disasters, healthcare, law, politics, slut shamers

I hope more OB-GYNs leave red states…

A couple of days ago, I read a story in The Guardian about how, as of May 2023, Bonner General Health, a hospital in Sandpoint, Idaho is no longer going to offer labor, delivery and other obstetrical services. Hospital officials cite the state’s new draconian laws against abortion as the main reason why they must stop offering care to pregnant women. New pregnant patients are no longer being referred to Bonner Health for obstetrics care, and existing patients are being offered alternatives to Bonner for their obstetrics needs. According to a statement put out by the hospital:

Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving. Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult. In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care. Consequences for Idaho Physicians providing the standard of care may include civil litigation and criminal prosecution, leading to jail time or fines.

Idaho does not allow abortions after six weeks gestation except in documented cases of rape, incest, or threat to the mother’s life. It is also one of six states that prosecutes physicians for providing abortions. Consequently, a lot of OB-GYNs are leaving the state, as are many pediatricians. According to the same statement:

Without pediatrician coverage to manage neonatal resuscitations and perinatal care, it is unsafe and unethical to offer routine Labor and Delivery services; despite our best efforts over months of negotiations. Our inpatient pediatric services will no longer be consistent and reliable in May. BGH has reached out to other active and retired providers in the community requesting assistance with pediatric call coverage with no long-term sustainable solutions. Our low patient volume is insufficient to attract candidates for pediatric hospitalists, and we cannot afford to continue having locum tenens physicians.

The statement also indicated that besides the political climate in Idaho, the number of births in the Sandpoint community were steadily dropping. Only 265 babies were born at Bonner General Health in 2022, and fewer than ten pediatric patients were admitted for other reasons. The demographics of the area where the hospital is located are changing, with fewer people giving birth, and more older people living in the community. There is also an updated facility at Kootenai Health, which has staffing 24/7. However… I just did a calculation of the distance between Bonner General Health and Kootenai Health:

This could be a real problem in an emergency situation…

Doctors in Idaho have found themselves having to choose between violating state law or providing competent care to their patients. Last year, a federal lawsuit was filed by twenty states and medical groups against Idaho’s extreme abortion bans. According to AP News:

“[Idaho’s abortion ban laws] will really place physicians in a lose-lose situation,” said Jeff Dubner, the deputy legal director for Democracy Forward, the legal team representing the coalition of medical associations.

Physicians who follow the federal law will be at risk of criminal prosecution and the loss of their medical license, said Dubner, and those who follow state law could damage patients’ health and place themselves and their hospitals at risk of federal fines or loss of funding.

Naturally, there were some really stupid comments from “pro-life types” about this development. I saw a number of ignorant statements from men about how, if OB-GYNs want to provide abortion care, they shouldn’t be in the healthcare business. Some people were trying to dismiss the news as scare tactics, or even as “woke” journalism. Below is one egregiously ignorant comment made by a man named Mark:

They’re not dedicated to their patients. If they cared, it wouldn’t make a difference as the new mothers need care.They want to perform abortions which are more frequent and makes them easy money. Why would you want to be under the care of an MD that only cares about how much money he makes.

I decided to respond to Mark’s comment. This was what I wrote:

Sometimes abortions are medically necessary. OB-GYNs already pay huge malpractice insurance premiums. Banning abortion is DANGEROUS to women! Threatening the doctors with arrest or losing their license if they need to provide abortion care is too much of a liability for them.

Women will die because of these laws!

I hope more doctors move to states where they are allowed to practice their professions without interference from ignorant politicians and their equally ignorant constituents. Maybe when some red state’s legislator’s wife is in dire need of immediate competent care from a qualified OB-GYN, and they can’t find one, they will rethink their extreme policies regarding abortion.

More than a few simply stated that this is just a “business decision”. I agree, Bonner General Health’s decision is a “business decision”, however, the decision isn’t just being made by hospital administrators. It’s also being made by highly trained, very talented and capable physicians, who have spent many years and many thousands of dollars to become experts in their fields. And they want to be able to practice their professions without being hamstrung by ignorant MALE legislators and their equally ignorant constituents. OB-GYNs already pay huge malpractice insurance premiums.

As someone who has a master’s degree in public health-health administration, this story is kind of in my wheelhouse. I just don’t think most rank and file Americans even consider how much doctors have to pay for malpractice insurance. The actual costs vary by state and speciality, but OB-GYNs typically pay among the very highest annual premiums for this protection, because the stakes are simply that high. Guess what. The costs are not going down, especially in the wake of these new abortion bans. While doctors in some specialties pay a few thousand dollars a year for malpractice insurance, according to Physicians Thrive:

Average annual malpractice insurance premiums range from $4k to $12k, though surgeons in some states pay as high as $50k and OB/GYNS may pay in excess of $200,000.

According to Cunningham Group, a medical malpractice insurer:

Obstetrician/Gynecologists (OB/Gyns) pay among the highest premiums for medical professional liability insurance coverage in all of medicine. An OB/Gyn who practices in a major metropolitan area can expect to pay an annual premium in the neighborhood of $100,000 to $200,000, and this burdensome cost of doing business—coupled with an omnipresent fear of lawsuits—has influenced many to see fewer high-risk obstetric patients, reduce the number of gynecological surgeries they perform, exit private practice in favor of hospital employment or move their practice to an area with a more favorable liability climate. Our historic med-mal rates shows the cost that an OB/Gyn pays for their insurance in every state.

Granted, the same article states that claims are going down, and tort reform is making lawsuits less of a risk for providers. But my guess is that the new abortion ban laws are going to lead to some catastrophic OB-GYN cases. Not enough have happened yet to raise widespread awareness, but they inevitably will. And then, the risks will either increase again, or more people will opt out of having children. That may seem like a good thing, until you realize that if people stop reproducing, the population will age more, and there will be more need for other medical services, and fewer human beings to provide them. You may one day find yourself having your medication dispensed in a hospital by a robot nurse, instead of a live human being.

