This business of simply prescribing the Pill for every problem pertaining to a woman’s cycle is an egregious practice, extraordinarily common and marks a lack of care for women’s health:
Pawlowsky said she had suffered from painful menstrual cycles for years and, in the past, had simply been prescribed the pill by doctors who investigated no further. Her doctor diagnosed her with polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder for which she receives treatment. The doctors at CareMedics, she said, “are the first and only health care professionals to take my concerns seriously and to look into my case.”
The Pill doesn’t help with painful cycles, it only makes the pain more regular, and furthermore, it doesn’t uncover why the pain is so extreme. To find real care, well, it is like going on a freaking scavenger hunt. When you finally do get good care, in the form of doctors like the ones currently being maligned, it is a tremendous relief. And you start to find out things that have been wrong for twenty years but no one took the time to thoroughly investigate.
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Faye adds: My family doctor is actually one of those three CareMedics physicians. Guess why I sought that physician out? Because of that physician’s perspective on fertility and hormonal care and because I knew that subscribing to that philosophy, that physician wouldn’t simply give me a pill for my problems and send me on my way.
And heck, bonus, we share the same values. The joys of living in a society that mostly values pluralism and a variety of beliefs.
I’ve also been working with this physician’s Toronto colleague for over a year now. As I’ve described in other posts, this physician, using the same approach to medicine, found two significant medical problems that 19 other physicians missed in the preceding years. I also suffered for years with no answers. Until I came across these doctors. God bless them.
This week, I wrote both of them letters and expressed my gratitude to them for being my doctors. I do not take this quality of care for granted.
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Andrea adds: I feel like we might as well just come out and say it. The problem here is not that these particular doctors won’t prescribe the Pill. The problem is our medical system and the doctor shortage. Doctors are hard to come by. If this woman who made the initial complaint knew she could easily go off and find another doctor, I don’t think we’d be discussing this today. Then again, we might be, because there is a bit of a totalitarian impulse amongst those who think their sexual ethics are sacred. They want them publicly sanctioned, and a doctor saying “I don’t sanction it and won’t prescribe you this Pill you want” is tantamount to religious heresy. Our opponents on this who want “freedom from religion” are happy to burn someone at the stake (reputation wise) until they get exactly what they want from absolutely everyone.
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I’ve gotta say, I have been stunned at the response to this story. I had no idea, none at all, just how many people are hostile to the idea of conscience rights for doctors.
And Andrea, regarding the woman who made the initial complaint: does not a small part of you wonder whether she sought out those doctors in order TO make a complaint? Does a small part of you not wonder whether organizations such as PP and the Radical Handmaids are running a smear campaign against doctors who won’t tow the line to their particular agendas?
Have a read here:
http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/it-happened-to-me-my-doctor-refused-to-refill-my-birth-control
I don’t think she planned it… but that said, it is shocking how many people do throw conscience rights and freedom of religion out the window so easily.
From that article:
“when you’re in a professional position, you have to leave your morals at home. ”
And that, in a nutshell, us what is wrong with the world today. People are unwilling to stand up for what they believe in when their jobs are on the line.
I wonder if she did make a complaint with the CMA, or the College of Physicians and Surgeons, or whoever it is that you make a complaint with. If she did, it might explain why the doctors have not responded to requests for interviews. I really wish they would go on record and tell their side of the story.
Sometimes I really grumble at the fact that only one side of this story gets all the good PR. And it’s not the side that I’m on.
And they’re both well organized and well resourced. Check it out:
http://conscience.carolynmcleod.com
Sheila, you are a doctor, are you not? Just how prevalent is this attitude in the medical community? And are there coalitions in place to advance the right to conscientious objection for doctors, or is the pressure only going one way? Is there something that we can do to support doctors who find themselves in positions where they are asked to do something they disagree with?
Well, the people advocating for ethics/morals to be checked at the door, are espousing their own ethic — an ethic of “objectivity” — whether they realize it or not. The question is, however, what is the authenticity of such an ethic?