A Question

[pecunium]

I have seen, as I travel to and fro in the net I keep seeing something I don't understand.

Women telling men they really don't want to look behind the curtain at TMI posts about menstruation.

Now, I understand warning people about TMI posts. Descriptions of the details of surgeries, accidents and all manner of gruesome goings on are not for everyone.

What I don't understand is why that single topic gets that warning.

Are men, as a class, that easily squicked?

Comments

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I've heard that gynecologists do probe the anus.

The problem for women, is indeed, as you say that they are frequently lied to, disparaged and so on And that is hellish.. Yet men can find themselves humiliated, insulted and so on by physicians too. Not necessarily sexually -- it being assumed that you have the IQ of a rock when your skin is darker than pink is not sexual -- but humilation just the same.

I can remember one physical where the physician, after asking me what I did and being told decided that I couldn't be a college professor and must be a student and put that in his notes. This was after he got very upset when he came in saying 'Hello, Fragano, I'm Dr X' (I forget his name) and I said, 'In that case, I'm Dr Ledgister'. He seemed to think that I was presumptuous or dishonest. I thought he was patronising and rude. It didn't make for a pleasant experience. Certainly not as harrowing as the ones descibed in those posts, nowhere near, but very uncomfortable.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

That Attitude used to be almost universal among physicians -- what I think of as the "A Doctor is a god" syndrome. Maybe it can be useful -- the placebo effect, as it were -- but some of us aren't manipulated by it. By nature, I'm a first-name person (actually, nickname, for me) but I'm also (strongly) a reciprocal person -- if someone wants to be called "Doctor X", okay, but in that case (as you indicate) I'm "Mister Fitch", and if The Doctor, or The President, addresses me as "Don", I'm going to reciprocate with "Joe" or "Helen" or "George" or whatever. (Of course, I use "Doctor", or "Nurse" when the status is apparent and I don't know the person's name, but that's a Special Case.)

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I agree with you.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I've got the habit of knowing what's going on, and askng relevant questions. I've never had this fail to get the doctor treating me as a reasonable person.

In some cases (esp. as relates to non-rheumatologists dealing with my auto-immune disorder) this leads to them asking me questions.

The only physician I've ever had treat me as an object was the internist who diagnosed my Reiters. The second, and third time I saw him he was more human (though both times he treated me, sort of, as property).

And yeah, I expect a reciprical level of respect. In military hospitals it's actually pretty good. Doctors tend to not wear rank as much as they could, and to have what, appears, to be a real repsect for the patient (as a rule).

TK

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yup, the four military (Captain) doctors I served under/with in the 160th Med. Co. (one during U.S. training, one in Japan, two during the eight months in Korea) all seemed to have a strong element of "I consider myself a Physician first, and a Soldier second... if at all" (as Capt. LeCaille, I think, actually put it), and two of them were RA, rather than Draftees.

Degrees of Attitude seem to vary greatly by individual, locale (Kaiser HMO apparently puts its MDs & Nurses through a stiff PR indoctrination course), MedSchool & Internship, and era -- the past twenty years have seen a big change in the expected Style in which the doctor-patient relationship is handled. Mostly for the better, I think, though I've had a couple of doctors who didn't ask enough questions, or the right ones, and many patients have even less medical/health awareness than I do. (And then there was the one doctor who didn't realize that a pain in the arm-pit might suggest angina even if it didn't "radiate down the arm" [which seems to be the key phrase from the textbooks].) Mind you, I'm okay with doctors who look at me and see only the symptoms/disease, as long as they do a good repair job. One of the reasons I like Kaiser HMO is that anything serious gets several doctors in on it, and they pay more attention to the welfare of the patient than to the Face of any of themselves.