Post Punk Kitchen Forum

(they are still supposed to be able to finish in an hour.)

Kids have two 3 hour testing blocks a day for a solid week.

Also, new this hear, in order for our state to get a waiver that states the federal required goals are impossible (100% of students exceed "average" on a criterion based test that is still norm referenced for the sake of politics), teachers are now evaluated on student test scores. My job security depends 50% on these scores. Kids don't pass, I lose my job.

Me too! Holy crepe! I thought I was the only one this happened to!

I hear the vivid dreams/nightmares thing is very common! I know people who have taken it trying to lucid dream.
Me, it knocks me the hell out, no dreams. Everybody's body's different, I guess.

a car with violet underbody lights just drove up my street blasting "in the air tonight" so loud that it set off a car alarm. i hope it was mike tyson.

I haven't used shampoo in over a week, and my hair looks so much better. It was dry as fork before. I haven't had to use a straightener or hair spray to keep it from looking frizzy, which is big for me. Baking soda and vinegar flicks the weasel.

Just so you know, after reading this, I was picturing a 3rd grade science fair volcano.

Gotta love getting a pelvic exam and having the doctor say "This is so much fun for me! I've never seen anyone with anatomy like yours!"

(and she actually went on to say "did you notice how testosterone has changed your clitorus? It's like a little penis!")

Hah! 'did I notice'!!!! (I actually thought it was cute and funny of her, I'm not upset or anything)

We (two people) ate an entire pumpkin pie in the last 24 hours. And I don't even feel that bad about it.

GUUUUAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH if anyone ever said any of those things to me during a pelvic exam I would run screaming out of the room faster than than a speeding bullet! Oh MY GOD...I think my vagina is weeping just thinking about it.

I guess maybe this is a situation where the tone or personality of the doctor really makes a difference, because I'm just picturing a really horrifying scenario!

Maybe one day people will realize that just because a person is introverted doesn't mean they can't do a good job at something.

Nope, pretty sure there isn't a tone or personality in the world that would elicit any other response from me!

I don't know if I've normally had this happen to me before with melatonin. I haven't taken it in a while but I've had severe sleeping issues as of late and since I had a 10 hour work day today I decided I should probably make sure I get some sleep. Well that backfired and today was brutal.

Okay, as someone who will be interacting with patients on a regular basis very soon, lately I've been curious about the best way to communicate with patients who do not identify with the gender that their parents/society imposed on them as a child. I mean, for example, medical forms a lot of the time simply have you circle M or F for your gender, which is pretty non-inclusive, and I've also been made aware of the fact that many people don't feel comfortable discussing these matters with their doctors. I guess in some cases, like if you go to urgent care for a bad cut or something, it might not be very important, but in other cases, knowing how someone identifies themselves and what treatments they may have had to that effect might be a really integral part of the medical history. I know it's really a medical community issue in needing to learn communication skills and how to care for all different populations of patients, but I'd really, really hate it if any of my patients were afraid to come to me with a medical problem because they wanted to avoid having a potentially awkward or uncomfortable conversation with me, especially if it was because they had a bad experience with a doctor previously. I'm not necessarily talking about possibly referring to someone's anatomy as being "fun" or cool or whatever, but just generally wanting to create a safe space for everyone, if that makes sense.

I apologize if my thoughts aren't coming out very well formed. I'm just interested in this issue since it seems to be difficult to find information on and it's not exactly something they spend a lot of time on in medical school, unfortunately. Hopefully I'm not offending anyone with the way I'm discussing these topics and feel free to correct me on anything I may have misspoken about!

I'm probably going into emergency medicine, so it probably won't come up that frequently, but I'm sure at some point it'll be relevant!

Wow, I looked up melatonin and nightmares. I never knew this was a thing!

I'm pretty sure the upstairs people are cooking prawns. It is incredibly unpleasant.

Well, for starters, get those forms changed. There should be a fill-in-the-blank options. But also, don't assume that just because someone has checked M or F, that you know what that means. That could be the gender with which they self-identify, or it could be the gender that's congruent with their health insurance, or it could be the gender they picked by eeny-meeny-miney-mo that day...you just don't know. You could also include a space on the form for "Preferred Name" (which may be different from someone's legal name) but keep in mind that some people will not want to write this on a form because it could create problems with health insurance.

Ask people what pronouns they prefer. Now, I'll also say that, personally, I hate having to choose a pronoun, but I recognize that (especially in this kind of situation) when someone asks this question in a medical situation, they're doing so for a good reason (and I should also say that I think most transgender people DO like to be asked this question; I'm an outlier in that regard). When someone tells you what pronouns they prefer, USE THOSE PRONOUNS. If someone else uses the wrong ones, use the right ones MORE EMPHATICALLY. If you accidentally use the wrong one, do not apologize for a hundred hours...just correct yourself and move on.

