Male patients asked if they are pregnant at NHS Trust

[Emily Lake]

Some people like to kick up fuss over the tiniest of perceived slights.

Maybe you think that your doctor not understanding your anatomy is a "tiny" thing. But I've nearly been killed by my anatomy, because doctors did NOT take it into account. I don't consider nearly dying because my doctors didn't give any thought to me having a FEMALE anatomy to be a "tiny" thing.

You have it completely backward. Whatever it was that nearly killed you should have been taken into account. It should have been part of the medical checklist those doctors employed so that they would have found it as they checked off possible causes of your medical emergency. It should be part of the medical checklist they use for ALL patients showing the symptoms you had.

Doctors know that M and F can indicate either gender or sex, and they know that whatever letter people write down at the top of the form isn't the last word on the presence or absence of certain reproductive organs in their bodies. And even if it were, doctors know that going over comprehensive checklists with all patients reduce the chances something important being forgotten or overlooked. They know that people in physical or emotional distress can give confusing answers and that errors in medical records can occur. They know it's better to check and double check, to get verbal confirmation regarding medical conditions, the use of drugs and over-the-counter medications, possible exposure to certain bacteria and viruses, etc., before doing scans and treatments that might have harmful outcomes.

It doesn't matter if you're FEMALE or MALE or INTERSEX or have a karyotype and endocrine sex so rare there isn't a commonly accepted term for it yet. EVERYONE filling out the same forms and going over the same checklists with staff is BETTER than having some patients being asked some questions that others aren't.

The goal here is to avoid doing harm, not to avoid offending the chauvinists and sexists who might get their undies in a bunch if the staff asks them questions they think should only be asked of the 'other' sex/gender/social construct/ chromosomal array.

Males do not get fibroids. And in a medical setting, all people should be educated that when a form asks for their sex... it means their SEX.

I nearly died, because doctors use men as the "norm", so when I showed up with blood in my urine, they assumed it must be menstrual blood even though I was nowhere near my period. When I showed up with a stress fracture of my tibial plateau, and osteopenia at age 30, then assumed I wasn't getting enough calcium. When I complained of excessively heavy periods and cramping, they decided I should try a different birth control, and gee, sometimes bodies just change over time. When I kept showing up as severely anemic, they prescribed me iron pills and told me to change my diet.

They did those things because they neglected to take into consideration that FEMALES ARE NOT MALES. All of those are common symptoms of fibroids... and fibroids are an extremely common female ailment - around 80% of women will develop fibroids, and some 30% of them will cause health problems. And yet, when I presented - over the course of multiple years to multiple doctors, including my GP for the entire fucking time - none of them stepped back and thought "hmm, a woman has these symptoms, what might that mean for a female?"

The goddamned thing was the size of a racquetball and it didn't get diagnosed until it hemorrhaged and I nearly bled to death.

Checking a male for a fibroid would be an insane waste of time and money. But for fuck's sake, knowing that females have different anatomies and different ailments is extremely important. Women are ALREADY underdiagnosed for female-specific problems at a horrific rate. Now you want to waste doctor's time asking male patients if they might be pregnant or have endometriosis? It's dumb, it's virtue signaling, and it's going to take even more attention away from women who actually do merit some decent fucking medical care!

 

[Arctish]

Some people like to kick up fuss over the tiniest of perceived slights.

Maybe you think that your doctor not understanding your anatomy is a "tiny" thing. But I've nearly been killed by my anatomy, because doctors did NOT take it into account. I don't consider nearly dying because my doctors didn't give any thought to me having a FEMALE anatomy to be a "tiny" thing.

You have it completely backward. Whatever it was that nearly killed you should have been taken into account. It should have been part of the medical checklist those doctors employed so that they would have found it as they checked off possible causes of your medical emergency. It should be part of the medical checklist they use for ALL patients showing the symptoms you had.

Doctors know that M and F can indicate either gender or sex, and they know that whatever letter people write down at the top of the form isn't the last word on the presence or absence of certain reproductive organs in their bodies. And even if it were, doctors know that going over comprehensive checklists with all patients reduce the chances something important being forgotten or overlooked. They know that people in physical or emotional distress can give confusing answers and that errors in medical records can occur. They know it's better to check and double check, to get verbal confirmation regarding medical conditions, the use of drugs and over-the-counter medications, possible exposure to certain bacteria and viruses, etc., before doing scans and treatments that might have harmful outcomes.