An article in The Washington Post from August 2022 discussed the dilemma doctors in Texas are facing. Olgert Bardhi, a primary care physician in training, will probably be a full fledged doctor with highly sought after skills as of 2025. But Dr. Bardhi, who is currently getting his highly valuable training in Dallas, said that the new laws regarding abortion really bother him. According to the article:

Although [Bardhi] doesn’t provide abortion care right now, laws limiting the procedure have created confusion and uncertainty over what treatments are legal for miscarriage and keep him from even advising pregnant patients on the option of abortion, he said. Aiding and abetting an abortion in Texas also exposes doctors to civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution.

The article continued:

“It definitely does bother me,” Bardhi said. “If a patient comes in, and you can’t provide them the care that you are supposed to for their well-being, maybe I shouldn’t practice here. The thought has crossed my mind.”

There is now a “chilling effect” for OB-GYNs trying to provide care to their patients in states where abortion is suddenly practically banned. The end result is that doctors are scared, and it’s causing them to go to places where they can relax and do their jobs without so much fear. After all of the money, time, and effort expended for their training, can you blame them?

Don’t think this scenario is realistic? Consider this. Back in 2019, I wrote a blog post titled “Whatever you think is best, doctor.” It was inspired by a piece written by Dr. Jen Gunter, a rather famous OB-GYN who has written some pretty awesome books about women’s healthcare. Here’s a lengthy passage from my 2019 post about Dr. Gunter and a case she encountered back in 1998:

[Dr. Gunter] was called in to perform an abortion on a woman who was very sick and in her first trimester of pregnancy. The woman’s condition was rapidly deteriorating and the pregnancy was making her situation worse. Although her life was not in immediate danger, her caregivers feared that if she continued her pregnancy, her condition would quickly decompensate and she would need dialysis due to kidney failure.

The problem was, this was happening in Kansas, where a new restrictive abortion law was enacted that forbade abortions from being done on state government property, unless the mother’s life was in danger. The medical center where Dr. Gunter worked was on state property. While it’s very possible to manage kidney failure on dialysis, it’s not the ideal course of action. It’s better to prevent kidney damage, which would then prevent a host of other serious medical problems that would put the patient’s life in danger. The patient was not about to die, but her condition might eventually cause death if the doctor didn’t act. On the other hand, thanks to the law, if Dr. Gunter made the “wrong” decision, she could be fired or wind up in legal trouble. She could even be arrested, which would be a real problem, since malpractice insurance does not cover criminal prosecution.

The law was vague regarding what Dr. Gunter should do. She spoke to the hospital’s attorneys, who advised her to call the legislator who had written the law. So, instead of prepping her patient for surgery and taking care of her patient’s private medical issues, Dr. Gunter was forced to call up a legislator who had absolutely no clue about this wrinkle in the law because he wasn’t a medical professional. Moreover, Dr. Gunter was about to talk about this lady’s private medical situation with a man who was completely uninvolved, except for the fact that he’d written the law that was holding up Gunter’s ability to take action. To add insult to injury, he didn’t even seem to care! As Gunter launched into a description of the woman’s medical issues necessitating an abortion, the legislator interrupted her and said, “Whatever you think is best, doctor.”

The woman got her abortion and her medical condition improved. But Dr. Gunter was left fuming, since she’d had to waste precious time calling up a legislator who obviously didn’t actually care that much about this law. He hadn’t even listened to her speak for more than a minute before he basically said “whatever”. Meanwhile, this lady’s health– her very life– was in danger. What would have happened if Dr. Gunter had not taken the time to cover her ass by calling the lawmaker? What if she’d simply done the abortion and gotten arrested for breaking the law, even though she’d made the correct medical decision? What if she’d not done the abortion and her patient died? Then she might be on the hook for medical malpractice. She’d also have to deal with the guilt of knowing that she has the training to help women in these dire medical situations, but can’t act due to restrictive, misguided legislation like the “heartbeat” bills being considered and passed in places like Georgia, Ohio, and Alabama.

Of course, in 2023, the “heartbeat bills” have now become laws in a number of states, and doctors are now encountering the same problems Dr. Gunter ran into in Kansas back in 1998. Ironically, Kansas voters made it very clear last year that they want to maintain access to legal abortion services. Today, Dr. Gunter probably wouldn’t have that problem in Kansas. But she would definitely encounter it in Idaho or Texas, or many places in the Deep South.

I hate the thought of women and babies having to pay for the ignorant and misguided policies mostly being made by Republican men in conservative states. I especially hate the fact that the people who will likely suffer the most will be the poorest citizens. However, I think what’s going to have to happen in abortion banning areas is that a lot of women will have to die or get very sick. Some of the folks in power are going to have to be personally confronted by a lack of competent healthcare providers available to take care of them, or their loved ones, before they will understand why it’s so important to let OB-GYNs do their jobs without their interference.

Too many people assume that abortions are always due to a woman being irresponsible or wanting convenience. They never stop to realize that putting that spin on it endangers the lives of everyone… including men. Because I’ll bet some of the OB-GYNs who are deciding to relocate are married to doctors in other specialties, who will choose to move with them. Think about it.

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condescending twatbags, healthcare, religion, social media, Twitter

I just discovered a right wing healthcare quack…

For several years, I’ve followed renowned Canadian OB-GYN Dr. Jen Gunter on Facebook and Twitter. She’s written a couple of books, made some very informative videos, and is genuinely a very engaging influencer and personality. This morning, as I was perusing Twitter, I noticed Dr. Jen had posted this:

WHAT?!

I had never heard of Christiane Northrup before, but I noticed a lot of Jen Gunter’s followers were agreeing with her that this so-called “doctor” is a trash person. So I checked out her Twitter page, and I saw some pretty appalling stuff there. As you can see below, she appears to be healthy, happy, and a promoter of women’s health…

Looks okay so far…

But then I took a closer look and discovered some questionable posts… I mean, some of them maybe I could see, but some were just offensive.

