Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

esmeedarling:

words-writ-in-starlight:

fempunkandkittens:

officialaphnetherlands:

ancientnorthmartian:

“Doctors who spent years studying the human body”

Do you mean doctors who spent years learning about abled white cis men’s bodies

do you know anything about the world besides what you read on tumblr

Okay but this is true?? Shut up with your bullshit, the medical industry for a very very long time has used the able bodied white cis male as their standard and that has very real healthcare consequences for a lot of people.

Do you know why most women don’t know when they’re having heart attacks? Why heart attacks kill more women than men? Because symptoms of a heart attack are different for women and the ones that doctors usually recognize and publicize are the symptoms experienced by men. Do you know why it’s so difficult for Black and Brown people to get diagnosed if they have skin cancer? Because doctors have been taught to recognize it on white people. People of size are constantly told that their problems are entirely because of their weight and doctors don’t even bother to look beyond that to be sure that’s the case. So those people have medical conditions go undiagnosed properly for years, and die in the process.  Fuck, even just the fact that people think it’s okay to charge women more for healthcare because “they have extra parts” (?????) is indicative of the way the male body has been considered the standard for fucking ever. And the healthcare needs of disabled people or trans people? Forget about it.

OP is 1000% right. The medical industry has used the able cis white male body as their standard of care for CENTURIES and that has real consequences for the rest of us today. It’s getting better but it’s not where it should be. So fuck off with your snarky commentary, you’re wrong. The healthcare industry is not equipped to handle the needs of people with disabilities, women, PoC, trans people, people of size, etc. and that’s in large part due to the fact that the established body of medical knowledge was created by studying able, cis, white male bodies almost exclusively.

Hey there folks, speaking as a trained EMT and a pre-med student, I can confirm that the above person is approximately 7000% accurate.  In my EMT training, I would repeatedly ask ‘’but what if my patent is a woman” or “what is my patient is a person of color” and at first all I got was shock.  Then I got confused bumbling.  I got some answers–basic symptoms of a heart attack in women, how to recognize cyanosis in someone of color, the basics of how to work with an autistic patient or someone who for whatever reason can’t communicate well with you.  In fact, EMTs and other EMS workers are getting a lot better at learning the differences between the health care for a person of color or someone disabled.  We were even told that we would need to ask our patients for their biological sex (I know, I’m really sorry, I know that there are people who find this intensely uncomfortable or even harmful, but there are real medical reasons for this and most decent EMTs will use whatever pronouns you ask them to).  But most if not all of the answers we were given about women were directly related to gynecological issues.  The guys teaching me?  They were good guys.  Nice.  Funny.  Smart.  Devoted to caring for patients.  Impassioned about protecting people, especially women and teenaged girls, from assault.  Largely not sexist toward me or their coworkers.  Hell, they were even smart enough to say “listen, boys, the women in this class have a higher pain tolerance than you, they just do, and as a rule if a women says their pain is a 5 on a scale of 1-10, assume it’s somewhere around an 8” when a kid laughed during the gyno unit.  But they just didn’t know what to say when I asked “so if you’re supposed to palpate the patient’s chest, what do you do if your patient’s a triple-D” or when I asked “so if your patient gets menstrual migraines, how do you know if this headache is a stroke or not.”  They had never been taught.  This is a real problem, one that many medical professionals work hard to remedy once they start practicing.  But this is not bullshit.  At all.  The standard patient is a cis white guy with no disabilities or chronic illnesses.  It’s a huge fucking problem and I’m going to need you to step down with your bullshit, there, friend.

Thank you words-writ-in-starlight ! It’s a huge problem that a few of the leading med schools are starting to recognize . Let me add that medications and dosing standards in Big Pharma also use the cis male model in research/development. Women’s bodies and hormones affect medication efficacy greatly, yet that is t always taken in consideration when meds are prescribed.

(Source: archive48, via ripleytwd)

Important iPhone feature in case of an emergency!

peetasallhehasleft:

arminarlerted:

Hi guys,

I came across a really handy and important feature on my phone that I wanted to share with all of you.

Imagine this - you unfortunately get involved in a pretty serious accident. The ambulance arrives and wants to inform your parents/friends/partner, and checks your phone. Except it’s fully locked for everyone except yourself because of your fingerprint feature, or your password, or both. They cannot access your ICE numbers. And that sucks for both you and them.

But your iPhone recently got a new feature called the Health app. Yeah, that annoying little app with the pink heart on it that you’d love to delete because it takes up space.

DON’T. This thing actually comes in handy. Hear me out.

Open your health app. Now, if you look in the lower right corner, you’ll see “Medical ID”. Click it. Now you can fill in everything medical about yourself, including your conditions, your meds, your blood type even. And yes. You can add phone numbers of your choice that the emergency peeps can call if something bad happens to you!

And the best thing is? This screen is fully accessible, even if your phone is locked. They have to slide to your passcode screen, hit “EMERGENCY” and then click “MEDICAL ID” in the lower left corner.

Please spread the word!!

It’s legit. I have epilepsy and can put all my ICE contacts there, have all the medications I take listed, any plethora of other important information. You can even put down if you’re an organ donor I think. Either way, it’s extremely important, so make sure you do it. Save a life, you may save your own life.

(Source: theoceanempress, via gryffindorconsultingtimelord)

babygaynormative:

there are 2 songs that have 100 beats per minute which is the correct amount for cpr and they are “staying alive” and “another one bites the dust” and if u don’t think that’s the rawest shit you’ve ever heard you can unfollow me right now.

