opposite direction and having a doctor overly concerned for your non-existent period 😂
It would suck if you were at the doctor and you failed your heart beat.
“Huh, I think this thing is broken, shows no pulse”
-Naah, I’m just dead on the inside
Don’t certain medications interfere with your hormones? Doesn’t a period change your hormone balance?
Asking when someone’s last period was in the process of a diagnosis seems reasonable.
Removed by mod
Until medication is given and a potential fetus is damaged and everyone is crying how doctors could miss such obvious things
The solution is to tell the cryers to stfu. A living, breathing, human deserves much more consideration than a hypothetical future human.
Yeah definitely better to force women on an individual level to give up private information despite no relation to the ailment that brought them in.
I have never had a doctor force this issue. Any time I’ve said I don’t care to share, they respect that. It’s not hard.
I have never had a doctor adjust treatment because of where I’m at in my menstrual cycle.
The level of care y’all are assuming women get is hilarious.
So you always ask “are you treating me differently and prescribing different pills or doses because of current events?” or how exactly do you know it?
…are you referring to menstrual cycles as current events?
What current events are you talking about?
Yes but this is ignoring the implied context of the doctor not paying attention to what was being said and instead immediately assumes that the woman is “being emotional because of her period”, which unfortunately is an all too common issue that women have to deal with.
Modern medicine is held back by decades of ingrained workplace culture that downplayed women’s struggle.
You still see the doctor as acting in good faith, when the comic is making a statement about how doctors do not engage with women’s health concerns in good faith.
Nah, you’re just over reacting and emotional. It’s just a flesh wound. I don’t know why you would get so worked up about this!
I don’t know why you would get so worked up about this
That’s why he’s asking for her period
😂😂
In chart notes: “Patient is difficult and combative.”
combative
So much so that she even gets involved in shootings!
I went into the ER in Alabama about 20 years ago, and the nurse at intake didn’t even look up when I said there was a hatchet stuck in my leg and started asking if I was a smoker and what my race was.
I cant fucking find it because of all the slop results but just imagine I linked you a comedy skit of a completely apathetic hospital intake person requesting the name and date of birth of a person unconscious being resuscitated with CPR, and they don’t stop robotically and persistently asking the half-corpse intake questions.
Would love to see this. Every time I’ve had the misfortune to take a family member to the ER, it’s disgusting how fast they roll that payment cart up to you and get in your face about insurance, etc.
You tried star award meme.gif
Thanks lemmy-silver.jpg
And? Were you a smoker of any specific race?
Cubans of course.
According to the DSM, Cubans are usually machete wounds. Hatchets are for the Africans and Irish.
Race is like the most irrelevant medical information I could imagine. Might as well ask for shoe size, or what you had for breakfast yesterday.
Could somebody ELI5 to me why Americans think it’s important to know what your genetic lineage is?
In the USA almost all medical practices use standard EMR software from a small number of vendors. Epic EMR is one popular example.
There are some valid medical reasons to know the patient’s race or ethnicity, but IMO it’s mostly about metrics, data harvesting, statistical analysis, etc. There is a lot of money in data, and it’s cheap to store data points like race or ethnicity in a cloud database. And it’s cheap to punch down on workers and make them collect it from patients.
Sometimes this data is used for studies, but that’s not the prime motivating factor. Data = money. Data = job justification. Race is just one data point of many. I won’t speculate on all the things they could use it for, but there is little doubt they want it. They always ask at any provider I have ever been to.
In the USA, there are a frightening number of middle layer business entities that are basically rent-seekers who drive up the cost of health care. These entities are invisible to most of our population, and they like it that way. This network of entities is very complicated and boring (which is a good way to hide evil). A couple of easy examples would include PBMs and PSAOs. Not everything they do is useless but they are also a kind of tautology: we think we need them because we already have them in place.
Lina Khan was trying to clean some of this shit up, but then the Big Stupid of 2024 happened.
It’s actually pretty relevant. Different
racesancestries* have different predispositions for certain diseases.No wonder America’s got a problem with institutional racism if the health system is literally racist.
Edit: I’m not denying that genetics plays a role in medical issues. My wife and I are shortsighted, kid’s shortsighted. My dad and I have ADHD, kid’s got ADHD.
But for race being so relevant I wonder nobody has ever asked my wife, any of my kids or me what race we are. And assuming a scientific relevance, which attributes define race exactly? It is the color of skin, shape of nose, the curliness of hair? Am I black if I’m from North Africa? Am I Caucasian or Asian if I’m from Siberia? If I’m 1/3 black and look like it, am I black even though the other 2/3 are Caucasian?
I have definitely been asked if I’m Hispanic before for medical reasons.
