He handed me an index-card sized period tracker, and I couldn’t help but notice the age spots on his hands and the way his bones jutted through crepey skin.
Deeply moving and I wish we could roll back time for numerous reasons - but the simplest and perhaps most banal one is my fantasy that you could say "No thank you, I want a female gynecologist" -though I fully understand how and why you got him. I hate that this happened to you as I hate all of the pain you have had to experience.
I was referred to a doctor by my female physician when I had a lump in my breast. In the room alone, waiting for the doctor (in a drafty robe with an open front that tied inadequately), I grasped the front pieces together with one hand and read a New Yorker I had brought, in the other. I wasn't going to waste my time though he was late. Finally, a very heavy man in his late forties or fifties tapped on the door, then came in without waiting. He walked up to me, took the magazine out of my hand without asking, and put it on the side table. I said, in the boldness of also being in my late forties , "I'm able to put a magazine down on my own." He looked at my face closely, really closely, for a moment - and I looked at his face. Then he said, "I'm going to get a nurse to be with us during this exam". I said, "Yes, I'd prefer that." Later, when I told my primary physician I would not see the referred doctor again, she mumbled, scribbling on her note pad, "I guess I should stop referring women to him. I've heard something similar before." What? She had referred me to him after other patients had bad experiences with him? I had no words. But my face, I'm told, is an open book.
Deeply moving and I wish we could roll back time for numerous reasons - but the simplest and perhaps most banal one is my fantasy that you could say "No thank you, I want a female gynecologist" -though I fully understand how and why you got him. I hate that this happened to you as I hate all of the pain you have had to experience.
I was referred to a doctor by my female physician when I had a lump in my breast. In the room alone, waiting for the doctor (in a drafty robe with an open front that tied inadequately), I grasped the front pieces together with one hand and read a New Yorker I had brought, in the other. I wasn't going to waste my time though he was late. Finally, a very heavy man in his late forties or fifties tapped on the door, then came in without waiting. He walked up to me, took the magazine out of my hand without asking, and put it on the side table. I said, in the boldness of also being in my late forties , "I'm able to put a magazine down on my own." He looked at my face closely, really closely, for a moment - and I looked at his face. Then he said, "I'm going to get a nurse to be with us during this exam". I said, "Yes, I'd prefer that." Later, when I told my primary physician I would not see the referred doctor again, she mumbled, scribbling on her note pad, "I guess I should stop referring women to him. I've heard something similar before." What? She had referred me to him after other patients had bad experiences with him? I had no words. But my face, I'm told, is an open book.