awful mistakes…
2009 March 11
LOL from this NYTimes piece lamenting Doctor-Patient-Computer Relationships:
Awful mistakes may get clicked and pass unnoticed.
Girls may be described as having male genitalia and vice versa.
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This is an amusing piece, why is it such a “horrible mistake”? Is it that there are certain biological differences in young children that require a different course of treatment if the child is male or female, or is it the fear that one’s identity is sinking into the morass of data in the medical world?
😛 According to the respondents, it seems as if this gender identity issue is due to lack of “doctor-patient” connection. Why is this a concern? Is it the fear of technology taking over again?
I guess what I noticed was that–in an article devoted to the fear of loss of personal attentiveness, that may come w/ doctors’ increased use of computers–the egregious default examples evoked were those of mistaking males for females, and vice versa–> “mistakes” that (we now know) were common long before computers found their way into examining rooms…
Oh! Okay, that makes sense, and makes the response even more amusing ^_^
It also makes one wonder, what happens if a hermaphroditic child goes through the doctor’s office in this case. Or what about that reference in a previous post mermaid girl that Kalyn made? Wasn’t she actually “neuter” because she didn’t have genetalia?
This reminds me of something that happened to me. Before I came to college I went to the registry of motor vehicles to get a Massachusetts ID card, since I don’t drive, and the one they sent me said I was male, probably due to a clerical error. It was funny, but made me feel kind of slighted, for reasons I can’t really explain.
I went back, waited another two hours, and had them get me a new one that says I’m female. Now I have two IDs, one that says I’m a man and one that says I’m a woman. The picture, name, date of birth, address and everything else are the same, but the little M/F really got to me. It even had me worrying that it said I was male on my birth certificate and no one had ever noticed; it doesn’t.
At the time I used it as a joke, but now it’s making me think about the problems that transgendered/intersex people have with the law/insurance etc. in becoming “officially” one thing or another. It was an easy “mistake” but it seemed really crucial to me.