Debbie Schlussel: Just Hope She's Never Your Doctor
Well, you didn't see this issue in Michael Moore's "Sicko." But if this becomes a trend, it will be a problem.
Sophie Currier, a Harvard medical student, sued the National Board of Medical Examiners after it turned down her request to take more than the standard 45-minute break during the 9-hour medical licensing exam. Why?
Well, she needs a lot more time to pump breast milk to feed her 4-month-old daughter. This, despite the fact that the board offered to allow her to bring a breast pump into the exam room and to provide her with a private room in which to express milk during breaks. Would you want your doctor doing this while she operated on you?
And while a smart trial court sided with the medical board, citing the need for equal treatment (other nursing moms have found the 45-minute break adequate and have taken and passed the exam), a Massachusetts Appeals Court judge overtuned the decision. Currier will now get even more time.
Here's part of Mass. Appeals Court Judge Gary Katzmann's absurd pronouncement:
In order to put the petitioner on equal footing as the male and non-lactating female examinees, she must be provided with sufficient time to pump breast milk and to address the same physiological and other functions to which those examinees are able to attend.
PUH-LEEZE. This is not about "equal footing." It's about EXTRA footing. Hope you never hear this kind of thing while your under anesthesia on an operating table.
Add to that the fact that Currier, who already has a 22-month-old son, already has received more time allowances for the exam, under the Americans with Disabilities Act for her dyslexia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Because of that, she already has permission to take the test over two days, instead of just one, like most licensed doctors in Massachusetts. Talk about chutzpah. (A couple of years or so ago, ABC News ran an in-depth investigative piece on the growing number of high school, college, and grad students who go doctor shopping to get these excuses for diseases and, thus, extra time to take standardized exams.)
So my question is this: What will "Doctor" Currier do when she is in the middle of a complicated, 9-hour surgery? Will she tell the patient that he/she must sit on the operating table with clamps and open body cavity for several hours or an extra day, while she pumps breast milk and attends to her dyslexia and ADD?
Again, hope that women with breast-milk-pumping time allowances and other doctors-to-be with alleged ADD and dyslexia problems don't ever come near your body . . . or the operating table.
This kind of legal decision and extra allowance gives us more reason to choose male doctors. No-one wants to risk "healthcare" from an affirmative action provider like Currier.
Posted by Debbie on September 27, 2007 10:18 AM to Debbie Schlussel