Sexual abuse and rape
Sounds suspicious does it not? But who knows what really went on? One thing is sure, though. Most of us working in health care will say, "Well, nothing like that could ever happen to me."
Or could it? First, a true story from England. A few years ago, I received an urgent phone call from the pharmacist in the largest of the local supermarkets. A gentleman – we will call him Mr Green - was standing in the supermarket handing out circulars to all who passed by. The circular said that Dr Mary Jones (one of my partners) was an excellent doctor but that every time he went to see her, she asked him to remove his trousers and then tickled his scrotum with her bare hands.
Mary has been in the practice for 15 years, is happily married to an accountant and has two children both at nearby schools. She is well known locally.
That pharmacist arranged for security to get the man to leave the supermarket, but he then stood outside and continued to distribute his circulars. The police arrived and took him home. Mr Green was mentally ill but not sectionable. Mary took advice from her defence union. A stern letter was written and Mr Green stopped handing out circulars. We do not normally remove mentally ill patients from our list but the advice we had, and followed, was that Mr Green should go. We arranged for another local practice, a few miles away, to take him on.
There was no come back from our patients. The allegation was preposterous, Dr Jones is well known and respected, and no one took it seriously. We heard no more about it.
It could have been so different particularly if the allegation had been against a male doctor. “I went to see Dr Crippen with palpations. He insisted I take my bra off and whilst he was pretending to listen to my heart, he felt my breasts” says Mrs Smith. Dr Crippen might well have asked Mrs Smith to take off her bra in order to listen to her heart. Dr Crippen knows full well he should get a chaperone, and always does for vaginal examinations but, well, all the nurses were tied up, and he has known Mrs Smith for years, and there has never been a problem with her, and the examination only takes two minutes and you can go on like this as long as you like, but the seeds have been sewn. And now, another true story, this time from the USA again.
Kevin MD draws my attention to a respected gynaecologist, who refused to prescribe narcotics for a patient and was then accused of a seamy, unpleasant sexual offence.Male doctors are particularly at risk. But it is not just doctors. Anyone working in health care may face allegations of this nature. And woe betides you if you fall foul of the feminists. You may be exonerated in court but, even if you win, you lose. There is no easy answer and you cannot be chaperoned for everything.
Is this truly an indiscretion by a 61-year old doctor with an unblemished record, or is the patient out for revenge after being refused a narcotic prescription? No matter what happens, the physician has already lost with the story being published in the local newspaper.
Full details from Kevin MD here
Labels: birth rape, Sexual abuse, sexual offences by doctors
22 Comments:
you also fall foul of false accusations outside of work. I knew a chap that was accused of assault during a nasty divorce. The case didn't go anywhere as the lady concerned gave 2 different statements to 2 different courts (family and criminal). He has been unable to secure a nursing post since as the police say on his CRB that he was charged, but was not convicted due to lack of evidence.
This gives the impression to prospective employers that he did it, but they can't catch him.
And once again Dr Crippen tells us a story about the travails of the medical profession which shows him to be a paragon of virtue.
Doesn't he ever get tired of always ending up a hero? Seems not.
In other contexts, this behaviour would be described as pathological obsessive.
What was it, one of your professional colleagues said about the ambulance staff. "Thanks very much for your skills. Now fuck off and drive".
Yeh, right. The sentiment applies equally to Mr Crippen.
It works the same in reverse. If a doctor behaves improperly, he can throw all the mud he likes at you to discredit what you say.
I think it's best always to have a chaperone, then both parties are protected.
Anonymous said...
And once again Dr Crippen tells us a story about the travails of the medical profession which shows him to be a paragon of virtue.
Doesn't he ever get tired of always ending up a hero? Seems not.
In other contexts, this behaviour would be described as pathological obsessive.
What was it, one of your professional colleagues said about the ambulance staff. "Thanks very much for your skills. Now fuck off and drive".
Yeh, right. The sentiment applies equally to Mr Crippen.
++++++
D'y know, I really don't understand this. I don't mind personal abuse at all but, as I say, I don't understand this. Er... in what way was I portraying myself as "a paragon of virtue"? I was not involved in either story. In what way am I ending up as a "hero"?