I do genetic research. Acknowledging that there are different genetic predispositions for different genetic ancestries is not racist. It’s like saying that talking about race is the same as racism.
you have no idea how minor the physiological difference are been ethnic groups. it’s almost nothing. most of the differences are straight up racism from the past and it still kills not white people at much high rates in emergency rooms, child birth, and life threatening diagnosis, which was always the point.
edit: If this makes you mad, please, educate yourself, if you diagnose based on ethnicity, then use statistics based on that diagnose are you killing people for not being white enough to get regular treatment without assumptions. are we ignoring cancer markers in ethnicity Irish people because stats say they have diabetes at high rates? no? just people who don’t have pale skin. those stats come with a 20%-30% misdiagnosed rate RIGHT NOW, you think that was better 20 years ago where the stats still are on record?
Is it? Hispanic people have a 50% higher risk of type 2 diabetes for example. Sickle cell is much higher in African American people.
I’m happy to be corrected on this with sources though!
Hey Velma! I was procrastinating at work, when I saw your comment. We don’t use race anymore within medical science. We refer to genetic ancestry based on Principal Components. It’s a subtle, but extremely important distinction in science. Race is a social construct, genetic ancestry is the far better marker. So instead of Hispanic people, we’d say people of Hispanic ancestry
I really appreciate the update on the language used! Ancestry - noted :)
Well, Caucasian Europeans share more DNA with certain African black people than they do with certain other Caucasian Europeans for example. The colour of the skin is but a small factor in our make-up.
It most likely has more to do with where they live, what they eat and their socio-economic status than by how much melanin is in their skin.
Except maybe the proneness to skin cancer and other skin diseases.
There’s certainly exceptions like sickle cell:
Sickle Cell Disease
One in 500 African Americans will develop sickle cell disease, an inherited red blood cell disorder. It is uncommon in other ethnic groups.
https://www.realtoughlawyers.com/blogs/people-of-color-are-often-misdiagnosed
when you diagnose based on race, and you don’t collect data on lesser races, and deny access to health care to lesser races, and you teach doctors how to diagnose based on race, you get REALLY SHIT STATISTICS and then you rely on those statistics to continue to justify racist medical treatment. don’t worry black patient, you don’t have cancer, you’re black! you have diabetes! NEXT!!
Do they feel pain less then white people do? because that’s still taught in medical schools. Do they need to be diagnosed with diabetes instead of cancer when they have the same symptoms of white people with cancer? because not white patients get diagnosed with cancer at slower rates allowing them to die more frequently of cancer compared to white patients using EXACTLY THE ARGUMENT YOUR USING NOW
That is not the argument I’m making.
you’re out here fighting hard to keep medical intake race based. what exactly are you in favor of? Do you not know you’re fighting for deeply racist medical practice in the US?
“what my race was.”
The half-marathon!
Not with an axe in my leg.
Well it might have been a full marathon, that got cut short.
While there is definitely an issue of women receiving worse treatment, the providers have good reasons to ask; namely there are a lot of tests where they have to know if you could be pregnant before they can run them, even an X-ray. If you just tell them you’re pregnant up front, then they can save you a blood draw for an HCG test. Otherwise, they probably will, to make sure.
Edit: This blew up, so I wanted to clarify something. This is clearly a very common and frustrating experience for many women who may feel bullied into giving up private information. I don’t want anyone to think that they must answer all the doctor’s questions. You have a right to refuse to answer questions and to refuse care. Read the rest of the thread and stay informed of your rights.
“No, I am not menstruating.” “No, I have never been pregnant.” I tell them I’m a trans woman. “No, they did not implant a uterus in me.” “Yes, I’m sure. 😅”
I’ve also made a mental note to not pee before doctor’s visits, in case they want me to pee for them.
Going to the doctor hits different now.
I routinely decline urine and blood tests because I got my tubes tied in my 20s and have been on merana for years, both clearly documented in my files. My doctors still somehow magically find a way to treat me without it.
Just food for thought :) I’m sure not every doctor is willing to respect your privacy, but some are :)
That sounds exhausting. I’m sorry that you’re met with so much ignorance and disrespect. I would probably complain to the patient ombudsman if this is a recurring issue.
I think there’s been some spotlight on the sad state of women’s healthcare in the news, but I’ve not seen much about trans care. I hope that improves, but I’m not optimistic under the current administration.
I’m not optimistic under the current administration.
That is what I like to call “a gross understatement”.
They have you do a pregnancy test in those cases regardless.
Yes, they can’t take your word for it. I was just implying that if you already told them you are pregnant then they can save a step since the safe choice is to not do the test.
Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor
Right, but asking about a person’s menstrual cycle is different than asking if they’re pregnant. Just throwing that out there.
Oh yeah, and I definitively think the doctor in the comic is being rude and dismissive. I could see the question being used as a proxy for “are you possibly pregnant”, though.
Also, almost all the intake questionnaires you get at the doctor’s office are templates that they have to complete per policy. I just treat them like when they ask me if I have a loyalty card at the store.
almost all the intake questionnaires you get at the doctor’s office are templates that they have to complete per policy.
