Women are having a difficult time accessing health care without being coerced into a pap test. Some women are bullied to the point of having to leave without having the reason for their doctors visit addressed. This is a far cry from informed consent. It is also endangering women’s health.
It is high time family doctors had their speculums confiscated. If a woman is having worrisome gynecological symptoms or if she wants to be screened for cervical cancer (which by the way is RARE) by having a pap test, then the woman should be referred to a gynecologist. Gynecologists should be the sole keepers of the coveted speculum. This way a woman will be able to go to a family doctor or clinic without being coerced into stripping and spreading her legs before she can gain access to other health care. It will also free family doctors to focus on other parts of a woman’s body.
For information on unreliability of pap smear results (Between 10 and 60 percent of all Pap smears are incorrectly analyzed): ehealthmd.com/content/how-accurate-are-pap-smear-results
For statistics on prevalence of cervical cancer: http://forwomenseyesonly.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/incidence-of-cervical-cancer-in-canada-what-the-raw-statistics-say/
For article written by three female doctors regarding unnecessary pelvic exams: jwh.2010.2349 (application/pdf Object)For article summarized:http://forwomenseyesonly.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/battle-brewing-over-pointless-pelvic-exams/
For information related to increasing costs of healthcare due to unnecessary pelvic exams: Requiring Women To Undergo Unnecessary Annual Exams For Birth Control Highlights Costs Of Overtreatment | ThinkProgress.
For female doctor’s opinion on being pressured into having pap smears: Why I don’t have smears | Margaret McCartney’s blog
For story of women being bullied into pap tests: http://forwomenseyesonly.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/what-some-male-doctors-do-when-women-say-no/
GP’s in the UK (and Australia, I believe) receive financial incentives for a wide variety of ‘public health issues’, and that includes cervical screening – something few women are aware of. It’s apparent to me that GP’s only become concerned with a health issue when they have targets to reach. Before the screening program came in, no-one gave two hoots about this disease here. Now most women have been trained to view their female organs as ‘ticking timebombs’ simply so the authorities can tick boxes and doctors can fill their wallets.
As for gynecologists… I despise them and their nonsense ‘ology’. Having had some experience as a patient in that department, I’ve found them to be arrogant, patronising, and frankly, appallingly ignorant. And considering that a large proportion of them are male, no amount of medical *education* (which seems to largely based on beliefs and traditions rather than scientific evidence) can teach them to have genuine respect for the female form.
If we want GP’s to stop bullying, the government needs to stop rewarding them for doing so.
If we want gynecologists to start respecting their patients instead of treating them like cash cows, we need to knock them off their pedestals.
That starts with us.
If the suffragettes were here today, they’d be sickened by the kind of abuses we’ve been tolerating all these years, in the name of ‘care’. Time for a revolution, methinks.
By the way, hospitals here are now so overstretched that GP’s are being penalised for referring people to hospital – so if you’re genuinely ill and you need testing/treatment, your GP may be reluctant to help you because their practice loses money.
On the other hand, there’s always room for you in the colposcopy clinic! Go figure.
Before choosing a family practice doctor, consider the services these physicians offer. From attention to all aspects of your family’s health, continuing growth and change as professional physicians, to developing a continuous relationship with you as a patient, a family practice physician offers many useful services.Amazing post! ..
Dear ‘family physician’, many women will read your post and snort with derision. Women are treated like a collection of reproductive organs, and frequently denied care for existing medical problems until they submit to doctors ‘requirements’. Your self-serving and utterly irrelevant post will do nothing to alleviate the contempt some women have for your profession. Yes, a family doctor CAN offer useful services – but when you *offer* healthcare, are you serving the patient who pays your wages, or simply looking out for yourself? Hmmm.
By the way, here in Britain we can’t choose a family doctor – a quack at our local practice takes us on as a patient. I don’t think I’ve ever seen mine. I have to jump through burning hoops just to get to see ANY doctor these days.
I think Katrina’s post is spot-on. GP’s here have a wide variety of health checks they’re obliged by their lords and masters to conduct – they have targets to reach and often receive financial rewards for doing so. This means that when one is ill, your GP is usually more keen in doing unrelated tests and checks in order to get their perfomance pay than actually addressing the symptoms you came in with! At least, as a man, I don’t have to put up with the ‘When was your last pap smear’ routine at every visit – but my wife has got so fed up with this obsession with her genitals that she avoids GP’s like the plague. Preventative medicine is a great principle, but too many people are being caught in the net when they shouldn’t be, and in the meantime, the people who are genuinely ill are being neglected because of those damned incentives.
And let’s not forget the vast amount of money that’s gobbled up by these ‘programs’ – money which would probably save many more lives if invested elsewhere in the healthcare system.
Too many snouts in the trough these days, I’m afraid. Too many egomaniacs who puff out their chests with pride when they claim they’re *saving lives* when in fact, the vast majority of the time, they’re making healthy people sick. First do no harm?
Good points Scott! They echoed my experiences and really got me thinking …
For all of the empty rhetoric and lofty value-statements made about client-centred care, the system functions in a corporate, coercive, patriarchal, authoritarian & non-collaborative manner. It violates basic principles of human rights and social justice. A quick read of the posts on this site provides all the evidence one needs to know that is true. The system is undoubtedly full of good people (as well as some who are undoubtedly something else) who are so deeply brainwashed by the systemic rot that they cannot even see that they are part of the corruption. It galls me that someone I know was “kicked out” of a GP practice for declining to participate in regular pap smears (and this is called “health care”?) at the same time that there are no GP’s in my city accepting new patients because they are too “busy” to accept people who might be in legitimate need of the “many useful services” described in the family physician comment above.
To any other health care providers who might read the posts on this site:
SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND (you have 2 ears and one mouth for a reason) – Stop and listen carefully to the lived experience expressed by the voices on this site .
DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK. Take the time to read the evidence that is posted in relation to the issues. There is a high likelihood that your thinking on these issues has been corrupted by misinformation presented as evidence. Take the time to question the accuracy and helpfulness of what you’ve been conditioned to think.
BECOME PART OF THE SOLUTION. Examine your own actions – is your practice one that would contribute to the alienation, distrust and harms reported by the women on this site? If so, drop your defensiveness, STOP trying to change their minds and start respecting their experiences by changing how you practice. If you believe in client-centred care, informed-consent, and preventative care, start practicing in a way that develops and maintains the type of relationships that are foundational to it’s achievement.
Im a low income woman and I would qualify for free doctors visits (including dental and prescriptions) at a free clinic (nearly 90 miles from my house). I recently had to have a tooth extracted (cost me $275 which I had to borrow from family) when I refused a pap smear and was told without one I couldn’t receive services from the free clinic. It made me sick that I would be refused the help I need because I wont let a doctor (basically) rape me. Be raped and get free dental – not an equal trade.