Apparently, these posts are the norm for this doctor in Maine. I see she is posting a lot of new age stuff, comments about worshiping the sun, and dietary advice. She doesn’t like Fauci, and is against mask and vaccine mandates. Personally, I’m with her on face masks (in most situations), but I am a believer in vaccines. I guess what gives me the most pause is that Christiane Northrup appears to be a hateful bigot who isn’t so much a promoter of women’s health as she is a promoter of hatred toward people who lean to the left and embrace the idea that there could be more than two genders.

Northrup’s meme about Kyle Rittenhouse is just really appalling and tasteless. Even if you believe it was right for him to be acquitted, people still died because he was somewhere he didn’t need to be, and was carrying a weapon he wasn’t legally allowed to own. And if he had simply stayed home and did some online studying to become a medic, instead of posing as a medic during a rally, he would not have been in the situation he was in, requiring him to use a gun to defend himself and killing two people.

I see Dr. Jen also posted this about her not so esteemed colleague, Christiane Northrup:

Hmm…

I noticed that Christiane Northrup bears a passing resemblance to another quack of the religious variety…

She looks like maybe she’s had a little work done.

But at least Paula’s Twitter sticks to religion and uplifting memes. I don’t see her spreading hate or healthcare related quackery. Paula’s quackery is of the religious sort, as she slips into speaking in tongues and dances around whatever stage she’s on, telling the same stories of her troubled childhood. Seriously– Paula and Christiane look like sisters.

Well, I hadn’t heard of Christiane Northrup until this morning, but thanks to Dr. Jen Gunter, I know to steer clear of her. She appears to be bad news. I have enough issues with doctors without following one who spews a lot of bullshit. However… as I’m writing this post, I ran across another doctor’s Twitter that looks more promising. She’s a politician from South Carolina, too.

Now this lady is making sense. I’ll follow HER.

She’s also posted about how she’d like to protect her kindergartner daughter from shootings in schools. This, even though in neighboring North Carolina, there’s a county where officials have outfitted each school with an AR-15 weapon to use against shooters. Why can’t we fix this problem instead of focusing so much on banning abortions? I see Indiana has now mostly banned abortions now… it’s insane. Shame on them!

I don’t really feel like going all hot and heavy on a blog post today. The weather is similarly beautiful today as it was yesterday. It’s not super hot outside, and I’m not feeling sick. So maybe it would be good to log off the computer and get out of the house again today. Hope you all have a glorious Sunday and steer clear of all the quacks on social media.

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education, healthcare, law, rants, sexism, slut shamers, wingnuts, YouTube

Mama Doctor Jones gets called out by conservatives in Alaska…

Before I get cranked up with today’s post, I want to highly recommend my readers to watch the below video. Reading my rantings about this situation is simple extra credit. Mama Doctor Jones spells it all out pretty plainly, and what she says about this incident is probably enough. Also, if anyone progressive from Fairbanks, Alaska reads this and is offended by my comments, I apologize pre-emptively for lumping all Fairbanks residents in with Joel Davidson and his ilk. However, unlike Mr. Davidson and his grasp of subjects related to sex ed and women’s health, I realize that my opinions about Alaska are mostly formed in ignorance.

At the end of yesterday’s post, I referenced a YouTube video by Mama Doctor Jones, otherwise known as Danielle Jones, MD. Mama Doctor Jones, for those who don’t know, is a board certified OB-GYN who makes wonderful, informative, and entertaining videos about women’s health and pregnancy on YouTube. I discovered her a few months ago, when the new Texas abortion ban law came into effect. She made an excellent video about why the new law is potentially very dangerous, and why she, as a physician practicing in Texas, is against it.

Dr. Jones and her family have recently announced that they are moving to New Zealand. I don’t know how long she, her husband, and their four kids will be living in New Zealand, but their move does mean that she won’t be held to the new law in Texas. In any case, as a fellow American citizen who has also left the United States, I completely understand why Dr. Jones wants to leave, even if only temporarily. I think living abroad is an experience more Americans should experience, if only to shed the ignorant idea that the United States is the “best” country in the world. Or, even if someone still thinks the USA is the best after living abroad, they might realize that other countries are also pretty good places to be.

After I saw Mama Doctor Jones take on the Texas abortion law, I became a fan of her content. I don’t watch all of her videos, but I have seen a lot of them. I am always impressed by how engaging, charismatic, and at ease she is on camera, and how non-threatening she comes across as she explains women’s healthcare. Personally, I find OB-GYNs terrifying, mainly because I had a very traumatic experience with one when I was a young woman. Even though I, myself, have a background in healthcare, I have a really hard time seeing physicians. But, if I had an obviously kind physician like Dr. Jones, I would probably be a lot less reluctant to go to the doctor for screenings.

Suffice to say, I think Dr. Jones is the bomb. If I had children– boys or girls— I would want them to watch her channel. She’s really fascinating, and judging by the comments I have read in the Duggar Family News group, I am not the only one who thinks Mama Doctor Jones is awesome. So, imagine my shock when I happened to see her video about “being canceled”.

As this video started, I was thinking WTF… but then I was highly irritated by conservative idiots in Alaska!

Mama Doctor Jones then explains that she actually isn’t being “canceled” per se, but her name came up at a school board meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska. Apparently, some people were upset that some of Mama Doctor Joneses’ content was being used to teach sex education to adolescents. The situation was covered by Joel Davidson, a journalist who writes for the Alaska Watchman. Dr. Jones explains in her video that she was blissfully unaware of this issue until one of her viewers tweeted her with a link to Davidson’s first article on the subject. The article is salaciously titled, “Fairbanks teachers want 12-year-olds exposed to explicit sex-ed videos”, and it includes a picture of Jones’ face, plastered across the top of the page.