Are you aware that “policy data collection” has no bearing on what information you actually need to disclose in order to get care? And that it’s prohibitively invasive in a way that it doesn’t need to be for no reason other than to collect incredibly intimate data? (Lots of women aren’t gunna answer your invasive questions, fuck off!) And that that data never ever is meant to help you, the person who is seeking care, but will help the state or maaaaaybe your possibly progeny, who might not ever exist?
Cuz like. You could show up with no ID and lie your butthole out about your life situation, and your care would be functionally identical (insurance notwithstanding), because they need to due dilligence it either way.
So the data collection about female fertility isn’t required, its just another way to keep women down when abortion legality is questionable or overturned.
I understand there are SOME reasons to ask that info, like abdominal or back pain, but thats not the usual complaint that gets the question.
Yeah, you’re less likely to get a false negative.
If it’s that important, they’ll do a blood draw pregnancy test.
Would you rather be asked a slightly rude question by a doctor or have a blood draw?
I mean, they may do the blood draw anyway, but asking the question saves time and money up front.
I’m mostly here to combat the misinformation from people who have never been pregnant before spouting off “facts” like they’re right.
Yes, but there are other physiological reasons why it may be pertinent. For instance, the clotting factors in your blood may behave somewhat differently depending on which phase of the menstrual cycle you are in, or in relation to several ovarian or hormonal conditions that would affect menstruation and present with changes to the menstrual cycle. That could ultimately be relevant to the treatment for a traumatic injury. But you wouldn’t know that, because you are not a physician
I get what this comic is pointing out, and I understand that many women receive subpar care, but your doctor asking you about your menstrual cycle should NOT be a sticking point for you as a patient. It is frequently relevant, and most doctors are not just asking questions for the fun of it. Overall, medicine is continually advancing, and we are seeing much more research done on female bodies. The majority of graduating physicians are now female, and that scale continues to tip farther and farther each year.
If you find yourself getting annoyed at the questions the doctor is asking you, take a deep breath and try to answer them honestly while continuing to advocate for your needs. Refusing to answer your doctor’s questions rarely does you or your doctor any good
If you find yourself getting annoyed at the questions the doctor is asking you, take a deep breath and try to answer them honestly while continuing to advocate for your needs. Refusing to answer your doctor’s questions rarely does you or your doctor any good
I routinely have to educate my doctors on my various health issues, I will maintain my level of skepticism when it comes to these things after years of medical abuse before I finally received a diagnosis.
Doctors aren’t gods. They are fallible. It is a relationship between patient and doctor and they should respect that over checking a box on a form for federal funding.
All of those things might be relevant if they actually bothered to study how those things happen and change throughout the cycle.
They do not. Laughably do not. I encourage you to verify for yourself that women’s issues are not even studied. Only wothin the last year we got a crash test dummy built to be female from the ground up, rather than a re-scaled male dummy.
None of those things are considerations. None of the realities for women are considered. Mostly because none of those things are remotely known because nobody studies women.
Super fun cycle!
It’s true that a lot of research in the US until the last few decades focused on men. However, any research on the general population has been required to include women since around the 1990s if funded by the government.
There’s been a massive push to catch up on research topics related to women since then. Policies, regulations, and applications follow slowly after research but looking at sex differences is pretty much standard in human research now. Still a whole lot of catching up to do of course.
I work on NIH’s women’s research initiatives so I know a bit about this but it’s easy enough to confirm for yourself. Search PubMed for systematic reviews or meta-analyses from the last 15 or so years on basically any human or public health related topic and you’ll very likely see references to women or sex differences.
Furthermore, you know what kind of data helps progress medical research? Patient data. For instance, knowing where in the menstrual cycle a woman is when she experiences a traumatic injury might later help inform larger demographic studies regarding healing outcomes and hormonal health. Often patients do not see or understand the larger picture, and the things that don’t make sense to them do in fact have a rationale
Verify for myself? I am a woman. I also work in healthcare. I know how frustrating it can be. However, the vast majority of doctors who I know (which I’d imagine is probably a few hundred more than the average person) do actually care about women’s health. There is absolutely a great deal more research that is needed and more work to do to reduce health disparities, but many physicians today are actively engaged in that work. The research is happening. It is slow and it will take a long time, but it is happening.
Ok, do they study those things and apply those findings to actual healthcare?
No? They still barely pay lip service to half the population?
Cool. Handy.
Then they should force men to take pregnancy tests as well. They can’t just take your word for it that you’re not a pregnant transgender man.
I’m offended they don’t do a sperm count and motility check before my routine medical appointments. X-rays can damage them, and there seems to be no priority to safeguard my ability to procreate before my necessary and unreleated medical treatment is initiated.
Sure, if you’re a trans man, perhaps in the middle of your transitioning where maybe there is a chance you could still get pregnant. Not sure if that’s possible. I’m a developer not a doctor. I don’t see why that would be any different, though. I don’t make the rules, either.
