The current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association contains an article whose headline is:…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
The current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association contains an article whose headline is:…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments9126 - ChasUK
In case this gets through, has anyone heard from Jacqui yet? Would be a relief to know she is doing okay.
May the Christmas Magic bring health, wealth and peace to you all. May the joy and peace of Christmas be with you all through the Year
Wishing you a season of blessings from heaven above. Happy Christmas! Take care x
9127 - Elizabeth (Aust)
Chas, Jacqui has been in my thoughts too, hope she's doing well.
9128 - Alice (Australia)
Elizabeth, about 2 weeks ago my posts were blocked too, so I was unable to post anything for a few days. Then the whole blog was down for 2-3 days. Now it seems to work for me.
It looks like a random error/problem, because a few people complained lately that they can't post, while some others still managed to publish their messages.
9129 - OverItAll
Sorry for backtracking:
Chrissy: YES, males do undergo genital exams, starting at the first checkup and then every so often (to make sure the testes have "dropped"), but it's usually done by a Pediatrician or, when they're older, urologist. My 2.5 month old son had his testicles checked at his first 3 doctor visits, to make sure they were "normal" (I asked her to check the last 2 times due to my Unilateral Renal Agenesis causing testicular problems in offspring).
Sue: What you say about hospital birthing is absolutely TRUE. That's why I did a homebirth. My neighbor (induced, 1 week "late", 0cm dilated 0%effaced) had her cervix checked every 30 minutes and she told me it was so painful. I had ONE check a week before the birth, only to confirm my self-check that I was dilating and 3 times during my 15 hour labor (on the 2nd, the midwife stretched me at my request). BTW, I popped my son out in a "supported" squat (midwife in front of me ready for the baby, assistants on either side and my partner/baby's father behind me) AND in one of my knee-length summer dresses. I was also in a dress while in the birth tub that was placed in my kitchen. The only time I was naked was when I took the 2 showers and only my partner saw me (I'm extremely modest apparently).
Kleigh: the "last pap" question is optional (or just Sharpie it out, my backup plan). I always write "informed decision, opt out" and I always carry my research paper (20-something pages long with a summary cover page). My son's pediatrician was shocked when I told her I didn't do "well woman crap" and said "good for you".
JeanArt: 25 OBGYNs told me a pregnancy would kill me, but they ALL REFUSED to my request at tubal ligation. Even now, with my son, they refuse it because there's a "2 child minimum". And I should add that I did NOT need the dialysis the OBGYNs said I would and I'm perfectly healthy, despite their hateful threats. How *shocking* is that!
Diane: Homebirth/midwives are like breastfeeding; it comes and goes out of "fashion". I did my homebirth for so many different reasons. I had a rough birth, but I'd do it all over again.
Sorry for my absence, so hard to get "personal" time with a baby. Anyways, all is well here. Nothing new to post, simply wanted to check in.
9130 - Graeme NZ
I also want to wish everyone here a great Xmas from NZ and all the best for 2013. You guys ...we are winning this war. I see and hear comments all the time that the tide has turned. I can even see at our local GPs male doctors are taking a back seat. the women docs are booked up first and the male GPs get the left overs. It is great to see. Just a thing on this thread I suppose 1 day it will end. fortunately we have back ups so I am confident our association will not end.
9131 - Sue
I have been unable to post for the past week, so I am not expecting this to go up but if it does I will be relieved.
Happy Holidays to you all, and to you Jacqui if you are reading this - all the best wishes to you and we miss you.
OverItAll, I am so glad for you and your successful birthing experience. Graeme, thank you for the positive message and I agree the tide has turned. Elizabeth has found some great links regarding raising the cervical cancer screening age to 25 - so more good news.