Before two days ago, I had never heard of Alaska Watchman. I don’t even know very much about Alaska itself, since I’ve never been there. Former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, gave a lot of us continental Americans a taste of Alaska’s apparently far right-wing culture, and I knew that it was a conservative place with a lot of independent minded people within it. I figured it was a beautiful place, too, albeit too cold for my tastes. Since I don’t know much about Alaska, I went to Alaska Watchman’s About Us page, where I found a description of this periodical:

The Alaska Watchman aims to raise awareness of key issues affecting Alaskans. Coming from a broadly Judeo-Christian perspective, we are committed to the highest standards of journalism and ethical reporting.

Our reports look to inform and equip Alaskans to effectively engage the culture for the common good. Please keep your comments respectful.

Okay then… so right off the bat, it’s obvious that this source is biased, and conservative in nature. That means it should probably be taken about as seriously as people might take my blog. However, in reading Mr. Davidson’s second post about Mama Doctor Jones and her “racy” content, I see that he’s in need of an editor:

Several board members raised concern about a YouTube video, Mamma Dr. Jones, which the district wanted to use for sex-education.

Later in the same article he writes:

The main problem I have with all of the videos links that were sent is that they create a trust with the name and source with the students,” [April] Smith said. “We are now putting into our children that Momma Dr. Jones is an excellent source of education.”

Hey Joel– on two occasions you spelled “Mama’s” name wrong, and it looks like you’re missing a preposition. So much for those “high standards of journalism”, right? But enough about my grammar snob tendencies. What really annoys me about Joel Davidson’s articles is that they are very obviously slanted, and it doesn’t appear that he’s spent much time actually watching Mama Doctor Jones on YouTube or objectively considering the value of her content. Maybe it’s because he’s a father of eight. Obviously, he already knows something about sex, and it’s clear he doesn’t care too much about women or women’s health. I won’t even get into what he likely thinks about people who are transgender or otherwise not cisgender, as he obviously is.

Where did those 8 children come from, Joel?

According to Mr. Davidson’s article from October 21, 2021, a 2016 era state law in Alaska requires all school districts to “get approval from local school boards before they can teach new sex education material to children.” I just did a very quick web search to find the law in question, and the first hit I came upon was not the law, but an article on a site called SIECUS (Sex Ed for Social Change). That site’s profile on Alaska indicates that the local culture is overall very much opposed to teaching contemporary sex education in public schools. In fact, it’s not even a requirement to teach sex ed in Alaska public schools.

Mr. Davidson even mentions that “over the past four years, Fairbanks has lost over 1000 students to other educational options”. School board member, April Smith, claims that the district has lost the trust of many parents and they are taking their children out of the public schools and either homeschooling them, or putting them in private schools. I just want to know– is April Smith really that sure that teaching sex ed is the reason this is happening? Because it sounds like Fairbanks school board members aren’t the brightest stars in the proverbial Alaskan sky. Couldn’t students also be leaving public schools because of other issues, like COVID-19, and the risks associated with that? Isn’t it possible that some parents would like their children to be educated on important things, like how their bodies work?

Anyway, I don’t think Mama Doctor Jones is necessarily as fussed about the antiquated local mores in Fairbanks as she is that Mr. Davidson’s articles are clearly biased, as well as borderline defamatory. He has also written quite a few outright FALSE statements about Mama Doctor Jones’ content, as well as certain subjects she covers. For example, he writes:

video for middle schoolers and high schoolers features OBGYN Danielle Jones stating that “50% of people have a vagina.” Jones’ video spotlights a young teen showing off her stained underwear and talking about the fact that vaginal discharge is normal. At one point Jones talks about what can happen when inserting a “toy or penis” into the vagina.

Okay… first off, as Dr. Jones points out in her rebuttal, Davidson doesn’t properly address her credentials. He should have written either Danielle Jones, MD, or Dr. Danielle Jones, OB-GYN. She worked very hard to earn a degree in medicine; she is board certified; and she CLEARLY knows a hell of a lot more about medicine than Davidson does. Please show some respect, Joel. Especially if you actually do care about “high standards of journalism”.

Secondly, how AWFUL it is that a woman who is an expert in women’s health actually covers women’s health concerns! Joel, as a father of eight, it appears that you have been sticking your penis somewhere. I don’t know a thing about you, but I gather those eight kids were not adopted. If they weren’t adopted, then you and a female must have engaged in some sort of normal biological activity to make those kids, right? What is wrong with teaching young people how all of that works? Perhaps if more adolescents knew the facts about sex, there might be less of a demand for abortions, or teenagers becoming parents before they’re really ready for the job.

Davidson also clearly likes the new law in Texas. He writes:

Other videos by Jones, which are not part of the Fairbanks curriculum, blast Texas’ new pro-life law banning abortion once a heartbeat is detected. Other videos celebrate transgenderism and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Dr. Danielle Jones correctly “blasts” Texas’ new “pro-life law banning abortion once a heartbeat is detected” because it’s a DANGEROUS, creepy, and unconstitutional law. And if you listen to Dr. Jones explain just WHY that law is so dangerous, and consider that it will negatively affect so many women who legitimately need to be able to safely terminate their pregnancies, you might have more of an understanding why that law is wrong and needs to be struck from the books. Moreover, a woman’s need to have an abortion should be no one else’s business, particularly since no one seems interested in helping to make having and raising children feasible and affordable. There certainly doesn’t seem to be much of an emphasis on preventing pregnancies by making contraception affordable and available, and teaching young people about how babies are made.

As for the rest of that comment… I can’t even. I get that some people can’t wrap their heads around transgenderism and want to mock things they either can’t or won’t try to understand. I just think it’s very sad that so many of them call themselves Christians, but lack the ability to be kind and empathetic, as Christ was. And it’s even sadder that someone who calls himself a journalist and is, in fact, “editor-in-chief” of the Alaska Watchman, is pushing this bullshit and calling it news, when it’s clearly very biased and sometimes outright false information.