Funny you should mention it because I’ve said the same thing during the design of an app we were building where they needed exactly this information. Since they only had one field for “sex” and it was male/female only, I argued maybe they should leave the pregnancy question enabled if they picked male.
Again. But you can’t just look at someone and know they’re not a pregnant trans man. So better force everyone to take a pregnancy test, including cis men, just in case.
These days in certain US states a court could use this date as a starting point to say the abortion pills you used a few months later were for a pregnancy that must have been over six weeks. Or the same doctor could deny you the pills. Even though you might just have very long or very short cycles.
Does HIPPAA block this info without court action? Can an investigator just ask and be told?
It varies by state and then it varies by case. In some of these cases, it was the nurses that reported these women to the police.
Hundreds of US women charged with pregnancy-related crimes since fall of Roe
The report indicates there are far more cases of miscarriage criminalization than have made national headlines. In one widely covered case in late 2023, police charged an Ohio woman with felony abuse of a corpse after she miscarried into a toilet. In another, earlier this year, a Georgia woman who had been found bleeding and unconscious after a miscarriage faced one count of concealing the death of another person, and one count of throwing away or abandonment of a dead body. The charges against both women were ultimately dropped.
Nine cases discovered by Pregnancy Justice involved allegations that women had considered abortions, such as ordering abortion pills or looking for information about abortion online. Only one woman in those cases was charged with violating a criminal abortion ban, likely because it is legal in most states to “self-manage” one’s own abortion. US abortion bans tend to penalize providers and people who help abortion patients, not the patients themselves.
In 2025, lawmakers in at least 12 states – including Alabama and Oklahoma – introduced legislation that would treat fetuses as people, which would leave women who have abortions vulnerable to being charged with homicide. In several of those states, that charge would carry the death penalty.
“What our work has proven is that, unfortunately, anything is possible when it comes to policing pregnancy,” Sussman said.
What guarantee do you have that those rules won’t be revised? Or that someone won’t hack & leak it?
remember it’s Hippa the HIPAA Hippo
Yes this type of information is covered by HIPAA and should never be disclosed without a warrant.
Just because it shouldn’t be disclosed doesn’t mean it’s never disclosed.
It’s HIPAA, not HIPPA and if she or the doctor are being charged with a crime, court is presumably involved.
If that were the case, they would accept “my tubes are tied and I’ve additionally been on long term birth control since I was a teen and thus haven’t had periods or pregnancy risk in decades” or “I have not been sexually active in several years”
But they don’t, they say “just give us an estimate on when the last one was”
Tubal ligation and birth control, while wildly effective, aren’t 100%. Plus, there are probably other reasons they want to know about menstruation other than pregnancy. They’re just checking a box, let 'em get on with it.
No, but they are strong signs that the person is unconcerned with the hypothetical existence of a fetus so early in its term that they have not noticed it yet.
Do you have to regularily answer when your last bowel movement was because it could be related?
No, of course not, not unless it seems -actually- related.
Thats not what women deal with. We are asked even when it is so wildly unlikely to be related (as comic above) as to be functionally impossible as a cause.
Because there’s a chance.
But no, sometimes there isn’t, and I will abort if I just happen to be wrong (something I tell my docs who are concerned I might be pregnant, because I have ZERO desire to have kids), give me my fucking healthcare.
I had my uterus yeeted in 2015 and I kept getting asked until my hair was so white they were willing to accept that I couldn’t remember.
Yeah this is what I mean. We don’t have to answer this question just because it’s a checkbox on a form at the doctor’s office. Sorry it took so long for them to accept what you were saying.
While the comment immediately below this is basically “rofl thats not a problem!”
Lemmy is a trip… supposedly heavily leftist, which strongly implies feminist, but actually anything but…
At this point, im not at all convinced its actual leftism anymore. Its sounding more and more like Green MAGA everywhere I go.
On topic, I am still utterly appalled at how many stories I see about women’s cancer being misdiagnosed by lazy/shithead physicians. I dont know what to do about it though, and frankly its depressing to see community after community willfully ignore the problem.
It gets my goat how leftist and progressive everyone pretends to be here only to see the most sexist shit get typed out into comments. It’s maddening.
I’ve appreciated your comments in this thread a lot <3
I’ve been here for a long time fighting against the absolute dick-wavey crap this platform is. Idk if you have with other accounts, but if not:
first wave - lots of women came with during the api nonsense.
6mths later, most women driven off by a preponderance of bad behavior. Because the vast majority of commenting lemmy are shit men with shit opinions (don’t tell me I’m wrong, idgaf what you say, prove me wrong.)
Every other wave has been a repeat but with fewer women showing up each time. Because every man on this platform seems to think he has authority to speak about women’s issues, and women rightly nope the fuck out.
