Tag: counselling
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What We Value
I think it’s about time I revisited the concept of ‘disability’, both in its description and in society at large. It seems to me that the word itself is too value-laden to accept at face value. We are all disabled in one way or another and yet we may not see ourselves like that. And why […]
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The Medical Student
She was not old for a medical student I suppose, although her face spoke of experience far beyond her years. But how do you measure age in a profession that cherishes the wisdom and equanimity that so often accompany Time’s passage? No, she was not old, but nor did she possess the naïveté that so […]
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What’s in a name… Cancer?
Words are important. Quite aside from meaning, each has its own shade, its own temperature. Rose calls forth a mood, an emotion, an expectation that is quite distinct from, say, daisy. Words are little coloured post cards that tell stories and paint pictures; each word elicits a miniature portrait in the brain. Together, they tell stories, individually they hint at […]
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HPV
Cancer of the uterine cervix is a sexually transmitted disease; it is the second most common cancer of women in the world and it is spread sexually. Who would have guessed? The clues were there all along, of course: it was more common in sex workers, and women who had become sexually active at an […]
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The Ethics of Counselling
Primum non nocere -First, do no harm. I remember the phrase was used in one of the first lectures I attended in medical school and it nested -sometimes uncomfortably- in my conscience as the lectures and the years progressed. It would signal me from the back seat in Pharmacology lectures and tug on my sleeve in Physiology labs when […]
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Fibroids
I sometimes prefer to call them leiomyomas -it’s more descriptive of a condition that involves muscle cells- or even fibromas. I said this by way of beginning an explanation to a patient who was sent to me for them; she looked at me as if I had just sworn at her -belittled her condition. I hadn’t meant to… “Hiding behind medical […]
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Antenatal Genetic Testing
When I bring up the subject of antenatal genetic testing, most of my patients don’t even bat an eye: it’s just what you do nowadays. Of course you want to know as much about your unborn and developing baby as possible! But there are some -just a few- who look at me suspiciously, searching for a reason I […]
musings on women's health 