It doesn't matter if you're FEMALE or MALE or INTERSEX or have a karyotype and endocrine sex so rare there isn't a commonly accepted term for it yet. EVERYONE filling out the same forms and going over the same checklists with staff is BETTER than having some patients being asked some questions that others aren't.

The goal here is to avoid doing harm, not to avoid offending the chauvinists and sexists who might get their undies in a bunch if the staff asks them questions they think should only be asked of the 'other' sex/gender/social construct/ chromosomal array.

Males do not get fibroids. And in a medical setting, all people should be educated that when a form asks for their sex... it means their SEX.

I nearly died, because doctors use men as the "norm", so when I showed up with blood in my urine, they assumed it must be menstrual blood even though I was nowhere near my period. When I showed up with a stress fracture of my tibial plateau, and osteopenia at age 30, then assumed I wasn't getting enough calcium. When I complained of excessively heavy periods and cramping, they decided I should try a different birth control, and gee, sometimes bodies just change over time. When I kept showing up as severely anemic, they prescribed me iron pills and told me to change my diet.

They did those things because they neglected to take into consideration that FEMALES ARE NOT MALES. All of those are common symptoms of fibroids... and fibroids are an extremely common female ailment - around 80% of women will develop fibroids, and some 30% of them will cause health problems. And yet, when I presented - over the course of multiple years to multiple doctors, including my GP for the entire fucking time - none of them stepped back and thought "hmm, a woman has these symptoms, what might that mean for a female?"

The goddamned thing was the size of a racquetball and it didn't get diagnosed until it hemorrhaged and I nearly bled to death.

I'm sorry that happened to you. Hopefully the doctors who became aware of your case developed a better set of questions to ask patients presenting your symptoms so that in the future, a potentially life threatening fibroid isn't overlooked.

Checking a male for a fibroid would be an insane waste of time and money.

Males can't get uterine fibroids but they can get fibroids in the pelvic area. It would be best to consider the possibility a patient with abdominal pain, anemia, osteopenia at age 30, etc. is suffering from a fibroid tumor regardless of their sex.

But for fuck's sake, knowing that females have different anatomies and different ailments is extremely important. Women are ALREADY underdiagnosed for female-specific problems at a horrific rate. Now you want to waste doctor's time asking male patients if they might be pregnant or have endometriosis? It's dumb, it's virtue signaling, and it's going to take even more attention away from women who actually do merit some decent fucking medical care!

There are some ailments that are strongly linked to females with female anatomy using 'feminine' products like tampons. Toxic Shock Syndrome is probably the most widely known. But males can use tampons and men can get Toxic Shock Syndrome, too.

Some guys might use a piece of a tampon to deal with a puncture wound just like the Army medics in Afghanistan did, and not change it soon enough to avoid dangerous bacterial growth. Or they might have a sex related reason to insert one in their rectum. Or they might do it on a bet. It doesn't matter why they might use a tampon, what matters is hospital staff asking people who exhibit symptoms of TSS if they are using, or have recently used, a tampon.

I don't care if they used a chisel tip Sharpie to write 'M' as their sex designation on their admission form. Every patient should be asked the same general questions upon admission. Subsequent questions should be based on diagnosis, treatment, and risk factors, not on sex or gender or how high someone wants to crank the outrage machine.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I nearly died, because doctors use men as the "norm", so when I showed up with blood in my urine, they assumed it must be menstrual blood even though I was nowhere near my period. When I showed up with a stress fracture of my tibial plateau, and osteopenia at age 30, then assumed I wasn't getting enough calcium. When I complained of excessively heavy periods and cramping, they decided I should try a different birth control, and gee, sometimes bodies just change over time. When I kept showing up as severely anemic, they prescribed me iron pills and told me to change my diet.

They did those things because they neglected to take into consideration that FEMALES ARE NOT MALES. All of those are common symptoms of fibroids... and fibroids are an extremely common female ailment - around 80% of women will develop fibroids, and some 30% of them will cause health problems. And yet, when I presented - over the course of multiple years to multiple doctors, including my GP for the entire fucking time - none of them stepped back and thought "hmm, a woman has these symptoms, what might that mean for a female?"