I genuinely wish I had some other platform to go to, I haven’t liked being here for a long time… but at least it riles me up enough for my feminist flag to fly on fire. Maybe that helps someone.
It may as well be different people, no need to get that mad about people pretending
To counter with another anecdote, my 55-yo wife never gets asked. When I showed her the comic she didn’t understand it. Being Asian, she has no white hair, wrinkles and hasn’t had a hysterectomy.
See my other comment about my oh-so-rare doc actually remembering who I am as a patient, even after not seeing me for a year.
Huh! So all that stuff about “it’s vitally important information for the doctors to know before any treatment” either doesn’t apply to her, or her doctors aren’t competent, or it’s just as bullshit as we always knew. Best of health to her. To you both.
They’re just checking a box, let 'em get on with it.
I don’t answer that question unless it’s pertinent to why I’m seeing a doctor in the first place. We don’t have to give them this information every time.
It’s actually fairly relevant to your overall physiological functioning, hence why they want to know. Not sure why it’s such a sticking point for your doctor to ask a question about your physiological functioning, regardless of whether or not you think it’s relevant. Being a woman myself and a nurse, I understand that medical care is often lacking for women, but doctors assessing where you are in your menstrual cycle is not the reason why. In fact, I would be way more wary of a physician who doesn’t ask
The US is also in the middle of rolling back women’s rights to bodily autonomy and tracking women having miscarriages in order to imprison them.
I don’t give a fuck about giving my last period date if I’m seeing the doctor for a gunshot wound. My doctors don’t push for a period date if I don’t want to give one either.
Tell them it was in march of 1623
Edit: not really, even justifiably annoying a person whose attention to your situation could save your life is a bad idea, but that’s what I always want to tell them
I kinda do that, if they really push against my “are you serious? Genuinely serious?” I give them a date when I was 16, which was like 25 years ago, because its the last time I can reliably say I had one that wasn’t just hormone withdrawal (which is the actual reason the pill gives “periods” in the week of placebo pills, it’s not a real period)
My docs and nurses would genuinely find that funny af tho (their patents are mostly old men, and they find my levity quite disarming and enjoyable because they see me frequently enough for my kind of humor to be a hit) so I am gunna do that the next time they insist.
Honestly the technicians are probably required to fill out the date section of the form in order to proceed to the next tab. Doctors don’t torture people for fun.
As someone who builds said forms: that is why we put “patient declined to answer” as an option along with “not applicable”, “unknown” and other ways to get past the questions without having to put in a fake answer. “The computer won’t let me keep going without you answering the question” is a weak-ass excuse.
Doesn’t mean I won’t fight it, because they don’t actually need to know for most reasons. When they actually need to know, they have ways of asking that eliminate doubt, like “hey you are trying to get a uterine ablation, which causes scar tissue in your uterus that prevents proper implantation of fertile eggs. We need to be entirely sure you are sterile before you get this proceedure done, and that you recognize the implications”. (A proceedure I have tried to have done but it failed because my cervix is amazing!!! Powerful warrior cervix wouldn’t let boiling liquid or energetic mesh in!)
I fight against their data collection bullshit for fun and for others, because there’s no chance whatever that I’m pregnant and I know that. (tubal aside, I haven’t had sex in years and prefer my life that way. My tubal, at this point, is mostly BC in case of rape, I’m otherwise just not generally sexually active). I don’t need some asshole doctor accusing me of getting an abortion because my periods are basically never to begin with.
It’s not a requirement to move onto the next form.
You know I get the joke, I really do. But how hard is it to understand that many people with trauma require a CT scan prior to surgery, which absolutely can radiate and embryo and cause birth defects? Is it really so far-fetched that someone might be pregnant and not know or not want to admit it?
The real joke would be if she was indeed pregnant, and now her actual emergency gets sent to the obgyn department. My wife loves it when the ER don’t want to do their job because baby on board.
Pregnancy and infants for that matter need specialists, it is what it is. It’s like complaining that a general practitioner can’t do a colon bypass.
Sure, they learned the theory, butt
Right. And a GP knows when they can treat something or when they need to send you to the specialist.
The issue (at least in my wife’s hospital) is ER docs seeing pregnant and immediately throwing the case next door, instead of following the proper protocols.OP’s comic is just a patient not seeing the relevance, but the situation is as frustrating (from her point of view) because it appears that some professionals see a patient with a vagina and immediately forget everything else.
It isn’t hard to understand imo. I’m a woman and being asked those questions just comes with having the equipment for it. I actually did refuse to take a pregnancy test prior to a minor surgery (I was on my period so I didn’t see the need) and I had to sign a waiver stating I refused the test and won’t retaliate if any harm comes to the fetus. It’s just par for the course of having a uterus
Most people have extremely limited medical knowledge. I envy them
Yesterday I was standing in the baggage claim customer service desk at the airport, and the woman in front of me was asking about a missing bag. The guy asked to see the bag she had with her and asked her what was inside. She said “Why would you need to see my bag? It has nothing to do with you. The tags on it are clearly from a different airline, and it wasn’t involved in this flight in any way.” She was just holding it for a friend who stepped away.