9132 - kleigh us
i do think doctors hear in the US refuse to tie womans tubs, so they will be forced to use the pill and be tied to the doctors exams. its a way they can control woman and trap them. alot of woman still have periods till there in threr 50s so thats alot of years of exams and also mamograms they try to force for the pill. if they dont mske money on woman that do not need meds from them. oh and the two pregnancys worth of prenantal care they expect to get out of woman. Most men can get a snip with out any question bc theres no money and control to be lost. some gyns ask what kind of bith control the woman is useing it probly tics them off when a wife states that her husband has been sniped. and also they do not like when woman chose to abstane from sex theres no pushing these woman to take birth control.
9133 - Mary (aus)
I'm enjoying my holiday reading "Women under the knife" by Ann Dally. It is great. It makes it clear where the BS of women needing all this medical surveillance comes from. I'll give you a quote. In the 1800s "doctors needed to earn a living. Professionally it was convenient, often irresisbly convenient, to regard women, especially middle class women whose husbands could pay fees, as creatures dominated by their reproductive organs."
It goes on.
Seriously, next time any doctor tells me I need any kind of female exam I'm just going to laugh at them and tell to get out of the 19th century. The book really hammers home how ridiculous the treatment of women by doctors was and we here can see how this thinking has not changed that much to this day. Men,(including doctors) in the 1800s thought that women were inferior beings,always sick and not as smart and of course ruled by our reproductive organs and weren't capable of doing anything except breeding and working inside the home.
The stuff that doctors, gynecologists, psychiatrists wrote was just all self serving BS aimed to keep women in their place as they actively tried to prevent women from studying medicine.
It beggars belief the ignorant stuff that was published in scholary journals of the day.
Another interesting quote from a lecture: "You are about to begin your medical studies. The sole objects of such studies are two: First to get a name;secondly to get money."
Anyway, Merry Christmas to all and hope to chat to you all soon.
9134 - Graeme NZ
Thanks Sue. Mary in addition to everything you say the male doctors of the time in the Uk got parliament to pass a law banning 'female' midwives. the doctors saw they were missing out on a good money spinner in maternity care which was up to then almost entirely handled by midwives. Talk about blatant self interest.
9135 - Mary (aus)
I read this from the book Women under the knife and I can't believe that what we've been saying here was first written over a hunderd years ago and still nothing's changed.
"Mary Livermorre a woman's suffrage worker,spoke against the "monstrous assumption that woman is a natural invalid" and denounced "the unclean army of gynaecologists who seem desirous to convince women that they possess but one set of organs- and these are always diseased."
Well where have I heard that before?
And Graham not only did doctors ban midwives but Elizabeth Blackwell the first female doctor complained that "midwifery lectures usually provided a professor with more opportunity for dirty jokes than for dissemination of knowledge". Pigs.
9136 - kleigh us
Mary, this idea about the femail body is what fuels the idea woman are vonerable to all sorts of gyn problems and need constant medical exams. in the past a nurse scolded me for not having pap. she acted like it was a big risk to not have pap smears her words were "womans bodys are so complex and because we mensturate so many things can go wrong." i do think this thinking is the reson pap smears are pushed at us in an agresive way. womans bodys were built to make babys and birth them also have periods. so they might be differant than mens but its ignorant to assume they are more faulty.
9137 - Mary (aus)
So Kleigh how does she explain that women have a longer life expectancy than men?If you take out factors such as war and work accidents etc women still outlive men.
9138 - Rob-NC
Are we winning the war? No, not by a long shot. My wife is the ONLY woman we personally know who has wised up and stopped the pap/pelvic merry go round. My buddies wife just bragged a few days ago in front of me about her pap and mammogram. She is mid 40's. She always finds an excuse to go to her male gynecologist. My own wife is the only woman I have been able to convince its all BS. 3 years now and has NO plans to go again. I post it all the time, anywhere I can. You should see what happens when I tell the women who read and post on Craigs**** what is really happening to them at the local medical college/hospital once they are under anesthesia. Many of the medical students and a few doctors complain when I expose them and they threaten me. They KNOW its fact and the truth is not illegal to post. It may save a few women from this unbelievable behavior by students and doctors. I contacted 9 senators and congress men about this and NONE of them even replied. The AMA and the medical system is too powerful. Two hospital groups have now completed buying out all private practices here and have total control of several counties. You will be seen only as a cash cow from here on. Not that it was not the case before. I hope you and I are making a difference but I think only a very small number of women can ever be convinced. Most think you are insane to NOT go to the doctor. The brain washing has been very successful.
