Patient vs. Disease
A “facebook friend” is attending the 2009 Reache Conference, and she’s been posting updates periodically. I think this quote that she just posted is worth spreading around. She reports that OB/GYN Dawn Russell, MD, in discussing medical education in the US said:
You begin to see the patient as the disease…You are trained to understand, to believe, that no matter how small the risk, it WILL happen to your patient.
How true it is, how true it is. Instead of seeing a laboring woman as most likely to have an uncomplicated birth, the typical OB really believes that the birth WILL end in tragedy…and thus they are quick to intervene in an attempt to prevent that tragedy. Which would be okay if the interventions were harmless, but they aren’t.
Dovetailing very nicely with this quote, is one that is found at Rural Doctoring (I paraphrased a bit to make it fit my blog):
I once told a [wo]man I didn’t care if [s]he ruined [her birth with interventions]. “I mean, you’re a nice [woman], we get along, I appreciate your honesty,” I said, “but, let’s face it–if you [need a cesarean] ten minutes from now, I’m going to say ‘Aw, that’s too bad, [s]he was a nice [girl],’ and then I’m going to move on to the next disaster because that’s what I do. I’m a doctor, I got a hundred [girls] like you. So I don’t care. But I bet you do, and I bet your kids do, so think about that. You need to get honest with yourself and quit making excuses…
Seriously…the original quote was in context of the Dr. talking about not caring about a patient DYING…so do you think it is a stretch for me to substitute having your birth end in surgery? NO! Most OB’s don’t see any particular value in vaginal birth…their only goal is to get the baby out as quickly as possible, because once that baby is out, it isn’t their liability anymore. As a mom, OF COURSE you want a healthy baby. But maybe, just maybe, you assign some value to not having to recover from major surgery while caring for a newborn. If you do, then you need to take responsibility for choices that will minimize your risk of having a cesarean.
Tags: attitude, cesarean, Doctor, risk tolerance