Sunday, December 07, 2008

a trip to the gynecologist

Have you ever paid a gynecologist a visit? Oh, you are not blessed with womb and vagina? Very well, that's understandable. But when you are among the blessed ones, and you happen to be twenty something, going to a gynecologist should be something that you do at least once in a year. It's not just a matter if you are sexually active, the ovarian cancer, or often called the silent lady killer, could happen to anyone. The youngest case of ovarian cancer was a girl of 8 years old, scientists now are encouraging more and more routine gynecologist visit to young girls, in order to be able to detect and combat early sign of cancer.
So I really dont see anything wrong with going to gynecologist. Hell, it's my frickin vagina, and I have a full right to maintain it and to gain any information I want regarding my reproduction organ. But of course that positively happy view doesnt go very well in most Indonesian hospitals. Why? Because I'm not married.
This is the typical procedural questions you will hear when you go to a gynecologist:

# Mrs... or Ms?

# When was the last time you had an intercourse?

# Why aren't you married?

I can still tolerate the first question. Oh well maybe they need such information for database or administrational purpose. The second question is just a normal basic procedural question asked by gynecologist, so I dont complain, really. But the third??? WTF? Like, I dont think whatever answer I would give them would be relevant to sniff out any type of cancer they need to make a diagnose. Pfff... so next time you ever go to a gynecologist and he or she asks you the third question, just smile to them and answer:
"Because I love watermelon and ladybugs and blowing out spit bubbles."
A wonderful way to show how you understand your doctor, that is, his or her interest of playing the random question-answer game.

PS: Recently, warporcus showed me this link: http://insideindonesia.org/content/view/1150/47/ a terrible story about how fucked up our health system in Indonesia. No surprise, seriously. When irrelevant question has become a part of the standard procedural thrown by the supposedly-scholars, I know something seriously freaky is going on with the system.

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