I will admit, I’m biased too, but the difference is, I freely state that this is clearly a personal blog, not a newspaper, and I am not a journalist, nor do I play one on TV. People who regularly read my blog– and there aren’t really so many– shouldn’t come here expecting to read news. No one pays to read my content– although apparently, the Alaska Watchman is a “free” paper. I still bet some people expect to read news on the Alaska Watchman, even though it appears to me to be a glorified blog.

Davidson then goes on to write:

A separate video for high schoolers attempts to convince teens that the Plan B (or Morning After Pill) does not cause abortions. The speaker repeatedly emphasizes that this drug “does not cause an abortion.”

According to the product label attached to Plan B, it can, in fact serve as an abortifacient by preventing “attachment of a fertilized egg to the uterus (womb).” Since a “fertilized egg” is in fact the earliest stage of human life, Plan B can kill this life by blocking access to the womb, which is necessary for nutrition and continued development.

As Dr. Jones points out in the above video, if there is no pregnancy, there is no abortion. What Plan B does is prevent pregnancy from happening by preventing a fertilized egg from implantation. It does not terminate an existing pregnancy. Since Plan B does not cause abortion, it cannot legitimately be called an “abortifacient”. And Joel Davidson should NOT be making false statements, especially when he clearly has zero experience or training in medicine or women’s healthcare, nor does he even have the physical body parts that women have. What does Joel Davidson know about the care of a vagina or handling a menstrual period? I don’t even think Mr. Davidson is a very skilled journalist. I certainly would not go to him for his opinions on women’s healthcare!

Having read both of these articles written by Joel Davidson, I’m left with the idea that people in Fairbanks, Alaska are not very bright, although I’m sure that’s not actually the case. He quotes a North Pole woman as saying Mama Doctor Joneses’s content is “basically porn”. I’ve seen some porn in my day, and I want to tell that person that if she thinks Dr. Jones’s content is pornographic, she obviously doesn’t get out much and hasn’t seen anything that is actually pornographic. According to Davidson, she continues with:

“It just does not belong in the school,” she said. “We’re not allowed to talk about religion or church or anything in schools and yet we’re going to bring this disgusting material to our children?”

“Disgusting material”? You mean material that teaches people about how babies are made, how they develop, and how sex– which is among the most basic and normal of acts– can be experienced without shame, humiliation, or embarrassment? If anything, I would say promoting specific religions and churches in public schools, which are supported by TAXPAYERS of all faiths or lack thereof, is a disgusting thing to do. Particularly since so many people have been abused and damaged by religion. Look at how many people have DIED or been abused due to religious beliefs. You don’t even have to think for very long. Just look at the Holocaust. But I’ll bet they don’t teach much about that in Alaska, either.

As for the allegations of “porn” on Mama Doctor Joneses’ channel, YouTube is pretty strict about what they allow to be posted, particularly on monetized content. For instance, I’ve noticed that a lot of content creators don’t use words or phrases like “porn”, “rape”, or “child sexual abuse”, probably because those words trigger YouTube’s algorithms and affect advertising revenue. So, instead of outright saying “child pornography” or “child sexual abuse” or similar things, content creators say “CP” or “CSAM”. Personally, I think that’s a very stupid practice, since we all know what those things are, and using the letters does not, and really should not, diminish the horror of them.

Dr. Danielle Jones makes content about women’s health and sexuality, so of course she’s going to be talking about sex. And the content she creates is factual and useful, but it’s also monetized, so there’s only so much she can say that isn’t “PG-rated”. Her content is certainly not porn. But I’m sure Mr. Davidson and his rightwing nutjob friends are big fans of Donald Trump, who is a big fan of sexually abusing women and has even outright stated it. The hypocrisy is astounding!

As a 49 year old cisgender woman who has not had children, but does have master’s degrees in social work and public health, and has worked in a rural healthcare setting with young people, I applaud Mama Doctor Jones for what she’s doing. I grew up in a rural county in Virginia, with parents who never talked to me about sex. I got my “education” from HBO, the neighborhood pervert who showed me men’s magazines (and voted Republican), and Coach Todd, the former pro football player who taught about health subjects between telling us lurid stories about his days in Vietnam.

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVED Coach Todd’s surprisingly hilarious war stories, but they didn’t exactly prepare me for womanhood. I was fortunate enough to have parents who, despite being conservative and not talking to me about sex, were not opposed to letting me read whatever I wanted. So I was allowed to explore topics like sex education and sexual assault on my own, and somehow, I managed to marry my husband without a long history of sexual partners or the consequences that can come from having sex before I was ready. Not that I think having sex outside of marriage is necessarily wrong. The choice to have sex is simply a decision that should be made by mature people who are prepared to make it, and fully understand what results could come as a result of making that decision.

So many young people do not have the luxury of being able to learn what they really need to know. I know, from having been a social worker, that a lot of young people wind up getting pregnant, suffering from sexually transmissible infections, or being victimized in sexual assaults, because they have not been taught what they NEED to know. And if parents can’t or won’t teach their kids, the SCHOOLS must! Ignorance about these issues can and do lead to tragedies. Look at all of the brilliant young people who do not identify as straight who have suffered or even died because they had no one safe to talk to about these issues. Some of those kids who died too young were pointed toward “religion and church” for “help”, only to be told that their sexual orientations were “sinful” and wrong. I, for one, am GLAD Dr. Jones is willing to talk about transgender issues and other topics on YouTube that make people like April Smith and her ilk clutch their pearls. Maybe if more people talked about these topics in a non-judgmental way, there would be less suicide.

As to whether or not the Mama Doctor Jones YouTube channel is appropriate supplemental content for a school sex ed program, that’s a matter of opinion. Davidson may even be correct that Fairbanks educators acted illegally when they pointed to Dr. Jones’ videos as supplemental sex ed materials. However, that’s an issue that should have been discussed without dragging Dr. Danielle Jones and her Mama Doctor Jones channel through the mud. She had nothing to do with her channel being suggested as supplemental sex ed materials for kids, nor was she even aware that it had been recommended until one of her followers pointed it out to her. The fact is, Dr. Jones’ channel is outstanding, and I think it is a marvelous resource for the general public, even if some parents disapprove of the content.

