In January, I had my annual appointment today with my OB/GYN. She’s a young white woman – younger than I am – who is thin, fit, attractive. I think she might even be pregnant (though I didn’t ask…. You never ask a woman if she’s pregnant unless her water breaks on your shoes, right?). This is only the second time I’ve seen her, and I’m not sure she’s a keeper. See, all this matters because we are beginning year two of infertility treatments, and I can’t help but hoping she and her colleagues will be the ones to deliver my baby.
But I digress. When she walks in the room, I can see a little packet of patient information she is carrying to give me… a few pamphlets and a packet of stapled white papers the first of which is a truncated BMI chart. Ironically enough, I do research on overweight and obesity, so I can spot a BMI chart at 50 yards. I think my blood pressure went up about 50 points then, in anticipation of “the talk”. So she does the normal run down: What’s changed in the past year? Do I really need to do a chlamydia and gonorrhea test on you? Any major health changes or family changes? I catch her up on my year (which is another few posts). As she begins my physical exam, she does the breast self exam lecture – she actually tells me to put a monthly check box on my calendar so I can mark it off my list (because that’s what she does). Really?
After she’s finished the physical exam, she begins her visit wrap up with me. She says something I now can’t remember because the next thing she says is “And I am going to recommend you lose weight.” And so she proceeds to walk me through her ridiculous package of written materials, and tells me about how she has a weakness for Snickers and chocolate covered pretzels. She skips over the BMI chart – not sure if it is because she realizes that I must know I’m overweight (I mean, please), or because it’s because my BMI is high enough that it isn’t on her truncated chart. She mentions that Dr. Doe (not his real name) is who put together the written materials, and I remember that she told me a year ago about him.
At my first appointment with her, I asked this young little OB/GYN about her experience working with larger patients who were my size. She handled it pretty well, and so when she talked about how OB patients can end up seeing any of the other doctors, I asked her about them as well. And it is at this point it all clicks – Dr. Doe is the one who she had described as being the least comfortable/tolerant (don’t recall the exact word) of working with fat patients. So I see these materials and it strikes me that this man could deliver me. Just typing these words makes me anxious – I can’t even imagine having him do a physical exam on me much less deliver my child.
And on top of it all, when I get home and actually look at the materials, it is just ridiculous. I mean, outside of the fact that they are written to target a white, college-educated audience, we have known for a long time that written materials alone DO NOT WORK. And his writing is this scientific, linear, “just make it an equation” kind of thinking (the title is literally “WEIGHT LOSS=EAT LESS, MOVE MORE”). I mean really – if I could do that as easy as that kind of math, don’t they think I would have? This skinny white man clearly has absolutely no idea of the things that drive obesity for so many of us.
What is also the most bothersome about this for me is that this little young doc also told me to "hurry up and get pregnant." Ok.... so I'm 37, have been trying to get pregnant for two years, and at this appointment had just told her about a miscarriage last fall, and how I had to wait until the new year to try again because of the related surgery I had to have in December. Did she miss the "common sense and empathy" class in medical school? Oh, that's right.... It's not offered.
So the hunt begins for a new OB/GYN group that I can actually feel safe with.... regardless of where my fertility (or lack thereof) takes me.
What is your experience in this realm? How do you handle this kind of insanity?
No comments:
Post a Comment