Sure, this is about the travails of the medical profession but equally about the travails of anyone (particularly male) working in health care.
What an odd comment.
John
Anonymous said...
It works the same in reverse. If a doctor behaves improperly, he can throw all the mud he likes at you to discredit what you say.
I think it's best always to have a chaperone, then both parties are protected.
Friday, November 21, 2008 11:44:00 PM
+++++++
That's interesting. Can you quote some cases?
John
That's interesting. Can you quote some cases?
Yes, I can give you numerous anecdotal occasions where a medic has covered their arse by lying and had colleagues assist him/her.
None of them about sexual inappropriateness tho but I wouldn't say it was wholly improbable and has certainly happened on occasion (at about the same rate as incompetent home births I'd say).
Anyhoos... the black and white debate - no it's not right to wrongfully accuse anyone of such an offence.
The grey - doctors who do not deal effectively with their patients can attract this kind of retaliation. It's the only power a patient has - and pretty powerful it is too. Patients are no longer the willing sheep they once were. They are the 'consumer'. So give them stuff to consume dammit.
Making it easier for patients to complain about poor service without the old boy network closing ranks and actually resolving genuine issues will reduce some of them. It's called 'empowering' - it's a fluffy bunny concept.
Learning how to deal tactfully with difficult to support patients will help some more.
There will still be others tho - but less of them.
I've been accused of sexual and non-sexual assault - it's not nice but can be dealt with and is an unfortunate risk of the job.
Just like any independent midwive or authentic Doctor is now tarred with your slanderous roller brush.
It could have been so different particularly if the allegation had been against a male doctor.
Well yes indeed. But then most sexual assaults are perpetrated by men (the victims are of course both women and men).
And as for "fall foul of the feminists" -- I'll quote from the piece to which you link
Lynsey, whom I met on an internet support group for birth trauma survivors, tells of how her midwife rammed a hand up into her vagina to manually dilate her cervix (a procedure that is very painful and ill-advised) because she had been up all night and was “tired of how long this was taking”. Even as Lynsey squirmed and screamed “No! Get off of me!” while dealing with the excruciating pain of another monster contraction, she was laughed at and mocked for being a “bigger baby than the one she was trying to push out”. Lynsey looked to her partner for support, but he just held her hand and whispered soothing words as the midwife continued to assault her genitals. Desperate for the attack to stop, she lashed out and tried to kick the woman away,
midwife
woman
NB.
A feminist, John, is not to be defined as "a feminist whose views you dislike".
"A feminist is not to be defined as "a feminist whose views you dislike"
+++
Fair comment. Perhaps I should have described her as a rabid, histrionic, hysterical feminist. I too have seen some appalling things happen to women on labour wards. This sort of treatment is unacceptable, and I don't condone it but wimmin who write about it in this way, suggesting that this attack on their integrity is a sexual offence, akin to rape, do a great disservice to women who have been the victims of real sexual offences. And you have to ask, if it really was as bad as she describes, why did her husband not intervene?
John
Saturday, November 22, 2008 4:12:00 PM
I was the anonymous who said about it being the same in reverse. I didn't mean it not to have my usual nickname, I just hit the send button too soon.
When I was a student, I was also in the OTC. A local GP was acting as Regimental MO. I was sent to see him for a check-up. He got me to lie on his couch and started listening to my chest. Then he undid my front-fastening bra and reached out with his hand. I told him exactly where to put it, dressed and went back to my unit.
When I got there, a warrant officer whisked me into his room and asked what had happened. I told him that nothing had happened. He told me that my face showed otherwise, that every woman from the unit that went to see him came back looking like something had happened and that his own ten-year-old daughter had been very upset since she went to see him and wouldn't say what had happened.
I told him. I said that if just one other woman would come with me, I would go to the GMC. No one did, but something must have happened because the RMO wrote a report downgrading me medically whilst giving no medical reasons for it. It took a change of unit to be allowed to have a second opinion and regraded upwards again.