I can tell by Mr. Davidson’s commentary that he’s conservative and pro-life. Well, if you’re pro-life, Mr. Davidson, you should be in favor of teaching young people the facts about sex. You should be for informing young people, so that they don’t fall prey to mental health issues that drive them to suicide. They should be learning how pregnancy works, what causes it, how to avoid getting pregnant until the time is right, and what is or is not normal in their own bodies. Young people are often afraid to talk to their parents about sex, but they badly need that information. And it’s pretty clear to me that a lot of the people in Fairbanks are not doing the job. I’m glad there there are people around like Dr. Danielle Jones and Dr. Jen Gunter (another OB-GYN who also puts out excellent content) to teach young people what educators can’t or won’t, thanks to conservative school boards who are “out to lunch” and think sex ed is akin to porn.

You should also watch Dr. Jen Gunter’s videos. She is awesome!

Besides helping young people avoid pregnancy, sex education also helps to prevent sexual assaults. Sexual assaults can lead to unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, abortions, and suicide. Seems to me that pro-lifers should be doing what they can to prevent sexual assaults in the form of teaching young people about sex. According to SIECUS, sexual assault is also a big problem up there in Alaska:

Half of all Alaskan women have experienced sexual assault in their lifetime and Alaska Native women experience sexual and relationship violence at even higher rates. While the Cook Inlet Tribal Council has received funding to adapt the Native Stand curriculum for Alaskan youth, it is not available statewide. Advocates report that ensuring sex education is culturally responsive to the needs of native young people, and includes instruction on healthy relationships and consent, is critical.

If you really care about young people, Joel Davidson, you should be grateful to the qualified physicians who are able and willing to share their expertise with the public. And, in the interest of promoting “excellent journalism”, you should stop spreading your ill-informed opinions about women’s health, a subject about which you clearly know very little. I, for one, applaud the school officials in Alaska who recognize the value of Dr. Jones’ content. Bravo to them. And shame on MALES who want to keep women ignorant and subservient. They all obviously need to go back to school– preferably in a school district where high quality sex ed is taught.

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book reviews, healthcare

Dr. Jen Gunter gets real about menopause in her book, The Menopause Manifesto…

I hate going to see physicians. At this writing, I have not seen a medical doctor since 2010. I have not seen an OB-GYN since 1995. I realize that avoiding doctors, especially at my age, isn’t the wisest policy. Sometimes, my reluctance to go to the doctor causes me anxiety. Unfortunately, I had a really terrible experience with an OB-GYN that has made me a bit phobic. Still, I realize that at 49 years of age, I am teetering on the brink of menopause. I’m not there yet, but I know it’s coming. That’s why I downloaded Jen Gunter’s book, The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism, which was first made available on May 25, 2021.

I first discovered Dr. Gunter on Facebook. She has a popular Facebook page where she discusses current events that relate to feminism and women’s health. I like her a lot. I think I would even consider seeing her as a patient, if I lived in a place where that was possible to do. She’s a straight talker who is relatable and even funny, and I get the sense that she’s not only knowledgable, but she also cares.

Gunter wrote another book called The Vagina Bible, which was published in August 2019. I haven’t read that book yet, mainly because I figured I’d rather have it in printed form. I think most reference books are better when I can page through them manually, rather than read them on a device. But I’ve enjoyed The Menopause Manifesto so much that I decided to download The Vagina Bible. I don’t think that will be the next book I read… I need to take a break from reading about women’s health. But I do plan to read it, because I’ve discovered that Gunter is good at marrying facts with an entertaining writing style.

I like that Dr. Gunter blended her own personal experiences with menopause with medical science. Her personal touch made her seem more relatable and “human” to me. I’ve found that a lot of physicians come off as not like regular people, even though I know intellectually that they are most definitely human. Still, it felt like I was reading something written by a girlfriend as I learned about what probably awaits me when Aunt Flow finally packs her bags and vacates permanently.

I’m sure I’ll soon be well acquainted with “hot flushes” and night sweats… Dr. Gunter doesn’t like the more popular term, “hot flash”, because she says it’s not a particularly accurate description. “Hot flash” makes it sound like the sudden heat is something that happens in a second. According to the doctor, “hot flashes” take longer than a flash. At this point, I will take her word for it. I haven’t experienced one yet, but I know they’re coming. My mom and sisters have all had them. In fact, I remember when my eldest sister went through menopause. I was sitting next to her and she said, “Oh, I’m having a hot flash.” I kind of shrieked and shrank away from her. She laughed and said, “It’s not contagious!” I like that Gunter discusses these phenomenons that women universally go through with candor and humor, backed by medical facts and cutting edge research. She also adds pithy comments like, “I just want to acknowledge the ‘suckitude’.”

This book includes a broad array of topics, including contraception and the risks of “change of life” pregnancies. She does include a lot of her personal opinions, to include her views on men and vasectomies. She thinks men need to “step up” more and get “snipped” so the burden of birth control doesn’t fall entirely to women (since a lot of men prefer not to wear condoms every time they have sex). Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of women who pressure men to be permanently sterilized. My husband was pressured to get a vasectomy for his ex wife. Then they got divorced, and she had two more kids. Meanwhile, I was never able to have children in the easiest way.

I suppose if I’d really wanted to have kids, I could have made it happen, but it would have required a great deal of expense with no guarantee of success. Bill also had his vasectomy reversed, which was definitely an ordeal. Fortunately, we didn’t have to pay for the procedure, since the Army did it for free. However, the reversal was not painless, nor was it simple. I think it’s irresponsible to present vasectomies as if reversing them is easy and will always end in success. It’s not easy and doesn’t always end in success, and I know this firsthand. I did like that Dr. Gunter described vasectomies and tubal ligations as permanent birth control, because that is precisely what they are, and what they were intended to be, even if they can be successfully reversed in many cases.