9139 - Rob-NC
"Elizabeth Blackwell said she turned to medicine after a close friend who was dying suggested she would have been spared her worst suffering if her physician had been a woman."
9140 - Rob-NC
That posted before I was finished. I wanted to say that my wife will only see a female doctor but she still finds them just as mean, and just as bullying as male doctors. You have to remember that the women doctors get trained by MALE doctors in the SAME schools. They are just as bad as the men. The wife tells me that as long as you just let them do whatever they want, they are very nice. But if you refuse anything they change to hostile.
9141 - kleigh us
mary, thats the crazy part hear in the US they say the reson why woman out live men is bc they go for doctors cheeckups and men are acused of avoiding doctors. hear in the US woman feel traped to have exams for birth control or also we are made to woman obligated and scred into gyn exams. also that nurse didnt have any facts so i think she felt thretened and all she could say was woman were more pron to diease. it was clear she really knew nothing about paps only that all woman are expected to haVe them.
9142 - kleigh us
Rob, I dont talk about pap smears with any woman any more,bc they just act like i am crazy when i bring up false positves and overtreatment. its like they just do not understand or belive me. i do not think i have the right to tell others not to have tests but it pisses me off so bad to see woman i care about being taken advantage of and they dont beleve a word is say. its like i have tape on my mouth and i have to just sit back and watch these woman in my life being bucherd. my grandmas friend had a momogram that showed a lump thin they went to do further tests and it was no there. well they convenced her to get her breats cut off and take a cancer drug for 5 years. i was blown away. there was nothing i culd say she whoulnt beleve me it spure brainwashing. and these doctors are useing woman for money.
9143 - Rob-NC
My own wife avoided biopsy and possible lumpectomy by being smart and question what the mamogram place said. They were trying their best to convince her she HAD TO HAVE a biopsy and treatment RIGHT NOW. The truth is , it was nothing more than a calcium deposit that many women over 40 get. The funny part was when the wife told them she no longer had medical insurance. The radiologist then admitted it was nothing to worry about! I wish women could be convinced to question EVERYTHING and say NO when needed. It will never happen. Women are the cash cow for the medical system.
9144 - Graeme NZ
I believe women outlive men as a result of evolution pressures. Older women can look after kids. Older men cannot hunt as well as young men. Simple as that. It is funny how the medical profession has made their own spin on this.
9145 - Sia
Graeme it's more about how we do gender culturally, according to morbidity studies women outlive men because women don't take as many risks as men, work choices that are male dominated have higher occupational accidents, and men are more likely to engage risk taking activities as a way of doing masculinity.
Interesting that women are less likely to seek medical help for heart conditions than men and when they do get help, women are more likely to die because they are not taken seriously (National Morbidity Database). And as we all know, women’s reproductive capacity has been completely medicalised therefore that’s where women panic most about their health.
9146 - Rob-NC
"Interesting that women are less likely to seek medical help for heart conditions than men and when they do get help, women are more likely to die because they are not taken seriously'
That is fact! My wife always complained that they never did an EKG or even talked about heart disease. The doctors only want to look between her legs. They don't care about the rest. Seems it never gets past "when was your last pap smear?"
9147 - kleigh us
Rob, I know you talked about having a problem with doctors in your area refuseing to treat people with out full physical exams and gyno exams. I live in the south too and i go to walk in clinics with PAs and they have never refused to treat me unless i had a exam. all tho all medical places ask the dates of screenings the walk inns treat you for the issue you came in for and they dont push unrelated care. they can treat anything a reg doctor does and prescribe meds and do referels if needed.