The RMO could put his hands where he liked because if you spoke out, your career was messed up.
I have seen many, many good doctors since then and wouldn't dream of supposing that others would be the same, although some years later I did encounter an RAMC officer who was physically aggressive (and rather apologetic afterwards, maybe rather impulsive) but they have not been the norm.
Because I have travelled around, had many sporting and military injuries, and had many army medicals over many years, plus had a breakdown, I have had occasion to see a great many doctors as a patient - well over a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty, not to mention all the doctors I encountered whilst in the QARANC. The two doctors I speak of were rare, but they exist and they were powerful. The worst career move I ever made was to speak out against the first of them.
gosh,
have just been interviewed by child abuse CID (a nice guy called D*** who i used to work with when a police surgeon).
Mrs V has alleged that i was abusive to her (small number) year old daughter. Thankfully there is good evidence that Mrs V has a bad case of Muncheusen by proxy and my main worry is for the child, not my GMC registration; had previously talked with community paeds and psychiatry/neurology about mothers psychppathy.
Could have been mightly different though. I will now spend more time makig notes and being chaparoned (when examining toddlers of either sex). Fuck, actually might emigrate
That's not nearly our worst story Dr. Crippen.
Here's a story from New York City.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=90000445
Dorothy Rabinowitz is someone I admire. She wrote a book called "No Crueler Tyrranies", and covered the false sex-abuse trials of McMartin preschool in California, the Wenatchee (Washington) cases, the Fells Acres daycare case in Massachusetts, among others. Horrible miscarriages of justice. Few other reporters had the guts to stand up to the government against "child abusers"......even though the charges were patently absurd. Does the heart good to know at least a few reporters still earn their pay.
This physician was a well-regarded New York physician. His private clinic had a nurse or nurses floating between helping him with procedures, prepping the next patient, recovering the previous patient. This lying plaintiff described, claimed he was anally abusing her during a colonoscopy, during times when the nurse happened to be on the other side of a curtain dividing the endoscopy suite.
...............arf
"And you have to ask, if it really was as bad as she describes, why did her husband not intervene?"
Because he really didn't notice or had a habit of downplaying anything that is distressing?
3 incidents from my own experience in the last few months. Friend of the family hadn't been seen and wasn't returning phone calls. Enquiries to her husband received the response, "X is fine, just busy". Everyone was shocked by X's death soon after (colon cancer). There was a lot of unpleasantness at the funeral when her children wanted to know 'why her friends had abandoned her and nobody went to see her'.
A young woman with food poisoning that was so bad she when her husband was filling up the car at a service station, she crawled out into the shade and curled up, wanting to die. Other drivers called an ambulance - the husband was attempting to argue with the paramedics that she would be fine soon. She was in hospital for 10 days with various complications.
A intelligent enough man who, despite appropriate advice about keeping an eye on someone with a head injury following a fall, didn't notice that his wife's condition was deteriorating with some unfortunate consequences.
These stories could work either way - but there are lots of spouses who either don't notice, can't handle confrontation, or are in denial.
Perhaps I should have described her as a rabid, histrionic, hysterical feminist.
thank you, John. It remains to add that we don't actually know what she's like. I do know what various of the F-Word people are like, (have a fair idea), rabid, hysterical, histrionic, they are not.
akin to rape, do a great disservice to women who have been the victims of real sexual offences.
actually I agree though as was said when you previously wrote about this, not all rape is 'violent'.
gosh, you use the word "feminist" as though it is an insult.
Fucking hell. I went to a cardiologist once for palpitations (brought on by illegal shift lengths, or at least triggered by them). He lifted my left boob , sans bra, with his hand to listen for mitral murmurs. Then palpated for thrills. So what?
Patient education could go a long way toward addressing some of this crap. If you understand what's going on, maybe you're less likely to be an asshole about it later.
Would public health have a role in this? In NZ they have numerous ads about cervical smears, breast checks, etc, and no patient I've ever met is ever under any illusions as to what is happening. I mean, if something untoward is happening YOU'LL KNOW. Really. You will.
This sounds a bit weird.
