Tag: women’s health
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Words
As time harvests the years and winnows my memories, I find I no longer sift through dictionaries looking for new and unusual words. The thrill of finding one is still there I suppose, but more often the discovery is in an interesting book or magazine and it is not so much the originality of the word as the novelty of its use -its evolution. And…
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Doctor on Call
“Are you going to be there to deliver me, Doctor?” It is a question I hear each time I see a new obstetrical patient and one for which I have to admit I am never prepared. After all, the patient has come to see me because either they or the referring doctor feel that I…
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Choosing a doctor
There are age-old dilemmas in choosing a doctor, aren’t there? Choices often have a way of seeming problematic, even insoluble, when considered in the abstract and all the more so when they have to be made for real. Theoretically, I suppose, they should be made after due-diligence, as the lawyers would say. One merely sets out a…
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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…
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Forceps
Forceps seem to be controversial in some quarters. To be clear, I don’t find them at all controversial nor do my patients by and large. But I realize that for some, forceps are the standard bearers for all that is intrusive and perhaps malevolent in obstetrics. Everybody seems to have an aunt or second cousin somewhere that…
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Pain
I don’t want the title to imply that I am some sort of expert on pain; I am, like most people, pain averse. I do not necessarily understand pain; I see it in others and assume it has similar characteristics in common with what I experience and so I avoid it whenever feasible. I understand when others have…
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Words and Names
Words are important, let’s face it; they help us address those most existential of all entities: concepts. They describe things, modify things, name things. Without them, we’d no doubt be reduced to gestures -limited descriptors at best. The richness that is reality would still be there, but unexpressed, identified perhaps, but somehow unrepresented. To an extent then,…
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Victim
One of the things about illness is that it seems unfair -especially if it involves pain or limitation. To some degree, I suspect we all give in to self-pity in the throes of the process; maybe it’s a coping mechanism: a world view that allows us center stage for a while, an excuse to treat ourselves…
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