He just kept insisting “I need to see your bag.” “Why?” “I need to see your bag.” “I’m not showing you my bag, it’s none of your business.” He kept reaching for it.
I thought it was absolutely insane and couldn’t wrap my head around it. Eventually I realized it was because she was a woman that he was being such an obstinate prick. She eventually capitulated, and in my male privilege I thought “Uh uh, make a scene! What’s he going to do? He isn’t a cop!”
Life can be bullshit sometimes.
I’m too young to be sick! Too healthy ‘looking’! Like the fuck. You want me to put on some corpse makeup so you’ll take me seriously? Mom’s friend had breast cancer and they caught it late because she always dressed well, but I’m dressed like a slob and just told I’m lazy instead!!
Hrghghghghhgg
When I went to ENT due to sudden tinnitus and loss of hearing higher frequencies in my left ear (which also felt a bit disorienting), they just tested my hearing with a machine that only went up to 6kHz, she said it was mostly fine, and that humans don’t need to hear above 6kHz anyway.
So hey audiophiles, you’ve heard it, 12kHz sample-rate is HiFi.
I used a tone generator to recreate my tinnitus, it’s about a 13k tone. I didn’t know they stop testing after 6k
ooo, i remembered testing this a while back. mine is a constant pitch: E11 or 42kish (i thought it was E12 but i just tested again to be sure). before my tinnitus showed up, i had damn good relative pitch. now i have nearly perfect pitch, and it’s all comparing the interval to the note that has not stopped ringing for 30 years.
Yeah, science!
We peaked at Doom (1993)
I like how doctors definitely judge you based on how you dress, but there’s no upside.
Person is well dressed and very put together? They obviously don’t have real problems™
Person is messily dressed? Their problems are their own fault (and impossible to solve)
“And before we begin, please step on the scale so we can give you diet advice you have definitely not heard a million times before.”
Weight, temperature, pulse, and blood pressure are baseline diagnostics that go on your chart every time you visit a doctor.
People fixate on weight, because they’re sensitive to it. But if you kept showing up at the doctor with a 100⁰ fever and the doctor kept saying “We need to get that fever down. Liquids, Tylenol, and bed rest are what you need”, what else do you want the doctor to tell you?
“Hey, there’s a secret panacea that will fix all your problems, but we just won’t give it to you, because it’s too cool to prescribe”?
Like, for a gunshot wound, they’re going to stabilize you as best they can and then it’s going to be a bunch of bandages and bed rest. “Hey, have you lost a much of blood due to a recent period?” isn’t even an unreasonable question to ask.
“Hey, have you lost a much of blood due to a recent period?” isn’t even an unreasonable question to ask.
People only lose about 2-3 tablespoons of blood during a period.
Some of us had much heavier periods than that. I went to the doc once complaining of heavy periods that were making me anemic. She decided to do an exam, so I stripped off, took off my pad, and laid down. She was a little delayed coming back, and when she stuck in the speculum and opened it up I dumped 200ml of blood in her lap.
Yeah the “about” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence in my comment.
Eh, you’re velma, I’ll let it slide cuz you do a lot of heavy lifting yourself around here.
Wouldn’t that make the docs question reasonable? Like aren’t they just asking if you’ve had an abnormal period to cover all the bases? From my admittedly ignorant perspective, all women have periods, they happen every month, it’s a major part of your lives and health, seems a normal thing for doctors to ask about, no?
Like if a random dude is asking you how much you bleed on your period that’s fuckin creepy, but that seems like a basic health question for a doctor to ask to me.
It’s not pertinent when treating a wound like in the comic.
A pregnancy isn’t more important than saving the life of the person with the wound.
Doctors already know how much blood people (it’s not just women that have periods by the way) tend to lose during menstrual cycles.
Ya but that wasn’t asked in the comic, it was asked in the comment I’m referring to. I’m aware it wouldn’t be relevant to a wound, but during a normal physical it would seem a routine question.
Like, for a gunshot wound, they’re going to stabilize you as best they can and then it’s going to be a bunch of bandages and bed rest. “Hey, have you lost a much of blood due to a recent period?” isn’t even an unreasonable question to ask.
Did you not read the conversation that preceded your comment?
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My first gf would easily lose that much a day, every day for 5-6 days. Never knew a woman like that before or since, but outliers exist.
Yes outliers exist and no it would not be a reasonable question for a doctor to ask how much you bled during your last period while they’re treating you for a gunshot wound lol
Not to mention weight is 100% required for accurate medication dosing.
Its also valuable to understand trends. I got real sick once, and kept going back to the dr. Had they not taken my weight every visit, we wouldn’t have been able to track that i lost almost 30 pounds in a month
If it was just put in the chart, it’s not a problem.