Anyway, the point is, I disagree with Dr. Gunter on her views about pressuring men to have vasectomies. I don’t think it’s right to push elective surgeries on someone else, especially since they will have to live with the outcome. I wouldn’t like it if my husband tried to pressure me into having elective surgery, although I am very grateful that he chose to have a vasectomy reversal for my benefit. But that’s just me. I also realize that my opinion isn’t necessarily a popular view, and I understand why it isn’t popular.

Overall, I think this book is useful, especially for women in their 40s and 50s. It’s well-written, yet personable and sometimes even funny. Dr. Gunter has a lively, honest, and engaging writing style. Even though I don’t necessarily agree with some of Dr. Gunter’s opinions, I like that she’s all about empowering women, busting myths, and encouraging her readers to take good care of themselves. I think that’s what a book about menopause should do. I’ve read other books about women’s health, some of which were pretty terrible– perhaps because they were written by men. Dr. Gunter doesn’t condescend to her readers. She comes across as an advocate and a friend, and she delivers frankness with kindness and empathy. We should all have access to physicians like Dr. Jen Gunter! If you can’t see her in person, try reading her books! Or, at least, visit her page on Facebook or her official Web site, which are both linked in today’s post.

Well… I’d like to go on with this book review, but Noyzi the Kosovar monster dog is barking at me, demanding a walk. He’s come a long way from the scared pooch he was last fall. Below is a video I took a little while ago. He’s being even more insistent as I write these last sentences, so I guess I’d better heed the call before he goes nuts. He didn’t get a walk yesterday, because Arran went in for a dental… I guess I’m hearing the protests now! Arran is also growling menacingly, so I’d better give them their daily stroll.

Noyzi NEEDS his walk NOW.

As an Amazon Associate, I get a small commission from Amazon on sales made through my site.

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healthcare

A little TMI from T.I. and yours truly…

A good morning to everyone. There’s nothing like waking up, reading the daily news, and coming across a dishy item about a 39 year old rapper who takes his teenaged daughter to the gynecologist and demands that the doctor check to see that her hymen is still intact. I rubbed my eyes and wondered if it was true. But I’m sitting here listening to the podcast, Ladies Like Us, with Nazanin and Nadia, and T.I. Tip Harris is the guest. He’s talking very frankly about his life… and that of his children. And then I saw an article in the Washington Post about these revelations, which are just so completely fucked up that I can’t even fathom it.

T.I., otherwise known as Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., has made it an annual habit to accompany his 18 year old daughter, Deyjah Harris, to the gynecologist. Apparently, this began when she was 16. After Deyjah’s birthday party that year, he put a sticky note on her bedroom door that read “Gyno. Tomorrow. 9:30.”

He continues: “So we’ll go and sit down and the doctor comes and talk, and the doctor’s maintaining a high level of professionalism. He’s like, ‘You know, sir, I have to, in order to share information’ — I’m like, ‘Deyjah, they want you to sign this so we can share information. Is there anything you would not want me to know? See, Doc? Ain’t no problem.'”

So as I’m reading about this, I picture this poor teenaged girl lying there on the table, no doubt in a flimsy hospital gown, and wearing no undergarments. It’s her first time being examined, which I remember from my own experience was very nervewracking and embarrassing. Her father and a male doctor are standing there talking about whether or not she still has her hymen intact. The male doctor, to his credit, lets T.I. know that the hymen can break for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with sex. Lots of women have lost theirs riding horses and bikes. I participated heavily in both of those activities when I was a teenager, but I remained a virgin until I was 30 years old and married for two weeks. I don’t think I still had a hymen when Bill and I finally consummated our marriage, but I sure as hell was a virgin. Just ask Bill!

But then T.I. says, “Look doc — she don’t ride no horses, she don’t ride no bikes, she don’t play no sports, man — just check the hymen, please, and give me back my results expeditiously.” He added: “I will say, as of her 18th birthday, her hymen is still intact.”

What the fuck! Where the hell is her mother? If I had a daughter and her father tried something like this, I would kick his ass. And what is up with the doctor, allowing this to happen? HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) allows for patients to give permission to medical professionals to share their private information with others. However, it seems to me that if T.I. is comfortable enough to force his daughter to go to the gyno with him in tow, she probably wouldn’t be comfortable in asking him to GTFO of the exam room. If she had, she would likely pay for it later at home. It saddens me that the gynecologist didn’t do a better job of advocating for his patient, whose private medical information is now international news.

“Women are even murdered for want of a hymen”… and yet, a lot of women don’t have them, even if they’re virgins. Hymens are like baby teeth. They serve a purpose before puberty. At age 47, I still have a baby tooth myself, but I don’t think I had a hymen when I had sex for the first time.

Speaking of gynecologists, Canadian OB-GYN Dr. Jen Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible, has also weighed in on this. She shared the above video on Facebook. I see it was uploaded on November 1, which makes it especially timely today. She also posted on Twitter about why hymen testing is not a “thing” and T.I.’s actions are so completely inappropriate and abusive. Included in Dr. Gunter’s tweets is this screenshot from the World Health Organization.

I hope T.I. is paying attention to this and won’t subject his younger daughter to hymen exams. And I hope the doctors who see his daughters insist that he leave the room.

The first gynecological exam can be very stressful. It certainly was for me. Here’s where I will share even more TMI, so if you’re squeamish, you may want to stop reading. I have no shame, so I’m going to write this very personal story for the interested. Regular readers may have already read this.

I am 47 years old and, to date, I have only had two “gyno” exams. Both were done at the behest of the U.S. government, because I was going to be moving overseas. The first exam happened when I was 22 years old and needed a Pap smear and pelvic exam prior to joining the Peace Corps and moving to Armenia for two years. At the time, I was still considered a “dependent”, since I was under age 23 and my dad was a retired Air Force officer, so I was able to get my physical done for free at a military treatment facility. Actually, I probably could have had it done for free anyway, since this was for a government assignment. But I spent my whole young life going to military doctors, so I wasn’t particularly afraid. In retrospect, I wish I had sprung for a civilian doctor.

