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Two things happened today that got me thinking.
First, Elise was looking at our photo collages, and despite my strategic cropping of infant pictures she still started to pick up on the fact that some of them were obviously taken in hospitals. She immediately got very worried looking and asked, "Hosp-tal? WHY? Happened?"
I realized in that moment, as I considered my answer, that Elise has no basis whatsoever for even knowing that babies would ever be born in a hospital. She knows Aaron went to the hospital when he broke his arm, and when he stepped on a nail, and she knows Nana was in the hospital when she had something bad happen to her brain (a stroke), and that's it.
Moreover, she actually has a really awesome, positive view of birth that suddenly made me SO HAPPY - because she knows Aunt Laura pushed her baby cousin Elizabeth out in her own bed at home with a midwife. And she watched Chrysanthemum push out seven kittens in my bed.
So when she saw pictures of newborn babies in hospitals she assumed something horrible must have befallen them.
AND SHE WAS RIGHT.
(whether speaking of Isaac, born premature after a misdated pregnancy and scheduled repeat cesarean and rushed to a NICU; or Jake, born big and healthy before catching penicillin-resistant staph from the hospital nursery and being put in quarantine as they flew in meds; or herself, as she had true legitimate problems that originated outside of the hospital).
Can I just say, I look at that picture of me holding her, that first small real smile that reaches my eyes because she's not hooked up to anything and she's coming home with us soon, she's AWAKE and she's nursing and won't need a g-tube and she looks at me with recognition, and smiles, and I think at past-me, "You don't even know you have a big ol' laparatomy sponge inside of you. You don't even know what you should be praying about, yet". And let me tell you: she wouldn't have even cared, at that point. It would not have even registered.
*sigh*
Way worse, far more important:
This is one of several articles out there right now by or about individual medical students who are speaking out about the practice of it being routine for med students to practice doing (vaginal) pelvic exams on unconscious women while they're down for other surgeries. This is done without consent or knowledge, often by big groups who crowd into the room.
http://www.theunnecesarean.com/blog/2010/8/30/medical-student-wont-perform-pelvic-exams-on-anesthetized-pa.html
The last time I saw something like this, it was from Canada, and reported by Americans who said that would just never happen here in the US. This article says something very different, as well as talking about how this is a worldwide problem but that public outcry can and does change it - this has been eradicated in New Zealand and is being fought against in England.
Highlight from the article:
So, how can a woman prevent non-consensual pelvic exams happening to her?
All you can do is ask and hope that your doctor will honor your request. Once you’re asleep, however, you have no power. And what a powerless thing for women to know this goes on and think, “Well, I’m just going to have to trust my doctor.”
What if you don’t trust your doctor?
Women can write on their bikini line, “I do not give consent for medical students to practice pelvic exams on me” in marker. Then as soon as the clothes come off or the robe is lifted and all the medical students are getting on their latex gloves they can see that message. And that will stop them.
I was inspired to think up this tip because of patient advocates like Bernie Siegel, M.D., who recommend that patients use a magic marker to write “Wrong leg” or “Wrong arm” on their healthy body parts to prevent them their doctor from performing surgery on the wrong limb - a common mistake.
There is also quite a lot of interesting info in there about how first and second year med students are almost universally horrified by the idea of doing a pelvic exam on an unconscious patient without their consent or knowledge, but 3rd and 4th years are usually fine with it, and most doctors require it. Even though it's deemed unethical by the AMA and has been made illegal in Massachusetts (where the guy in that article claims it also still happens "all the time").
What is this process by which people become so unfeeling and lacking in basic empathy that they can no longer see someone laid out unconscious as a real person? Is there a way to circumvent that while allowing them to be able to do their jobs well and leave it there when they go home?
I think it's important for people to know about this, and tell everyone they're not ok with it when they have occasion to go in for sugery, and for med students to ban together in groups to refuse to do it. I understand there is so much on the line for any one med student and it probably feels almost impossible to say "no" (though I'm cheering for those who do).
You might guess that a story like that has the ability to really bother someone who's had tons of surgery and needs more in the future. If so, YOU'RE RIGHT.
Just thinking about it makes me go very, very still - in mind and body - and become aware of my breathing. A way to hold back the flood of fury, and fear.
I believe that having people cut you open and put their hands and instruments inside of you has tremendous potential for mental, emotional and spiritual damage - often justified or outweighed by serious medical issues, but still real. Quantifiable, tangible damage to peoples' psyches, that we don't know how to quantify yet. These pelvic exams are just another layer and level of the depression nurses know to expect following peoples' surgeries, but not how to explain.
