Tag: women’s issues
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The Medical Illustrator
I am an illustrator, a drawer of pictures, if not by aptitude, then by necessity. Many of the concepts I am required to explain beg for diagrams, for pictures, for some sort of visual representation. It is amazing, for example, how many people do not know what a uterus looks like, what’s attached to it,…
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Sex Selection… or Any Selection
Another day, another march. This time it was the March for Life in Ottawa where the usual Pro-Life rhetoric was rebranded as being against sex-selection abortions. A worthy cause, for sure, and probably more universally palatable than condemning all abortions -whether done for medical, genetic, or even social reasons- as they have in the past. And by aligning themselves with the…
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Memories
She looked familiar; you have to give me that. And my receptionist nodded and smiled as I picked up the chart from the rack by the waiting room; I knew that nod -obviously I’d seen her before. I’ve seen so many patients over the years, and I don’t remember them all, so I appreciate these little cues from…
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Opinions
I am sometimes bewildered; I live in an ever-changing sample of opinions -often at odds with my own. In many circumstances I would welcome, even encourage this potpourri, but usually the people holding these often colourful bouquets have come to me for answers, not more flowers. But what is it that differentiates an answer from…
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Medical Mysteries
I’ve always known that there is more to Medicine than Agape, more than a wish to provide succour, more than a desire -a need– to help, to solve, to heal. It provides, for example, an opportunity to learn about others, extend one’s boundaries, explore and experience the Theory of Mind, not to mention the wisdom that accrues to practicing…
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In Praise of Painted Toenails
I went to a celebration last night, an acclamation of an event so unique and yet so common as to defy -almost- the need to single it out and frame it in the usual infinite regress of hyperbole it inevitably invokes: a birth. I have to admit that I enjoy birth, although as an obstetrician my perspective is necessarily more…
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The Guardian
To anyone watching from a distance, they were both very much in love. Hands entwined, bodies linked at hip and shoulder, they clung to each other like moss to a tree. Her eyes sought his for sustenance, energy, approval; their movement along the corridor and into the office was sinuous and choreographed. Synchronized swimming came to…
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Understanding Risk
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. This quote from Hamlet has always stuck in my memory; it reminds me to be humble, especially in the face of the unknown. Uncertainty has always been anathema to most of us. We need explanations and we crave stability; anything…
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Over thirty-five years of listening and helping, but still not an expert
There’s one thing I have to confess at the start: I am not an expert on women. I do not inhabit a female body, nor, apart from what is in the sample cupboard, do I have special access to estrogen and its secrets. Although I’ve delivered thousands of babies, I cannot honestly say that I…
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