The goddamned thing was the size of a racquetball and it didn't get diagnosed until it hemorrhaged and I nearly bled to death.

Checking a male for a fibroid would be an insane waste of time and money. But for fuck's sake, knowing that females have different anatomies and different ailments is extremely important. Women are ALREADY underdiagnosed for female-specific problems at a horrific rate. Now you want to waste doctor's time asking male patients if they might be pregnant or have endometriosis? It's dumb, it's virtue signaling, and it's going to take even more attention away from women who actually do merit some decent fucking medical care!

Is this about males, or is this about this not being something that typically happens to 30 year olds? There are plenty of examples of doctors missing old-people diseases in young people.

 

[Emily Lake]

Males can't get uterine fibroids but they can get fibroids in the pelvic area. It would be best to consider the possibility a patient with abdominal pain, anemia, osteopenia at age 30, etc. is suffering from a fibroid tumor regardless of their sex.

I can't find a single thing about males getting fibroids in the way you imply. I find ONE article, from 1920, which discusses "fibroids" as benign tumors in a general sense, but that is not the current use of that term.

Fibroids are specifically benign tumors of the uterus.

Even if a male did have a benign tumor of the abdomen, composed of fibrous tissues... they would NOT develop anemia and osteopenia. The entire reason that women develop those symptoms is that fibroids are made of uterine tissue, and they develop a lining during the course of the mentrual cycle, then they shed that lining. But they're not a normal part of the uterus, so when they shed, they also actually bleed live blood cells. Thus, the FEMALE ends up with blood loss each month, resulting in chronic anemia. It's the anemia that causes the loss of bone density - the blood loss drives marrow to produce more blood, but in doing so the iron reserves get depleted. When it happens chronically, you end up with the marrow being reduced, unable to create new blood cells at a high enough rate to replace the loss... and also not able to do its normal function of processing and depositing calcium into bone for storage.

The anemia and osteopenia are specifically related to the fact that fibroids are composed of uterine tissue, it is a sex-specific symptom.

JFC. Women are not men with slightly different plug & play parts. We have evolved differently from men, our entire systems are evolved around our reproductive facility. It's not a small thing, and I just keep being appalled at the complete lack of understanding that men exhibit when it comes to women's bodies.

 

[Emily Lake]

I nearly died, because doctors use men as the "norm", so when I showed up with blood in my urine, they assumed it must be menstrual blood even though I was nowhere near my period. When I showed up with a stress fracture of my tibial plateau, and osteopenia at age 30, then assumed I wasn't getting enough calcium. When I complained of excessively heavy periods and cramping, they decided I should try a different birth control, and gee, sometimes bodies just change over time. When I kept showing up as severely anemic, they prescribed me iron pills and told me to change my diet.

They did those things because they neglected to take into consideration that FEMALES ARE NOT MALES. All of those are common symptoms of fibroids... and fibroids are an extremely common female ailment - around 80% of women will develop fibroids, and some 30% of them will cause health problems. And yet, when I presented - over the course of multiple years to multiple doctors, including my GP for the entire fucking time - none of them stepped back and thought "hmm, a woman has these symptoms, what might that mean for a female?"

The goddamned thing was the size of a racquetball and it didn't get diagnosed until it hemorrhaged and I nearly bled to death.

Checking a male for a fibroid would be an insane waste of time and money. But for fuck's sake, knowing that females have different anatomies and different ailments is extremely important. Women are ALREADY underdiagnosed for female-specific problems at a horrific rate. Now you want to waste doctor's time asking male patients if they might be pregnant or have endometriosis? It's dumb, it's virtue signaling, and it's going to take even more attention away from women who actually do merit some decent fucking medical care!

Is this about males, or is this about this not being something that typically happens to 30 year olds? There are plenty of examples of doctors missing old-people diseases in young people.

FFS, it DOES happen in 30 year olds, and it DOES NOT EVER happen to males.

 

[Arctish]

Males can't get uterine fibroids but they can get fibroids in the pelvic area. It would be best to consider the possibility a patient with abdominal pain, anemia, osteopenia at age 30, etc. is suffering from a fibroid tumor regardless of their sex.

