Note: My using the word “fat”is as an adjective, not a pejorative.
I was signing forms for my doctor visit coming up and this was one of the 10 pages that required my signature. I could not make this up.
I can’t help but wonder if they put it in there to see if people even read the consent forms. It seems like an absurd joke. How could it be anything else?
Med School and Nursing School Students
Now, I don’t mind people in medical or nursing school to observe. I am a good teacher and love when they would come in so I can talk to them about fat patients and how to work with them.
Medical people, especially newer ones, are weird around touching fat people. If they had to do a bimanual exam on me during the pelvic exam, they were timid and poked at me more like they were working with bread dough than a human being. First, I explained they would not find my uterus so they might as well not even try, but feel free to. If they thought they were going to find an ovary and couldn’t feel my uterus, they were wishing on a star.
Doing Pap Tests was another ridiculous experience with practitioners who 1) did not know how to touch fat folks and 2) didn’t have the equipment to do their job properly on a fat person.
Touching a fat person between their thighs is challenging, especially when the person is super-obese like I was for decades. Trying to keep one’s legs wide open without dropping them, or the fear of falling off the table makes things difficult for the client/patient. When I was a midwife, I kept my exam table next to a wall so women could lean one upper leg against the wall while an assistant helped the other leg stay aloft during the exam.
Fat Sensitivity Training
I’ve taught fat sensitivity to med students and nurses at their schools, volunteering to be a “patient” for them to work on.
I will take their hands and hold them in mine to show them how to touch someone in their fat parts. I explain that the more hesitant or timid they are, the more fearful the client will be. A provider wants a patient who feels safe and comfortable with them. If you’re avoiding parts of their bodies because you are uncomfortable, what does that say to a patient?
For example, many of us larger folks have a pannus (the hanging belly) that goes over our mons and/or genitals. When it needs to be lifted, the provider can say, “I need to take a peek under your belly. Would you mind if I lifted it? Or would you rather help me?” That way the patient has options and the doctor or nurse-practitioner or midwife is acknowledging the (if you think “elephant in the room,” I’m gonna scream!) obstacle between the physician and where they need to look and examine.
Move with sureity.
Back to the Consent Form
I shared the consent form with family, friends, and medical folks and every one of them were just as horrified as I was.
Surveyors?
Maintenance Workers?
Vendors? (One midwife-friend said the only way she would allow a vendor in is if they were selling tacos. I howled!)
My nurse and midwife friends joined me in their shock and horror.
I go to this doctor tomorrow and will bringing this up along with discussing my pannus and dragging skin to see if I can start the process to having some skin removal in the future. As you look at the melting wax, remember, I have now lost 225 lbs. And I’m 63 years old. There was bound to be a LOT of skin draping.
I wonder who will have to stay outside the door because I didn’t sign this consent form.
Perhaps one of the other patients they brought back from the waiting room to watch a fat chick take off her clothes?
Happily, they will stay on the other side of the door.