If you read my initial post, that's not at all what I said. Yes, when I was younger and first started going to the gyn I would have said "ew, he's a guy and he can't see it." But as I have grown older and I look forward to marriage soon I have realized the deeper reasoning behind that. Yes, it is because he's a guy. But it is because he's a guy and he's NOT MY HUSBAND. Like it or not, agree with me or not, but I believe that only my husband has the right to my body, and that is a little bit more than a knee-jerk reaction.
If you have acute appendicitis, will you request a heterosexual female surgeon?
If you needed heart/chest surgery, will you request a heterosexual female CT surgeon?
If you have a bladder problem, will you request a heterosexual female urologist? (Not too many female urologists running around, by the way.)
If only your husband has a "right to your body," then why does a female ob/gyn have a "right to your body?"
If your husband were ill with colon cancer, would you request a heterosexual male surgeon for him as well? I would assume that you would think that only you have a right to his body.
You say you really try to get to know your patients, that you try hard to have their best interests in mind...but as long as they're not mine. You have unilaterally dismissed my viewpoints and refused to "take my concerns seriously."
a) You're not my patient. Come on, it's a forum - it's the one opportunity I get to question these kinds of beliefs. (Fortunately, at my rotation site, there weren't that many patients who refused a male doctor or a male medical student.)
b) I wouldn't dismiss your viewpoints if I found that they were sound. But I have questions about them (see above).
And guess what, the whooooolllllleeeee world passes judgment because of gender, race, sexuality, speech, etc.
Actually, guess what? The whooooolllllleeeee world doesn't pass judgement on these things. Some patients are actually just glad to get a competent doctor, and are perfectly capable of objectively assessing competence outside of such trivial factors like gender, race, sexuality, etc.
We have some very good male ob/gyns at our hospital. Patients raved about them, despite the fact that they were guys.
If that farmer isn't comfortable with me as the vet for his livestock simply because I'm female, he's not going to be as open or forthcoming, he's going to be reluctant to call me in the face of an emergency and on and on and on. In that case I ABSOLUTELY think he's a sexist backwards person, but I guarantee you his cattle will be better off with my male colleague. Not because he's a better vet (though he may be) but because of the client's perceptions. And that's just life.
And exactly how is that "scary" again?
It is scary to me because I feel like those kind of knee-jerk reactions have negatively affected the field of Ob/gyn. I feel like it's negatively affecting medicine, period.
And, at what point do you draw the line? Sure, women don't want a male ob/gyn in the room. But some women refuse to have a black ob/gyn in the room. At what point do you start saying, "I'm sorry, but I can't honor your personal beliefs"? I honestly don't know.
Ob/gyn is a great field. I think that men have an important place in ob/gyn - which some lay people will tell you is not the case. I find it sad that men are getting shoved out of the field in some places. I find it scary when people think of ob/gyn as a field exclusively for women, because I think that it has led to its reputation among other doctors as a minefield of hormones, b***hiness, and mediocre doctors. I don't think that these things accurately characterize OB/gyn, but I cannot tell you how many medical students and residents do. It's sad.
Maybe it is "just life," but I think that it's time for a change.
Finally, I find it scary, because I feel like patient's misconceived, poorly informed notions about the relationship between a male ob/gyn and his female patients are adding to the problems with this field. The knee-jerk reaction that, because it's a pelvic exam, there must be something sexual about it is so wrong I can't even explain it - just suffice it to say that, after my ob/gyn rotation, I've decided to adopt.
I'm on family right now and I actively avoid the dreaded well woman exam patients.