The biggest problem is when weight is considered as the first and only medical explanation for symptoms that would prompt further inquiry in a person who isn’t overweight.
The second problem is people are tired of hearing advice about how to lose weight, like, wow, thanks, never heard that before.
The first problem contributes to poorer outcomes because diagnosis and treatment is delayed or missed. And they both contribute to overweight people being more reluctant to go to the doctor, which, again, contributes to poorer outcomes.
IMHO, and not being a doctor or even in the medical field, I think obesity is America’s #1 health problem. Every time I’m in the doctor’s office, every time, I’m the only non-fat person. Now imagine the doctor’s experience. “Fat people keep coming in with problems and I can’t figure it out!” I can see how they get blinded after awhile.
Another thing I’ve noted, next time you see someone in a leg cast, they won’t be skinny unless they’re obviously a teenage athlete. You won’t be able to unsee it.
So I can’t blame docs for wanting to eliminate the issue before them. I feel ya though. I’m a functioning alcoholic. Try getting treated for anything once you admit that.
“Doc, I’ve been drinking a 12-pack of light beer a day for 20-years, this symptom is completely new.”
“Have you thought about cutting down?”
🙄
I’ll leave you with this thought: Installing satellite for a little old preacher man in South Chicago,
“Shalafi, you ever hear the term ‘little old man’ or ‘little old lady’?”
“Of course.”
“Why you think that is?”
Funny enough for a preacher, his take was that we didn’t evolve to be tall or fat and our bodies can’t handle it into old age. 25-years later, that’s still a compelling take.
We little old ladies are little because we shrink, honey. I don’t even have osteoporosis (yay) and I have excellent posture, but I’ve already lost an inch.
I’ve discovered that when you’re old they start measuring again, like when you were a kid. And they replace “When was your last period?” with “Have you had any falls?”
(From now on, my reply to that one is going to be “I refuse to answer on the grounds it will jinx me,” because I said No and then tripped in the middle of crossing the street the next day.)
I brought spinal compression up in that interesting conversation! But as we both agreed, it’s more than that. How many truly tall or truly large people you know in their 70s or 80s?
Anecdotally, the only large elderly person I ever knew was great-grandpa. I suspect he looked like the barrel-chested gangster in “Last Man Standing”. :) He could barely walk in his 70s, BUT, made it to his mid-90s in bed. (Weirdly enough, I cannot find a pic of that actor!)
How many truly tall or truly large people you know in their 70s or 80s?
Most of my dad’s brothers. Anecdotally, that’s about 10 men right there.
Obesity has a lot of social factors to it, too. The only cheap food is junk food, you have to drive everywhere, and your job is sedentary, and you don’t have money to play hockey… I mean, there’s a lot that goes into it. Making everything an individual medical issue is bad policy.
Have a little (or a lot of meat) on your bones is protective for bone breaks for people with osteoporosis, so you might see some leg casts on old skinny people.
But the main thing is, yes, to do a thorough workup and not stop at the first and most obvious possible cause of a symptom. The second thing to do is recognize that the person probably is a) aware of the problem and b) has all the same information you have. I’ve never been surprised by what a doctor told me, neither that I was overweight, or that I change change my diet, or that I should get more exercise. So why waste that time and also endanger the relationship with that?
I think nowadays at least we have GLP-1, which I’ve got some doubts on, but at least it’s something that’s more likely to work than Another Diet.
The problem is the doctor is a doctor. It’s the same with psychologists, the patients are depressed because their life is depressing, but the only thing the shrink can do about it is try and get them to feel better.
By making the problem the patient and not their life, the psychologist is actively doing harm.
But the result is that the psychologists has clients, so the psychologist gets paid, and from that comes a whole host of emotional justifications.
The psychologist isn’t making the patient the problem, simply, changing the material conditions is beyond the scope. If the patient is suicidal because they’re broke, you, as a doctor, can’t prescribe them more money. The best you can do is get them to cope with being broke, and try and put them into a mindset that will enable them to try and stop being broke. The alternative is to tell the patient “well, you’re fucked” and leave.
Likewise, if a patient has a weight problem because they live in a food desert, you, can’t follow them around and control what they eat. All you can do is give them meds for the immediate symptoms, and try and get them to make an effort to lose weight.
Unless you have a stubborn parent, most people around you don’t tell you to lose weight because it is a sensitive topic.
The truth is it’s in the best interest of your health to lose weight and the doctors office should be the one place where you hear that regularly and hopefully any judgment is just perceived. The more consistent this is the less it should seem targeted or judged. A lot of doctors don’t do it anymore and you can probably find one. I get told this and it’s a conversation starter for me to talk about obstacles and progress. I also get told by the dentist to floss more every damn time, but being so sensitive about this as to not see a Dr or dentist seems like an issue in and of itself. Talking about the sensitivity with someone might be the first step in being able to deal with the weight issue.Unless you have a stubborn parent, most people around you don’t tell you to lose weight because it is a sensitive topic.
