Thread by @just1doctorwala

I saw this discussion going on yesterday
Wasn't able to comment for various reasons
There is a lot to unpack here so let's take a step back & look at this objectively & subjectively.

Objectively - the original person is upset because of the way her doctor treated her. She is well within her right to complain & seek alternative options. The person QTing her commented with some friend's comment (hearsay) there by steering the narrative to where she wanted it

Everything else and I mean EVERYTHING else is subjective. If you agree with me till this point then we can carry on. Else I'm afraid you are wasting your time reading on

So let's look at this subjectively. This is where I feel the core of most of the disagreements yesterday were

This is my subjective view

Should the doctor in question have used more appropriate language in her history taking (questioning)?

Yes I feel so. It could have been worded better definitely. We can always improve we can always learn
Sex & marriage are not mutually dependent

However
This is where things get dicey
I know nothing of the people involved
I don't know the background of the people involved
Could both the doctor & the patient be a victim of their upbringing/cultural differences?
We don't know this. Easy to judge both from our own bias.

What if the doctor is from a conservative background culturally? We know that education is not at all connected to liberal or conservative views.
Can we hold it against the doctor for being like that? Depends on our own bias & where we stand in the cultural spectrum.

Let's go back to the questioning itself.

Since I've worked abroad my approach
would have been different. Just after coming back to India had a patient who I asked "are you sexually active"

The immediate reply with righteous indignation was "how dare you I'm not married!"
🤷‍♂️

Now that patient is obviously upset with me. Who knows if she posted the incident on social media. What might have been the response?

This is a delicate issue. And it definitely could have been handled better by a person who claims to be a journalist QTing the original post.

"History taking" is very important in medicine. I can only speculate what the doctor had in mind when asking "are you married"

Off the top of my head the choice of contraception suggested might be different if it was a fixed partner vs multiple partners.

Maybe asking "are you married" seemed more polite than asking "will you be having 1 partner or multiple partners"?
Contraception is not only for preventing pregnancy but also to prevent STDs
So if the doctor was thinking like that then what is wrong with that line of questioning?

Again this is how I might have approached it. But like I said all of this is subjective and speculation. We aren't hearing from the doctor in question. So ... 🤷‍♂️

At the end of the day it is far easier for us to imagine the worst in someone than to consider the good in someone.

I'm not saying all doctors are completely innocent. There are bad apples in every field. But I want to believe the good outnumber the bad by a massive margin 🙏