9148 - Sue
Okay, I cannot believe another medical student would dare to comment on my post "What doctors don't want you to know about pap tests and pelvic exams" after the previous commenter got taken off at the knees. But, yes, another one did! Not sure what he was thinking?
9149 - kleigh us
and he thinks overtreatment is worth it. and claming false negetives are so common we need even more screening. thes students are ether brainless or just plan brainwashed.
9150 - Rob-NC
Would you really expect any medical student to think otherwise when they all get to come into the OR after women are put under for surgery and practice pelvic exams on them WITHOUT the woman's knowledge or permission? They have ZERO respect for women. They see YOU as their teaching tool and cash cow.
And Kleigh,
Here in the big city where we live and there is this huge medical school, You can't go anywhere now without mandatory physicals. A short while back I went to a walk in clinic and the PA was adamant that everyone has to have a physical. Same thing happened a couple years earlier when I went to a walk in clinic to try to get back pain meds. "You have to come back for a full physical".I don't know what city you live in but you won't get treated here without it. About 3 years ago I went to a regular doctors office to try to get BP meds. The first thing out of the receptionist mouth was "We require all new patients to have a complete physical before the doctor will talk with you." Also, now in most states, and soon EVERYWHERE, They will have your complete medical history on their PC and you won't be able to lie about it. We already have that here.
9151 - Yazzmyne
I couldn't help but comment on this close-minded "truth lover" over at Sue's blog, lol.
Rob, yes I think their main problem first and foremost is arrogance which they are taught at school and they come out of it with this 'know-it-all' attitude.
Funny, how he thinks he can still change our minds with his "superior data", so he thinks.
I gave him a link to an article that challenges the longheld claim that CC mortality rate would have dropped since mass pap screening.
I was reading through the article and found some other interesting info. I'm not sure, if this article has been mentioned on here before, but here's the link anyway:
click
Something interesting I read in their conclusions that may give an answer as to why so many US women are bullied into having pap smears when they go to the doctor or end up in the ER for a health issue totally unrelated to their reproductive organs or for BC pills:
"In the United States the issue remains: Who should have a Pap Test and how often? This is no longer just an issue between a woman and her doctor. Much of the use of the Pap test is now mandated by state and federal law. In many parts of the country, hospitals are required to carry put a Pap test on any woman admitted who has not had one during the previous 3 years. Federal regulations require federally-funded family planning clinics to take annual Pap tests on women requesting any type of birth control device, despite a very low yield of positive results.
Theoretically, one should not make policy without facts. Yet the present annual Pap test policy was made without reference even to those facts that were readily available. "
And I would like to ask, how did they even make this a law without asking women for their consent??
9152 - Sia
Thanks for the paper Yazzmyne, women's consent is based on lies, medical misinformation about cervical screening has been going on for far too long, that paper was written three decades ago and unfortunately it's still relevant today, little has changed.
Even though there has been more information coming out in the media to question the relevance of mass screening, many women fear that without medical supervision their genitals will kill them. This is so deeply ingrained in western culture, that I wonder if women will ever regain enough confidence in their bodies to assertively decline pelvic exams and pap tests.
However we eventually got the vote against popular opinion and outrageous misinformation by the medical establishment that women’s brains were incapable of rational thought. Now we just have to convince women that their genitals can survive on their own!
9153 - kleigh us
thats mandated rape. they can screem its medical but how could they think it is legal to force vaginal exams on woman preventing concent. i herd some lawyers say that a doctor can not legaly hold unrelated health care and meds hostage untill a woman has a pap vaginal exam as it violate her bodily rights. And why this has not been in the media is crazy to me. is every one just blind.
9154 - Sue
Happy New Year to all you Beautiful Blogcritic Babes Battling Bull! Thank you Yazzmyne and Mary. You gave youknowwho a fine twist of his monkey tail. And great article Yazzmyne - very interesting and kind of depressing that it was written in 1978. Over all I would say it has been a good year. Hoping to see the cervical cancer screening age raised to 25 is a great way to end 2012.
9155 - Hexanchus (male-US)
Happy New Year everyone!