Anyway… it was April 1995, and I had to drive all the way from Gloucester, Virginia to Hampton, Virginia– city of my birth. Fort Eustis, which is in Newport News and was closer to my parents’ home, has medical facilities, but did not do women’s exams at the time. In fact, the doctor at Fort Eustis told me that I didn’t “need” an exam, since I was sexually inactive. However, the Peace Corps required that I have one done, so off I went to Hampton– probably a good hour’s drive from home.

I arrived at the hospital on Langley Air Force Base, which is where I would have been born, had the hospital’s maternity ward not been full on the day I entered the world. I was totally unfamiliar with the place, since I had always gotten my routine medical care done at Fort Eustis or the Naval Weapons Station in Yorktown, Virginia. I finally found the women’s clinic, which had pictures of babies all over the dingy walls. I filled out a typewritten form about the particulars of why I was there. I was alone and very nervous. A kind nurse tried to reassure me that the female doctor, an Air Force major who was an OB-GYN, would be gentle. I wasn’t so sure, but I tried to relax until I was called into the exam room.

The doctor was a white woman wearing an Air Force uniform. I still remember her name, but I’m sure she’s long forgotten me. She seemed older and kind of masculine to me, although she was probably in her 30s. I was directed to pee, then get naked. There was a paper sheet on the table that I was to get under. A black nurse was also in the room, supposedly to “chaperone”. I remember thinking she seemed kind of over it and unsympathetic to how nervous and upset I was.

So there I was, lying on the table as this doctor also told me I didn’t “need” an exam, since I wasn’t sexually active. I told her I needed to get it done for my Peace Corps physical. She said “Very well,” then proceeded to use a metal speculum that was too big. It hurt, and I let out a surprised yelp of pain. Noticing that the speculum was too big, she removed it and used a smaller one, which also really hurt. I screamed and felt very lightheaded– I was probably hyperventilating a bit, but it also hurt so much that I seriously thought I was going to faint.

“Hon, if you can’t be quiet, we can’t do this exam.” the doctor said in a stern tone of voice. I HATE being called “Hon”, probably moreso now because of this incident. But since I didn’t want to go through this again with another doctor, I bit my lip and she finished. She told me to get dressed and see her in her office, which I did.

I sat across from her at her desk as she told me that she hadn’t gotten “world’s best exam”, because I had been so tense and uncooperative. However, despite that, it looked like “everything was okay down there”. She advised me to lose weight, since she somehow knew I would be gaining weight in Armenia (I actually lost a lot of weight in training, but gained some back). Then she asked me if I wanted birth control. Since I wasn’t having sex at that point and my periods weren’t a problem, I said no. She sent me on my way, and I drove all the way back to Gloucester feeling totally humiliated and violated. My parents– particularly my mom– were quite unsympathetic. I was very happy when I got a postcard in the mail, indicating that my exam results had been normal.

It took another twelve years before I had another “gyno” exam done. I had tried to have one done by the Peace Corps Medical Officer at the end of my Peace Corps assignment in 1997, but I ended up freaking out and refused. That was a similarly embarrassing incident that I’ll save for another blog post, since this one is getting long. For now, I’ll fast forward to 2007, when Bill was in Iraq and I was preparing for our first move to Germany. The Army required that I have a physical and be screened for the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP). I did end up having to enroll in EFMP because I was once treated for depression, but again– another rant for another day.

So in 2007, I was fortunate enough to have a kind friend who was very familiar with the medical staff at DeWitt Army Hospital (now defunct) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. She helped me choose a very understanding physician’s assistant who, at that time, was doing well women’s exams. She has since moved on to cardiology.

Anyway, this P.A. was gruff at first, but then I explained what had happened at my first and only gyno exam in 1995. She then proceeded to give me a completely painless exam, which caused more tears– partly because I was so relieved to be done with it and partly because I now knew that the first exam shouldn’t have been so painful and traumatic! There was no chaperone when the second exam was done.

After the exam, the P.A. gave me a big hug and talked to me for a few minutes until I calmed down. The exam had been so stressful that my blood pressure was sky high. She was convinced that I had high blood pressure, and I had to prove to her I didn’t by submitting to a 24 hour blood pressure test which involved wearing a monitor that took my blood pressure every twenty minutes. I was left with a bruised arm and a diagnosis of white coat hypertension. To this day, simply walking into a military hospital makes my pressure shoot into the stratosphere. That’s why I haven’t seen a doctor since 2010, even though I know I could use some screenings.

I think about those times having those exams done, as bad as they were– and how much worse they would have been if I had been a teenager and my dad was in the room with me, demanding to know if my hymen was still intact. I don’t have a problem with the fact that Deyjah’s doctor was a man. I saw a female doctor and she turned out to be horrible. I think male doctors are capable of being kind and sensitive when they do pelvic exams and Pap smears, just as I know some women doctors are insensitive and cruel when they do them. Doctors who are treating teenagers should be mindful that teens aren’t always in a position to say no when their parents demand to be there for an exam. Deyjah Harris probably didn’t feel like she could refuse to allow her dad to supervise her gyno exam. BuzzFeed notes that Miss Harris liked several tweets criticizing her dad for not giving her appropriate privacy. My guess is that she would have preferred that T.I. not have inserted himself in the exam room and demanded a “hymen check”. And shame on the doctor for not telling T.I. that hymen checks are not a “thing”!

Now that Deyjah Harris is eighteen and in college, she is legally an adult. Why her father is still so interested in her virginity is beyond me. I truly hope someone understanding talks to her and lets her know that her body belongs to her, and that her self worth isn’t tied to virginity. It’s extremely inappropriate, possessive, controlling, and just all around fucked up that her dad cares so much about virginity, even pointing out that “virgins are no fun”. I just can’t stand it. It’s just totally creepy and misogynistic. Yuck.

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