I can't find a single thing about males getting fibroids in the way you imply. I find ONE article, from 1920, which discusses "fibroids" as benign tumors in a general sense, but that is not the current use of that term.

I found that article, too, and another one from 2015.

Fibroids are specifically benign tumors of the uterus.

Even if a male did have a benign tumor of the abdomen, composed of fibrous tissues... they would NOT develop anemia and osteopenia. The entire reason that women develop those symptoms is that fibroids are made of uterine tissue, and they develop a lining during the course of the mentrual cycle, then they shed that lining. But they're not a normal part of the uterus, so when they shed, they also actually bleed live blood cells. Thus, the FEMALE ends up with blood loss each month, resulting in chronic anemia. It's the anemia that causes the loss of bone density - the blood loss drives marrow to produce more blood, but in doing so the iron reserves get depleted. When it happens chronically, you end up with the marrow being reduced, unable to create new blood cells at a high enough rate to replace the loss... and also not able to do its normal function of processing and depositing calcium into bone for storage.

The anemia and osteopenia are specifically related to the fact that fibroids are composed of uterine tissue, it is a sex-specific symptom.

Thank you for the information. Most of that is something I didn't know.

It appears your doctors missed some pretty clear signs pointing to the source of your illness.

JFC. Women are not men with slightly different plug & play parts. We have evolved differently from men, our entire systems are evolved around our reproductive facility. It's not a small thing, and I just keep being appalled at the complete lack of understanding that men exhibit when it comes to women's bodies.

I don't know how to say this any more clearly: I agree with you that males lacking female or intersex characteristics cannot become pregnant. Males lacking female gonads do not typically produce estrogen and progesterone at the same levels as females (if they do, that's indicative of a health problem), do not cycle through them throughout the month the way females do, and do not have health issues related to menstruation or pregnancy or childbirth. That is a given.

And while we're on the topic, let me just add that I think there's a damn good reason for doctors to specialize in the health issues of one sex or another (gynecologists, obstetricians, etc.), as well as those who specialize in health issues of persons at different ages (pediatricians, geriatricians, etc.). Different health issues arise among different demographics. But that doesn't mean every segregation of patients by sex, gender, age, or other factor, is helpful or necessary.

I don't think that having two separate sets of questions, one for men and the other for women, to be asked prior to treatment in a Radiology department, is efficient or necessary or good. I think it's inefficient, unnecessary, and is an opportunity for error. I think what the hospital in the OP did is a non-issue.

Separate be equal is not equal. If we don't need to separate out the men from the women seeking treatment, we shouldn't. We should ask them all the same questions and give them all the same level of care.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Is this about males, or is this about this not being something that typically happens to 30 year olds? There are plenty of examples of doctors missing old-people diseases in young people.

FFS, it DOES happen in 30 year olds, and it DOES NOT EVER happen to males.

Note that I said "typically". Doctors tend to miss low-probability scenarios. You're assuming this is a male-female issue rather than a young-old issue.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't think that having two separate sets of questions, one for men and the other for women, to be asked prior to treatment in a Radiology department, is efficient or necessary or good. I think it's inefficient, unnecessary, and is an opportunity for error. I think what the hospital in the OP did is a non-issue.

Separate be equal is not equal. If we don't need to separate out the men from the women seeking treatment, we shouldn't. We should ask them all the same questions and give them all the same level of care.

Separate but equal can be equal, it just generally is a coverup for not being equal.

The basic issue here is catching errors. Asking everyone means fewer errors and it's faster to ask than to ensure you truly know their anatomy.

 

[Emily Lake]

Separate be equal is not equal. If we don't need to separate out the men from the women seeking treatment, we shouldn't. We should ask them all the same questions and give them all the same level of care.

When it comes to sex, it is not and has never been "separate but equal". It's separate because not equal.

 

[Emily Lake]

Note that I said "typically". Doctors tend to miss low-probability scenarios. You're assuming this is a male-female issue rather than a young-old issue.

Males do not have uteruses, and cannot get uterine fibroids. It's not an age issue, it's literally a sex-based condition.

 

[TSwizzle]

The goal here is to avoid doing harm, not to avoid offending the chauvinists and sexists who might get their undies in a bunch if the staff asks them questions they think should only be asked of the 'other' sex/gender/social construct/ chromosomal array.