Here's hoping we see some progress towards real recognition of patients' rights in the coming year, especially respect for their absolute right to choose what is done to their bodies and by whom.
Hex
9156 - ADM
Happy New Year everyone. Once again that Doctor posting on Sue's blog has missed the point, in my opinion. To me it's not the actual statistics of how common or rare CC is but the lack of informed consent. If CC was the leading cause of death in women I still have the right to refuse this test and to do so with all the factual information. Just like I have the right to refuse a flu shot or heart tests. Not just being told to test and to have access to medical care without being asked when my last pap test and to be told that I "should" or "every woman has to test". I am still baffled by the obsession with this test when cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in women. And yet no Dr has ever discussed prevention of those with me even as I'm getting older and to the age where it would be an issue.
9157 - Yazzmyne
Happy New Year and wishing the world more awareness on gynecology abuse and more respect and recognition for women's bodily self-ownership!
Sia, according to the article, it's not just that women are misinformed and told lies, but their consent is not even asked, these pap test are mandated by state and federal law!!
Although I think there are other basic laws that are above these ones, like human rights and bodily privacy rights. But that also means a woman would have to fight these ridiculous federal laws in court in order to decline them if she doesn't want to undergo a pap test?!
Sue, the article from 1978 even ends with "The time for a policy change is long overdue." 35 years ago and nobody listened!! With the internet we must be able to make real changes.
Sia: "This is so deeply ingrained in western culture, that I wonder if women will ever regain enough confidence in their bodies to assertively decline pelvic exams and pap tests. "
I wonder this myself sometimes. Women need a complete overhaul in their beliefs about their own bodies and realise gynecology is just another patriarchal RELIGION invented to keep them under control. It's still a mystery to me that so little women throughout the years have questioned these practices..
9158 - Eline (Europe)
I have always been and still am happy and confident with my healthy, symptom-free body (and that includes my reproductive system). I have always known that regular gynecological exams would do much psychological damage and I suspected physical damage as well. Staying away from gynecology is a no-brainer for me. But every woman and girl I know fell for the cr*p, it is unbelievable. I started to do my research because of other women (and doctors). It is important for a black sheep to "know", knowledge protects. Let's say a 50-year old woman was asymptomatic all her life but now becomes symptomatic. No matter what, she will be blamed for her condition very quickly, she was careless with her body, her disease is her own fault, she deserves it, deserves to die or even better, deserves to live a long suffering life... all of this because she dared not to have regular gynecological exams throughout her life. Would the wife blame the 50-year old husband when he suffers a heart attack, saying it was his own fault, he deserves it, he better die from it because he had not seen a cardiologist from a very young age, on a regular basis? It is a mystery to me why so few women question gynecology and trust their healthy bodies. Now that I know so much about it, I feel I know more than doctors do, I am able to defend myself against the enemy... It gives me piece.
Happy New Year everybody!
9159 - María
Happy New Year people. These doctors need to stop holding women hostage. Pap tests shoudn't be required for ANYTHING, be it employment, any medical care whatsoever. They should be completely elective.
9160 - Sue
I can find no law requiring any woman to undergo a pap test, anywhere. All cancer screening is elective as far as I know. No man is required by any law to undergo a prostate screening test, and no woman is required by any law to undergo a cervical cancer screening test. There must have been some type of law in 1978, but I couldn't find any current information to support it. As Yazzmyne said, there are other basic laws that would trump such laws if they do exist.
The only information about laws I could find were those which required insurance policies to pay for pap testing. It is hard for me to remember that many women WANT to have a pap test, and so the coverage is meant to protect those women from having to pay for it while in hospital.
It is awful that drs have made women feel helpless to defend themselves from coercion into pap tests. But the fact remains that women have the right to say "no", just as men have the right to say "no" to prostate screening. And it is interesting that prostate cancer is roughly 19 times more prevalent than cervical cancer yet men do not face the same pressure to screen. In fact, drs seem to have let go of prostate screening altogether due to the harms caused by often unnecessary and invasive followup procedures!