My entire EMT class thought I was fucking terrifying because when we were learning CPR they were having trouble with the rhythm and I just sat down and slammed out like a solid minute of flawless CPR and they all went “How do you do that” and I did it again singing Another One Bites The Dust and they were all really afraid.

I do not recommend singing Queen while actually doing CPR.

(via gryffindorconsultingtimelord)

Anonymous asked: I gotta say, it sounds like you got some pretty shitty EMT training. I'm a pharmacy school graduate and we were always taught how to treat/diagnose ALL patients, if their ethnicity/gender/etc required something different than the standard. You should get your money back.

Hi, anon, thanks for your input.  I’m glad your pharmacy schooling was so high quality, it’s great that you were educated in how to treat everyone, and it’s unfortunate that not all textbooks/courses are up to that level.  I was personally taught in a relatively small town with an admittedly less-than-diverse population, so it’s possible that there were effect from that.  Also, from what I know pharmaceutical schooling is intended to be a career, while–contrary to popular opinion–many EMTs work on a volunteer basis, or work as an EMT in addition to another job.  It’s completely feasible that the higher level education in emergency medical services, like Advanced EMT training or paramedic training, is more complete in these matters.

That said, the class I took was thorough in all other areas, and with prompting the teachers were both able and willing to give answers for the treatment of patients of various ethnicity/gender/etc.  I did outside research to confirm what they told me, given that they were speaking from experience and not from the textbook.  The flaws were not in the specific course, but rather in the official material–textbooks lacking explanations of how to administer CPR to a large-chested individual, or suggestions of ways to communicate with someone who either speaks a different language or who is nonverbal for some reason, just for example.

Also, I would like to politely express that I worked hard in that class, which I took in addition to a full class load at my college, and my family does not often have seven hundred dollars to drop on extra things, even something as useful as medical training.  The teachers worked hard to deliver a quality education, and the inherent flaws in the textbook were not their fault.  While I’m aware that this comment was in all likelihood intended to be completely benign, and even if it wasn’t I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, it did not completely come across that way.  I agree that it is a serious problem that not all medical fields are as on the ball as pharmacy school evidently is, but it is neither my fault nor the fault of the men and women who taught me–indeed, my teachers had clearly gone to some effort to ensure they were capable of treating everyone.  Again, thank you for your input, and I hope you have a lovely day.

scientia-rex:

lysanderish:

I get so mad about people who insist that doctors went to med school so they can never be wrong about your health like ???? Some Doctors hate fat people??? Some doctors hate the mentally ill or give Helpful NT Advice instead of treatment??? My ob/gyn took four years and a strong arm from my mom to figure out I had pcos???

Doctors are not gods??????

I am a med student, literally currently going to medical school, and doctors are about 15% wonderful people who Care So Much It Hurts, about 60% Eh I Was Optimistic But Ill-Informed When I Chose This Life, and a solid 25% What The Fuck Is Wrong With You You Fucking Fucks Get The Fuck Out Of Medicine Oh Wait You’re Just Going To Retire After Decades Of Being A Bigoted Fuck-Up.

Doctors need to be held accountable. Right now, doctors are virtually never held accountable.

There are doctors who tell lesbians not to worry about STDs because they “can’t get any.” There are doctors who tell fat people to lose weight when what’s wrong is actually a) completely unrelated to weight and b) fatal. A doctor once refused to give me an IUD because I should “marry a nice young virgin man” instead of being a big ol’ queer slutbag. In my summer job reviewing medical records, I’ve seen three patients who were sent home with a disease that almost immediately killed them because the doctors (three different ones!) didn’t take CHEST PAIN seriously. One of my classmates, a future doctor, told me I was overreacting to the murder of Michael Brown and when I said the hell I am he said I must not UNDERSTAND THE ISSUES. Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot my master’s degree in social psychology is just there to decorate my shelf! My tiny lady-brain can’t possibly comprehend anything important! I once heard a doctor brag about having forcibly sterilized a Latina woman who didn’t consent because she was an undocumented immigrant and “she had too many already.” He was receiving a LOT of federal research funding for his work with our research group. I’ve WATCHED doctors be horrible, bigoted fuck-ups.

Like, if these are things someone like me, who passionately believes in medicine to the point where I’ve willingly sacrificed a reasonably comfortable job, my free time for at least seven years of training, and my right to decide where I spend at least three years of my life (because we are obligated to go wherever we’re matched for residency), is seeing at one of the top academic medical centers IN THE WORLD, what the FUCK do you think is happening in the REST of the country, where they HAVEN’T attracted “top talent”?

Doctors are not better than other people. We just have less transparency and less accountability. That needs to change.

(via adelindschade)

alastair-made-me-do-it:

Threatie’s review of Planned Parenthood:

• No protesters outside (I was kinda hoping to spot one in the wild tbh)
  
• Locked doors, had to get buzzed in
• Rather uninviting color scheme in waiting room
• Kind, happy staff
• A medium amount of paperwork that crams in a lot of really important questions, respect
• Questions that would catch an abusive relationship, awesome
• Questions for guys in case guys need STD tests and stuff, cool
• A section for minors who need their visit to be a secret, damn these guys have their shit together
• Over an hour of wait time but meh I was a walk-in and I have the Kindle app, nbd
• Kind, happy nurses
• Really no judgement
• Offered me condoms
• Had discount plans but I didn’t ask for one 
• Prescribed me birth control unlike some other fuckers I know who call themselves healthcare providers but just got shown up by Planned Parenthood, so there!
• Gave me lots of literature
• Seemed to have good resources for lots of people
• Nice place

(via winjennster)