musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.

What is a friend? I think I could parallel St. Augustine’s answer about Time: ‘What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.’ Friendship is such a universal concept, such an acknowledged need, I’m not sure why…

gozzter

April 5, 2017

Uncategorized

‘like’, Cassandra, Facebook, Facebook friends, friend, friendship, Macbeth, New York Times article, semantic argument, social media, St. Augustine, Time, Unwelt
The Doors of Persuasion

The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley -I loved that book; I read it when I was a teenager and was intrigued by the idea that there could be doors to abstractions as well as to rooms -doors to other areas, other places. Invisible portals that existed alongside more tangible things, and yet magical, somehow…

gozzter

March 29, 2017

Uncategorized

agency, Aldous Huxley, arcane knowledge, authority, autonomy, communication, Hope, listening, medical ethics, persuasion, placebo, pseudoscience, social creatures, society, The Doors of Perception, trust, Western medicine
Trust in the Tameness of a Wolf?

Okay, enough is enough! All these years I have been an advocate of cultural relativism. Ethical parity when societal mores and folkways are accounted for. I still am a staunch defender of freedom of belief and societally derived variations from what might be seen as a Western norm, but there are times when I must…

gozzter

March 22, 2017

Uncategorized

blackmail, cultural relativism, ethical relativism, honour-bound cultures, Jeremiad, mobile phones, rape, sexual violence, shaming, social media, the Times of India, WhatsApp, youth, Youtube
Eeny Meeny

I have always been fascinated by the idea of choice –the philosophy of choice. What does it mean to choose? Does the act of embracing one thing necessarily exclude the other, or merely prejudice it? Blemish it? Dishonour it? Alternatively, given an either/or situation, is it possible to throw the pair into a box and…

gozzter

March 15, 2017

Uncategorized

BBC news, choice, Gender, gender boundaries, Jane Goodall, names, non-binary gendering, philosophy of choice, set theory
An Even More Modest Proposal

How many of you remember being presented with Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’ in English 101? It was a not so subtle satire of 18th century British treatment of the Irish, in which he hyperbolically –and anonymously- suggested that the Irish might be able to ease their economic distress by selling their children for food…

gozzter

March 8, 2017

Uncategorized

accessibility of health care, barefoot doctors, Canadian health care, cultural safety, Emergency care, health care, Jonathan Swift, non-professional help, PBS, Social Service, sub-Saharan Africa, volunteer community health workers
From the Mouths of Babes

We take a lot for granted, don’t we? As parents we assume responsibility both for the wellbeing of our children and also their voice. Somebody has to, and obviously we, as their adult guardians, are better able to decide what’s best for them than they are –especially when they are young and inexperienced. It’s hard…

gozzter

March 1, 2017

Uncategorized

American Academy of Pediatrics, British Columbia, HPV and vaccination, immunization, informed consent, male exclusion for HPV vaccination, mature minor, Medical consent, The Guardian newspaper, vaccination, vaccination in schools
The Serpent’s Egg

We all see the world through our own experiences, paint it with our own colours, fly our own flags. They seem real to us –unique and even necessary to our identities. As if it’s enough to be simply what we wear; as if we are only what we’ve been taught to show. But sometimes we…

gozzter

February 21, 2017

Uncategorized

abuse, accusations, antenatal form, Australia, BBC news, consensual sex, domestic violence, gender-based violence, male privilege, poetry, pregnancy, privilege, Shakespeare, talking points, The Winter’s Tale, unintended pregnancy
The Mote in Thy Sister’s Eye

We all live in different worlds, don’t we? I suppose that’s what makes travel so interesting: to see how widely dissimilar regions and disparate societies recognize and deal with comparable problems. How, for example, they might attempt to solve the ever-growing dilemma of urban pollution. The Chinese, remember, shut down many polluting factories for part…

gozzter

February 15, 2017

Uncategorized

Ali Khamenei, BBC news, car free Tuesdays, cycling, fatwa, Iran, Masih Alinejad, Mohammad Bakhtiari, pollution, religious jurisprudence, social media, Tehran Times newspaper, Twitter
Acknowledging the Mind’s Eye

Sometimes, in the midst of a problem –in the midst of an era- the resolution derives not so much from the answer as from the acknowledgement that there is an issue to begin with. I find it interesting that Nature has given us an ability to adapt more efficiently -to ignore, I suppose- that which…

gozzter

February 8, 2017

Uncategorized

acceptance, BBC news, coffee shop, conversation, culture, difference, Gender, Janus, Societal norms, society, Theory of Mind
Unquiet Meals

I suppose Age has blunted me –or at least made me suspicious of fads, curious about recent phenomena that wear the clothes of certainty, vogues that hitchhike on the backs of something else never meant to carry the weight… But one must not be caught rubbing the poor itch of one’s opinion, to paraphrase Shakespeare.…

gozzter

February 1, 2017

Uncategorized

Age, autoantibodies, BBC news, birth control pill, bloating, celiac disease, contraception, dietician, gluten, gluten apostasy, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, pregnancy, side effects, women’s health