You learn to feel with your hand under a womasn breast for cardio exams as soon as you start doing medicine ("one had social two hands medical") and learn how to do it with the minimum of fuss. I wonder how many women now think that the doctor is "having a feel" even with a quick explanation of the process?.
Should i get a chaparone for cario examinations? I think i would struggle in A&E when it's busy to do that.
But this is the state of affairs we approach. If there is a danger of a small minority of woman sexualising medical examinations, we could all be in trouble.
John
Is it normal then for a doctor to undress his patient? I thought that the norm was for a doctor to let the patient undress themselves and explain what the procedure involved, not to rapidly undo their clothing and make a quick grab.
I have had my breasts examined by doctors, perfectly professionally, and I have had my chest listened to. None of them felt the urge to start grabbing at my underwear without warning and having a quick grope.
There is actually a difference.
Mind you, I was a bit out of my depth trying to work out what an injury to my knee had to do with my chest being grabbed. I'm sure it all makes perfect sense to doctors. Funnily enough, in decades of treatment for the same knee, he was the only doctor who found the need to reach up under my top, undo my bra and examine my left breast in the course of treating it.
But it's easy to tell a patient that it's normal to grab their breasts, isn't it? Like I said, mud sticks. You dare to suggest that a doctor is not behaving professionally and you get a load of aggro.
I've been commenting on here long enough for people to know that I'm not rabidly anti-doctor. You all know that I have great respect for doctors. I also explained that I have seen many, many doctors in my lifetime.
But one comment that one doctor behaved inappropriately and the wolves start baying.
I stick by my views. Any doctor that's going to start stripping his patients ought to have a chaperone.
Nutty deep breath, never had a go at you never said you were talking bollocks.
I said its a bit weird, him undoing your bra was very odd...the following part was me wondering if it wasa misunderstanding. I often have to "reach out my hand" towards a woman breast during a cardio exam. In A&E chest pain/ palpitations is one of the most common presentations to the medics, if i needed a chaparone for every exam (and so did every one else) then things would become a hell of a lot slower.
"grabbing a breast" is very different to "reaching out".
In my mind my post was more me wondering how many women actually think the touching of the chest area is pointless/ inappropriate, i did not think...this one is an idiot/ got the wrong end of the stick.
Screw it, off to pathology for me...no need for a chaparone there.
Sorry, I did rather get wound up here. Maybe I've made my point, though, that if a patient tries to say that a doctor has done something they find inappropriate, they have holes picked in what they say rather than being believed that something was amiss.
There are many, many very professional doctors out there, but a few not so professional ones exist.
Even if it comes down to misunderstanding, how professional is it of a doctor to do something that could be misconstrued for the sake of explaining to his patient what he is going to do? It doesn't take much simply to say you'd like to do such and such instead of going blundering in.
It's one of those silly little things. For example, over the years, as things happen, I have had a number of vaginal examinations by a variety of different health professionals and in my experience the women always put a sheet or blanket over me and the men just leave me lying there on the couch with everything exposed. When you're like that, you can feel vulnerable, and more misunderstandings can occur.
I had a guy, in his early 40's as I recall. He walked in the door, saw me for the first time. Said "I think I have a hernia". In so many words.
What makes you think you have a hernia?
"I'm having discomfort in (pointing to groin area)".
OK, let's look. Take your pants and shorts off, let me have a look.
So I check the testicles, they're both there, both feel normal. Then I take the finger and go up the scrotum into the inguinal canal. I was about to say "turn your head and cough".
The guy let out a blood-curdling scream. It attracted staff. He thought I was engaged in some sort of homosexual perversion with his genitalia.
Actually, it was just as well that staff showed up at that moment. It allowed someone else to explain that's how doctors have checked for hernias for the last 500 years or so. The finger thing, and making sure both testicles were present and normal.
..........arf
Personally I've had worse experiences with female doctors rather than male.
I think the problem is that doctors are so busy they forget to explain what they are doing and why. If they did it would really cut down the number of people who make complaints.
@Anonymous - Did you explain to your patient what the procedure would be before you felt his testicles and done the 'finger thing'?
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