Hilarious.
But if you kept showing up at the doctor with a 100⁰ fever
With a 100° fever, you’re not going to the doctor, because you are just dead.
Edit: I’m assuming Celsius here as no specifier of given
100F I’m assuming
Bro, what?
Wow you are very clever.
Ah young one, you see the reason you have no motivation, feel exhausted and sad all the time, and no longer feel any joy from activities is due to a lack of exercise.
Look kid, I’ll do some jumping jacks. Now I’m Smiling! See! You try, and you’ll see. Exercise releases dopamine so that’ll fix you up.
Thanks doc
Science has finally discovered what people have known forever: exercise doesn’t release dopamine in all people.
Trouble swallowing? Just take these pills every four hours for two weeks and you’ll be cured!
That’s Parkinson’s for ya. Except the pills are forever.
I see the exhaustion with my wife, because she doesn’t move around. It feeds on itself. “I’m too tired to walk a mile.” Then you will always be too tired to walk a mile.
So few of us get exercise that my doc is happy when I answer “several” to, “How many times a week do you get your heart rate up?” And I’m not talking about “real” exercise, just simple shit like dragging my kayak in and out the swamp, or paddling like mad to get out the sun, or lifting heavy stuff working around the yard.
My little kids screamed while hiking when I told them the creek was 1.2 miles. “A MILE!?” When I was their age we started gym class with a mile jog and then did other stuff. (Two months later they could make that trip with no pain or fatigue.)
As with my comment above on obesity, I can’t blame docs for wanting to eliminate obvious issues. If my windshield is filthy and I’m complaining to the mechanic about my dim headlights, he’s going to start with the obvious. Cleaning the windshield won’t fix the headlights, but it will help and allow him to focus on troubleshooting further. (OK, that’s kinda sloppy but you get the idea.)
Your wife might be anemic, it often goes undiagnosed in women.
Good idea! She eats loads of rice, not much if any iron. Going to ask her. I have iron pills we can try as well. One other thing, we cook in cast iron almost exclusively, so that should cover iron intake?
But anyway, I’ve been so low on blood (bleeding hemeroids) that they damned near did a transfusion on me, still had plenty of energy.
Fellow h-bleeder here, they had to give me iron infusions. I was exhausted and noticed hearing my pulse in my ears because my heart was working overtime trying to oxygenate me
They can bleed that much‽ Mine just ache sometimes and bleed a tiny bit if I don’t use a bidet or eat enough fiber
It varies, between people and in my case over time. I got mine injected and was “cured” for a few years but it eventually flared up again. I should go again but my situation doesn’t allow for it right now. Metamucil helps more than anything else.
It’s also pertinent to certain medication dosing regimens which are weight based, but I’m sure most people just get triggered with their self-esteem issues when they step on the scale so they assume it’s for the doctor to poke fun at them for being fat.
Yes, there are medical reasons to step on a scale.
And if someone has had an eating disorder, stepping on a scale and being told to lose weight is the opposite of good medical practice.
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Well, not every condition, but see my comment above as to what I’ve observed in life.
“Hm… Is it possible you’re pregnant?”
And he goes ‘we just got your dna test results from the lab. The pistol is your kid’s father’(the bullet is the kid)
it’s important to ensure they don’t administer some medications to pregnant women.
however, the amount of times doctors have systematically dismissed their patients opinions when they have a vagina is outrageously high.
I love telling them I don’t have a uterus.
“Are you sure you can’t be pregnant?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“We do need to know if you’re pregnant or nursing.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Would you be willing to take a pregnancy test?”
“I don’t have a uterus. I’m not pregnant. Can we move on?”
it’s important to ensure they don’t administer some medications to pregnant women.
I’m being a bit of a broken record, but they administer pregnancy tests in those cases.
They also don’t ask about your period for the first question when you come in with a gunshot wound.
Yup, the wounded person’s life is more important than a potential clump of cells anyway.
Maybe to you. But is not “my body my choice” all about letting the woman decide that?
I would sacrifise my life anytime if it would help my unborn kid survive.
Your unborn kid wouldn’t survive if you sacrificed your life in this scenario, but ok.
Women have been faced with the choice of saving themselves or their soon-to-be-born child. OP is saying they would opt for the latter. That would be an edge-case, but it can happen.
Punched that question into ChatGPT to see what it spit out. Yep, only a thing in extreme edge cases. It’s almost always, “Baby’s gonna die anyway, save yourself.” But there were some rare instances that weren’t impossible.
I’m aware - I’ve been cut open on a surgery table in order to save my child.
We’re talking about in the case of a patient coming in with a gunshot wound. Doctors are typically going to focus on saving the person in front of them before thinking of saving the clump of cells inside of the patient.
