I have been a gynecologist for over 20 years. Including residency I have been performing pelvic exams for over 26 years. I have done thousands of routine well-woman pelvic exams and thousands of exams for women with symptoms. While my personal n of 1 is certainly not research I have not once picked up a …
Continue reading “Women should get a routine check in with their GYN, not a routine pelvic exam”
Two years ago I wrote about my experience in a London emergency department with my son, Victor. That post has since been viewed > 450,000 times. There are over 800 comments with no trolls (a feat unto itself) and almost all of them express love for the NHS. I was in England again this week. …
Continue reading “An American doctor experiences the NHS. Again.”
It may (or may not) surprise to learn that hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) the “disorder” treated by the new drug Addyi didn’t exist before 2004. Why in 2004 did we decide that normal female sexual response was a condition? Well, HSDD was established/invented/introduced by industry to prepare the market for a testosterone patch for …
Continue reading “How Medscape helped Sprout stack the deck for Addyi”
Today the publisher of the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper, wrote that the article “A wonder drug’s dark side” will be removed from the online site. This is 15 days after it was originally published. It obviously still lives on in print and in screen shots, but now at least no anti-vaccine groups will be …
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, sided with Hobby Lobby (and much of the religious right in the United States) and ruled that a closely held private corporation does not have to provide insurance coverage for certain birth control methods. Justice Alito, speaking for the majority wrote: “The owners of the businesses have religious objections …
Continue reading “An OB/GYN’s opinion on the Supreme Court, Hobby Lobby, and contraception”
The Veteran’s Administration is under fire for covering up deaths. Men and women who were eligible for care languished on impossibly long waiting lists and even worse when some died waiting for care their deaths were covered up. This is horrific and everyone wants to know how this tragedy could have happened? Veteran’s hospitals have …
Continue reading “The VA tragedy exposes the dark side of medical metrics”
Brain death is death. This is one of the definitions of death. Even in Texas. Because brain death is death a do not resuscitate (DNR) order or invalidating a DNR are both meaningless, because you don’t do procedures on dead bodies. This is why taking someone off a ventilator who is brain dead is not …
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued a press release today regarding legislative interference and health care decisions. Specifically, the release states that: Government should not interfere with the patient-physician relationship without a substantial public health justification. The full Statement of Policy was approved by ACOG’s Executive Board. Some recent examples of government …
Continue reading “When judges force doctors to abandon evidence based medicine”
As the inquest into Savita Halappanavar’s death continues we have heard about delays and errors, all of which most likely contributed to her terrible outcome. However, along the way those who have tried to pass off her death as medical negligence and nothing to do with Irish law or Catholic ethos have rested on the …
Savita Halappanavar was admitted at on a Sunday to Galway hospital at 17 weeks into her pregnancy with ruptured membranes, a dilated cervix, and an elevated white blood cell count (a marker of infection). It is clear that her diagnosis was chorioamnionitis, an infection of the fetal membranes. When left untreated the bacteria of chorioamnionitis march …
Continue reading “Savita Halappanavar’s inquest: the three questions that must be answered”
Dr. Jen Gunter 