Young Docs/Book Makes Me Think/Write

[Guest guest]

ON YOUNG DOCS: I think what counts is SKILL level – not age. I went

through this recently with the breast thing – I did my homework, figured out

what I was looking for in a doc & got it – so despite the fact that doc

wasn’t quite 2 years beyond residency & not yet board certified – I felt

secure dealing with her (for me it was strong skills w/ sentinel node --

fortunately we never got that far -- but she had the skills & experience &

success rate I wanted). Fact is, I’d rather have a youngster – recently

educated & appropriately experienced w/ great success stats -- than some old

goat who hasn’t learned any new tricks in years.

Nonetheless, there were moments when I felt like I should ask to see her

hall pass – or whether her Mother knew where she was & what she was up to

(I’m old enough to BE her mother for goodness sake) – but I remember MY

mother once coming home from visiting someone in the hospital and saying

“that place is being run by a bunch of KIDS!!” – and those kids probably the

old-timers now.

All in all, I’d say if a doc meets your criteria for skill, experience,

compassion & whatever else it is you need, then hang the age thing. I just

wish they’d stop saying things like, “at your age . . ..”

AND, I actually think it’s easier to take & keep control of your own health

care with younger dos – maybe it’s just that I find it easier to be

assertive and insistent with them –or maybe they take direction from “older”

patients better than from young upstarts – or maybe both of the above.

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Read a book recently written by a female NP who works in OB/Gyn. As always,

I have a few bones to pick with the author – but there were some truly

lovely - and for me very thought-provoking -- passages also. It’s not a

fibroid book, it’s a memoir of sorts -- about one practitioner’s personal

experiences in treating & interacting with a few of her patients – but it

gave me some insights into this whole female health process. –I’ll pass on

a few tiny bits here – ones I found to be especially powerful food for

thought. The book is, “I Knew a Woman” by Cortney – who is a poet &

I think writes like one.

First, on the subject of female health care providers – for me this relates

to why is it that (despite some truly terrible experiences with women) so

many of us HOPE for women to be better – think they SHOULD be.

“Although absolute knowledge of another woman’s body is ultimately beyond

anyone’s reach, I have a critical advantage: the bodies of the patients I

tend are like mine. . . . I share the female body’s bounty as well as its

fluctuations, flaws, and undeniable path toward death.

* * *

”I cannot ignore or move too far from the reality of the body, its glorious

beginnings and its subtle endings. The regular beat of my heart is echoed

in the pulse of hormones that bring on the menstrual cycle and also in the

rhythm of my fingers as the palpate a patient’s belly . . .. I expose my

own hidden places in the examining light that I shine on my patients’

bodies. In the clinic, my patients and I are connected to the body

histories and myths of all the women who have come before us and all those

who will come after; together our experiences create the wider environment

we call women’s health.”

Introduction, at pp. xi-xii

“But she knows that because I’m a woman, I’m like her. I, too, have bled

through my jeans unexpectedly. I, too, am experiencing the body’s slow

changes.”

Chapter 3 at p. 14

Also, this made me reflect on the subject of why so many of us go so long

without DEMANDING better treatment – why we accept the pronouncements

telling us to just put up with it:

”Knowing that we’re normal is all most women want. We can tolerate just

about any symptom, any strange occurrence if we know that it falls within

the realm of ‘what’s expected.’ . . . [patients say] ‘I can stand it as

long as I know it’s normal.’”

Chapter 5 at p. 34

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AND, IF YOU HAVEN’T YET WRITTEN TO SUPPORT THE UTERINE FIBROIDS LEGISLATION

-- see my message # 37044 – and PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE DO IT – SOON.

Pat

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