As for youknowwho over on my blog, I almost felt sorry for him when I saw his comments - I had visions of an innocent and helpless bunny stumbling into a wolf den :) I feel so powerful thanks to you!
9161 - Hexanchus (male-US)
Sue,
There are not and have never been any "laws" in the US requiring pap smears or any other screening tests for anything. What there have been are policies sometimes promulgated as standards of care, established by physicians - the very people that profit from them.
In the 1970's & 80's, the doctor/patient relationship was still very much a patriarchal one. Over the last several decades this has been slowly evolving to one of more patient involvement and shared decision making. Unfortunately, there are still a quite a few doctors around that don't want to play along and think they should be in control, and more that think shared decision making is a fine thing....as long as the patient decides to do what the doctor recommends.
In reality, the patient has always had the absolute right to say "NO" to anything, and there is case law dating back to the early 1900's that uphold these rights.
9162 - kleigh us
How can they get away with refusing unrelated care until a woman lets them put hand and tools inside her vagina. a forced vagenal exam is rape. i think the reson doctors think its okay to force woman to have paps is because they have been trained to not look at these exams as sexual. so to them its just a body part, like a leg or arm. alot of men do not want there wifes or girl friends geting intemate care from a male doctor bc they are men and know they dont want some pervert manhandeling there partners sexuall organs. the medical comunity has to be stupid to not know these exams are intamate they have to be lieing to themselfs.
9163 - kleigh us
there is a law student Heather Dixson that wrote a paper on forced pap smeara before birth control. also there have been woman that got a lawyer to send a letter to the doctor. and they changed there tune.
9164 - Sue
Elizabeth, Yazzmyne and Chrissy, I have used some quotes by you in my most recent post (psychological harms of pelvic exams) and I hope you don't mind. Let me know though and I could delete/change what is written.
Hexanchus, thank you for the reassuring information. Nothing freaks me out more than the thought of mandated pelvic exams!
9165 - Elizabeth (Aust)
Happy New Year everyone. (Hope your therapy is going well, Jacqui)
Use whatever you like, Sue...love your website.
It makes me furious that there is so much on the futility of the routine pelvic exam and the serious risks, yet so many doctors carry on down their destructive paths. It's horrifying that women are being abused and endangered by the very people who are supposed to be looking out for their health. Many can't comprehend or accept that a doctor would do that...whereas we all know that's sadly the norm in women's "healthcare". There is no doubt in my mind women would enjoy better health and lives if the well-woman exam was scrapped today...and evidence based screening was "offered" with respect for our right to say NO.
9166 - Chrissy (UK)
A Happy New Year to all you wonderful ladies.
Sue, I am more than happy for you to use anything I have written. Your article on the psychological harm of pelvic exams is excellent. The following quote from the article resonated with me:
“How a pelvic exam feels and how we are told it is supposed to feel presents a gap of huge proportions. The lack of acknowledgment for how we feel confuses us, belittles us, and invalidates us.”
The tactics the medical profession use to invalidate our experiences of these intrusive exams is perverse. The worst one (for me) is when they state that we should be OK with exposing ourselves to them because ‘they have seen it all’, with the inference that you are nothing special. I can’t understand why they think this is an acceptable thing to say to a woman.
As far as I am concerned, we are all special and deserving of respect, bodily autonomy and freedom of choice.
9167 - Sue
Thanks Elizabeth and Chrissy. I agree Elizabeth - it is horrifying how women are being abused by the very people who are supposed to be protecting their health. You really hit the nail on the head when you said that "many can't comprehend or accept that a doctor would do that". That really is at the root of the problem, the fact that people trust their drs to be "doing no harm" and to be protecting them. I know drs have convinced many women they are doing no harm, but how have drs convinced themselves that they are doing no harm? How can they sleep at night?