That is utter bollocks and you know it. Males cannot possibly be pregnant.

 

[Arctish]

The goal here is to avoid doing harm, not to avoid offending the chauvinists and sexists who might get their undies in a bunch if the staff asks them questions they think should only be asked of the 'other' sex/gender/social construct/ chromosomal array.

That is utter bollocks and you know it. Males cannot possibly be pregnant.

I have explicitly agreed that males who have no female or intersex characteristics cannot get pregnant. Ho many times do I have to say it? Would colorful font be helpful in getting across that message?

I agree that males who have no female or intersex characteristics cannot get pregnant.

I do not agree that it's efficient or necessary or good to have separate lists of questions for staff to ask patients prior to treatment in the Radiology department, the choice of which to be determined by the letter patients chose to write on their forms.

One single form for all patients to fill out, and one single set of questions for staff to ask them, is better. It's more efficient, provides less opportunity for error, and reduces the chances something important might be overlooked.

 

[TSwizzle]

I have explicitly agreed that males who have no female or intersex characteristics cannot get pregnant.

Asking men if they may be pregnant is not about achieving the goal of no harm to a non existent fetus. You can dance around the nonsense all you like, your retarded emperor has no clothes.

 

[Emily Lake]

I agree that males who have no female or intersex characteristics cannot get pregnant.

Let's cut to the chase: What characteristics is it *possible* for a male to have that would allow them to get pregnant? And if they have those characteristics... what makes them male?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The alt-right hates gender-identity politics....

...except if a patient has to answer the question....

"Is the patient pregnant?"

How dare you ask me that question! I'm a male! Nearly 600 posts into this dumpster fire, which keeps going no where.

 

[Emily Lake]

The alt-right hates gender-identity politics....

...except if a patient has to answer the question....

"Is the patient pregnant?"

How dare you ask me that question! I'm a male! Nearly 600 posts into this dumpster fire, which keeps going no where.

Who exactly in this thread do you believe is "alt-right"?

 

[Arctish]

I have explicitly agreed that males who have no female or intersex characteristics cannot get pregnant.

Asking men if they may be pregnant is not about achieving the goal of no harm to a non existent fetus. You can dance around the nonsense all you like, your retarded emperor has no clothes.

You listed your gender as male in the space under your avatar picture. You didn't indicate your sex. But that's okay because the questions I might ask of you, on this discussion board or IRL, would be the same regardless of your sex and gender. And if I was given the task of developing a set of questions to ask patients in a hospital before they undergo treatment, it would have a space for sex but I wouldn't change or eliminate questions based on what they answered. If a question doesn't apply to them, they can write N/A in that space.

I have no idea why asking every patient the same set of questions is so controversial. To me, it's like being asked if I have tuberculosis or hepatitis or HIV at the Dentist's office. It's not personal. It's not a slight against me or my looks. It's just a standard set of questions, and I have no problem saying 'no'.

 

[TSwizzle]

Who exactly in this thread do you believe is "alt-right"?

It’s anyone who’s disagrees with the prevailing orthodoxy. If they can’t exhaust you into submission with gibberish then scream Trump, MAGA, QANON, Alt Right, old white male or such nonsense.

 

[Arctish]

I agree that males who have no female or intersex characteristics cannot get pregnant.

Let's cut to the chase: What characteristics is it *possible* for a male to have that would allow them to get pregnant? And if they have those characteristics... what makes them male?

Hayley Haynes has the XY chromosome pairing of a male and no gonads. Was she a male or a female before the hormone treatments?

Or do you think she was sexless?

 

[Trausti]

I agree that males who have no female or intersex characteristics cannot get pregnant.

Let's cut to the chase: What characteristics is it *possible* for a male to have that would allow them to get pregnant? And if they have those characteristics... what makes them male?

Hayley Haynes has the XY chromosome pairing of a male and no gonads. Was she a male or a female before the hormone treatments?

Or do you think she was sexless?

That's an interesting story.

Hayley Haynes, Woman Born Without A 'Womb,' Gives Birth To Twin Girls Via Hormone Therapy

A woman born with genes of a man gives birth to twin girls after a successful IVF treatment.

www.medicaldaily.com

But she apparently did have a womb and ovaries.