First, Elise was looking at our photo collages, and despite my strategic cropping of infant pictures she still started to pick up on the fact that some of them were obviously taken in hospitals. She immediately got very worried looking and asked, "Hosp-tal? WHY? Happened?"
I realized in that moment, as I considered my answer, that Elise has no basis whatsoever for even knowing that babies would ever be born in a hospital. She knows Aaron went to the hospital when he broke his arm, and when he stepped on a nail, and she knows Nana was in the hospital when she had something bad happen to her brain (a stroke), and that's it.
Moreover, she actually has a really awesome, positive view of birth that suddenly made me SO HAPPY - because she knows Aunt Laura pushed her baby cousin Elizabeth out in her own bed at home with a midwife. And she watched Chrysanthemum push out seven kittens in my bed.
So when she saw pictures of newborn babies in hospitals she assumed something horrible must have befallen them.
AND SHE WAS RIGHT.
(whether speaking of Isaac, born premature after a misdated pregnancy and scheduled repeat cesarean and rushed to a NICU; or Jake, born big and healthy before catching penicillin-resistant staph from the hospital nursery and being put in quarantine as they flew in meds; or herself, as she had true legitimate problems that originated outside of the hospital).
Can I just say, I look at that picture of me holding her, that first small real smile that reaches my eyes because she's not hooked up to anything and she's coming home with us soon, she's AWAKE and she's nursing and won't need a g-tube and she looks at me with recognition, and smiles, and I think at past-me, "You don't even know you have a big ol' laparatomy sponge inside of you. You don't even know what you should be praying about, yet". And let me tell you: she wouldn't have even cared, at that point. It would not have even registered.
*sigh*
Way worse, far more important:
This is one of several articles out there right now by or about individual medical students who are speaking out about the practice of it being routine for med students to practice doing (vaginal) pelvic exams on unconscious women while they're down for other surgeries. This is done without consent or knowledge, often by big groups who crowd into the room.
http://www.theunnecesarean.com/blog/2010/8/30/medical-student-wont-perform-pelvic-exams-on-anesthetized-pa.html
The last time I saw something like this, it was from Canada, and reported by Americans who said that would just never happen here in the US. This article says something very different, as well as talking about how this is a worldwide problem but that public outcry can and does change it - this has been eradicated in New Zealand and is being fought against in England.
Highlight from the article:
So, how can a woman prevent non-consensual pelvic exams happening to her?
All you can do is ask and hope that your doctor will honor your request. Once you’re asleep, however, you have no power. And what a powerless thing for women to know this goes on and think, “Well, I’m just going to have to trust my doctor.”
What if you don’t trust your doctor?
Women can write on their bikini line, “I do not give consent for medical students to practice pelvic exams on me” in marker. Then as soon as the clothes come off or the robe is lifted and all the medical students are getting on their latex gloves they can see that message. And that will stop them.
I was inspired to think up this tip because of patient advocates like Bernie Siegel, M.D., who recommend that patients use a magic marker to write “Wrong leg” or “Wrong arm” on their healthy body parts to prevent them their doctor from performing surgery on the wrong limb - a common mistake.
There is also quite a lot of interesting info in there about how first and second year med students are almost universally horrified by the idea of doing a pelvic exam on an unconscious patient without their consent or knowledge, but 3rd and 4th years are usually fine with it, and most doctors require it. Even though it's deemed unethical by the AMA and has been made illegal in Massachusetts (where the guy in that article claims it also still happens "all the time").
What is this process by which people become so unfeeling and lacking in basic empathy that they can no longer see someone laid out unconscious as a real person? Is there a way to circumvent that while allowing them to be able to do their jobs well and leave it there when they go home?
I think it's important for people to know about this, and tell everyone they're not ok with it when they have occasion to go in for sugery, and for med students to ban together in groups to refuse to do it. I understand there is so much on the line for any one med student and it probably feels almost impossible to say "no" (though I'm cheering for those who do).
You might guess that a story like that has the ability to really bother someone who's had tons of surgery and needs more in the future. If so, YOU'RE RIGHT.
Just thinking about it makes me go very, very still - in mind and body - and become aware of my breathing. A way to hold back the flood of fury, and fear.
I believe that having people cut you open and put their hands and instruments inside of you has tremendous potential for mental, emotional and spiritual damage - often justified or outweighed by serious medical issues, but still real. Quantifiable, tangible damage to peoples' psyches, that we don't know how to quantify yet. These pelvic exams are just another layer and level of the depression nurses know to expect following peoples' surgeries, but not how to explain.
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