If you encounter genitals that aren't what you expect, don't act like this is out of the ordinary. If you are working with other providers and someone else makes a comment, tell them that is not okay, and if you're in a position of authority over that person, tell them to leave. Someone who is unable to treat a human being with basic respect is in no position to provide good health care for that person.

I'm putting the question up on my FB too to see if I can get some more info for you. :)

I just locked myself out of my apartment while doing laundry.

Luckily, there is an on-site manager who was able to let me in, but my god, I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I've never done that in my life. I can't get over how ridiculous I feel (and how relieved--my boyfriend has keys, but my phone was in my apartment and since I store all my numbers in my phone, I don't have his number memorized, so even if I knocked on a neighbor's door, I couldn't have called him!). I am never walking out my door without double checking for my keys again in my life.

Yeah, I mean I definitely don't reccomend saying this kind of thing to anyone, but for me , I just laughed! She was super nice and actually seemed super excited, medically/professionally. Seemed like she's all amped up to go learn more about Trans people. I however do tend to be in the rarer category of person that wouldn't care about that kind of thing. Hah, at the end of the exam she said 'and your current partner is male?' I said, 'male, but with female anatomy' and she said 'OH My God, you're blowing my mind!' Haha. I just laughed again.

I'd reccomend also reading up online about what hormone replacement therapy does to trans people medically. That way you will know what to expect better, and can probably make safer decisions, like for example I know for trans ladies, a lot of times the testosterone blockers can pose risks for... (I kind of forget, something to do with blood pressure or clots maybe?) anyways, moral of that story is you might need to know that if you ever need to administer drugs or something to a trans person.

Not comparable, but a story nonetheless: a gyno once exclaimed 'what the hell is that!' while looking at my parts. Years later, I'm still offended. (I have a birthmark somewhere down there ;))

I am kind of amazed that medical professionals would make personal comments. It seems like there would be a high risk of making someone feel unsafe and uncomfortable (easy to do in a medical office and if you're naked). I thought there would be training in staying nonjudgemental (on both extremes - no one wants to hear "wow that is the best looking labia I've ever seen during a pelvic").even something that might seem like a compliment to the medical service provider (or piercer or who ever is proving you a service) might trigger something unforeseen in the patient. Torque has the best story about getting a pelvic in Japan, and she just laughed it off, but I would have had CQ's reaction and felt really uneasy going to an MD again.

Its a really important conversation to have though, and I think its brilliant of CQ and Mars to offer some guidance.

And Mars, you are hilarious.

I love my gyno but honestly hate walking into an office full of women with babies and pregnant women. I think I have a fear that it is contagious. My last gyno was amazed at my loose skin (due to weight loss) and during my first exam, she was touching it. I wasn't freaked out but she was the first person to comment. She also didn't understand why I didn't want kids.

I got a comment like this once. My gyno said I had a nice vagina or something. At that time, I was young, inexperienced, and really insecure that my parts were weird and abnormal so it was comforting to know that it was normal and "nice". And I think in my case, her tone and our rapport was such that it came across more like "hey, everything looks healthy up in here."

Thanks so much for the info! It's really helpful. I feel like there should be a pamphlet containing this information that we're given during our medical skills classes or something. We're currently in our reproductive system unit and there wasn't any discussion on asking people about pronouns, etc.

This is a really good point. From what little reading I've done in the past few minutes, most of the drugs used we've discussed at some point (spironolactone, for example, during our renal unit since it's a potassium sparing diuretic), so I'll just have to form a new schema to place them into the "also used for trans patients" category.

Yeah, I am also pretty amazed that medical professionals would make personal comments like that. We are, thankfully, taught that when a patient is exposed, they feel very vulnerable and it's extremely important to maintain professionalism and refrain from making any comments about anything that might make them uncomfortable or upset. Like, if we were to find a mass in someone's breast during an exam, we wouldn't mention or discuss potential bad/worrisome news while the patient is still uncovered. We receive formal training frequently where we have standardized patients with a medical issue that's relevant to the current unit we're learning, so that they're not just telling us how to act, but actually having us put it into practice. They teach us proper draping (some doctors are terrible at this!), asking questions in a non-judgmental way, maintaining body language that's conducive to communication, etc. One thing they don't teach us, however, is how to be most respectful of trans patients, such as by asking them about what pronouns they prefer or recognizing that if a patient identifies as M or F on their forms, we shouldn't make assumptions about what that means (thanks CQ!). It's an oversight, sure, but medical education is behind on these issues. Just within the past several years, I believe, has it been recommended that during a sexual history we include a question about if the patient has sex with men, women, or both (and even that doesn't include all of the possibilities, as we've been discussing).

And I agree, it is absolutely amazing of CQ and Mars to take the time to give me this information! :)