The good and the bad

On the surface of things, today was a pretty good day. I saw several patients with Dr. Jaja, did a couple of pelvic exams, and best of all I got to catch a baby more or less on my own (although I felt really bad for the family medicine resident who had probably spent more time with the new mom than I had). It was a good day for learning. The less promising part of the day was more subtle and centered on seemingly innocuous questions of language. Part of what I'm required to do each day for Dr. Jaja is to write a very brief (half-page or so) summary of a single patient to be discussed the following day. My writeup yesterday was about a woman who was worried because she'd had an episode of bleeding after being pregnant for several weeks. She verbalized this by saying "I'm nervous about my baby." Thus, in my writeup, I described her probable diagnosis as "threatened vs. complete miscarriage" and referred to her unborn child several times as a baby. Why is this significant? While I was discussing the write-up with Dr. Jaja, he mentioned in passing that the more correct terminology was "spontaneous abortion" instead of "miscarriage" and "fetus" instead of "baby." He brought these up just by way of explanation, and not with any ulterior motive, but it was emblematic to me of the culture in the country in general and at Magee in particular. Its net effect is to make the word "abortion" less loaded by linking it with something that unfortunately occurs naturally and to minimize the humanity of the unborn child. It is thus no surprise that the pro-abortion establishment has inculcated the use of this language in medical parlance, especially in the world of OB-GYN.

Anyway, that's all I have time for tonight...back tomorrow with reports on my first outpatient experience in Wexford. Till then, peace and God bless!