Chrissy I'm so glad you liked the article, and what you said about drs certainly resonates with me as well. It is perverse how drs have gotten away with a blame the victim stance for years - convincing women that there is something wrong them for disliking the exam, rather than looking at the medieval exam itself (and the way it is done) as the culprit. And women have been isolated from one another and in the dark about what is going on. Well, not anymore; women have found a way to communicate.
9168 - Sue
Oh and Chrissy, I agree and love your closing remark about how we are all special and deserving of respect . . . so true!
9169 - Elizabeth (Aust)
Sue, I really love the fact when I get to a post from an arrogant, patronizing ("ladies...") doctor who thinks he can dismiss us with lightweight "facts"...to find he's been dealt with...love it. You can't beat a cavalry, they have silenced us for decades, but more now realize they can't safely speak down to us, post a few scary "facts" and get away with it. Keeping women ignorant, scared, deceived and controlled has been so important with this screening.
It really is amazing that huge resources go into this "fight" (of course, most of it is shadow boxing, treating healthy not-at-risk women) and so much of the discussion in about a rare cancer and has been for decades...while women die in large numbers from far more likely risks to their health, largely forgotten by the profession. Most women hear about pap tests every few weeks or months, but how often do we hear about diabetes, depression or heart disease? On one forum a woman stated that cervical cancer would kill more women than heart disease if not for pap testing...hardly surprising when so many women are "apparently" being "treated" and "saved" and the weird focus/obsession with pap testing. The health check lists for women always start with pap tests, a cancer that affects 0.65% of women...unbelievable.
9170 - Elizabeth (Aust)
I love that statement too...and to think so many believe women have achieved equal rights, well, not in the medical world where medieval attitudes persist. Medieval is a great word, Sue. Even the use of stirrups is telling...it doesn't take a genius to see this is a degrading position. There's no need to use stirrups, they're not used in many countries. (except in surgery and during procedures) It says to me they simply don't care about women and their feelings, anything goes, we're mere bodies. Why would they care that stirrups are unnecessary, when they don't care that the exams and tests they're doing are largely unnecessary and harming us? I've said it many times, but it's using power and authority to use and abuse women. It's not healthcare...it's damaging, mentally and physically. The profession here had always strongly resisted self-testing, why? If they were concerned about cancer, they'd embrace anything that makes the test easier for women...but no, they resist anything that gives them less control over women. Anything that puts women in charge of their bodies and health. That doesn't sound like healthcare to me.
9171 - Chrissy (UK)
Elizabeth, I think that’s it exactly, they DON’T CARE how we feel about any of this. This is evident in the way our concerns are totally dismissed.
Got a problem with gyn exams? Well then, it’s YOUR fault for feeling embarrassed, degraded, anxious, in pain. YOU need to ‘grow up’, ‘be responsible’ ‘relax’, ‘get over it’ etc. How many women struggle with this and think there is something wrong with them?
I totally refute that the routine use of these exams is a normal part of ‘being a woman’. Not for me it isn’t.
9172 - Alice (Australia)
Elizabeth, I saw an online poll about stirrups some time ago. The results are quite interesting. And they will be even more interesting after each of us gives an answer there too.
Poll: Would women be more inclined or at least less anxious to have a Pap smear if stirrups weren't utilized?
9173 - kleigh us
I was shocked that 33% had never had a pap smear. So there has to be alot of woman like me who have never had one. i do think alot of woman lie to there doctors that they get them at other palces so thel stop pushing them.
9174 - Alice (Australia)
Kleigh, exactly!
The sample may be quite small - only 150 people - but the statistics do show the trend.
I've heard before that many women lie about having pap smears done recently and elsewhere - to direct doctor's attention to a more important health issue or to the true reason the women came to see the doctor for. Now, this survey proves it.
And the medical System is parading that ubiquitous pap smears save lives and that all responsible women must pap-smear to survive and "catch" the rampant cervical cancer early.
9175 - Alice (Australia)
There are a couple more surveys that reveal the same picture:
Study: Frequency and Timeliness of Pap Smear Key to Cervical Cancer Prevention
and
Are you current on your pap smears?