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When I Went To The Doctor For Kidney Stones, She Cared More About Pronouns Than Patient Care
The Federalist ^ | 05/24/2024 | Christopher Jacobs

Posted on 05/24/2024 9:16:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

When I woke one recent morning to severe pain from a bout of kidney stones, I knew I had an excruciating day ahead of me. I didn’t realize how excruciating until I arrived at George Washington University Hospital’s emergency room where one of the ER’s resident physicians greeted me wearing a pin: “Ask Me About My Pronouns.” The remainder of my morning became a real-life demonstration of how woke physicians prioritize ideology over patient care.

The bloodwork taken upon my arrival showed a high white blood cell count, and during my stay, I complained of pain in both my kidneys. A CT scan taken in the emergency room likewise showed stranding (i.e., scarring) in both kidneys.

The next day, my primary care practitioner grew concerned that a kidney stone had caused an infection that had spread through my urinary tract. She asked me whether I had received intravenous antibiotics in the ER as a precautionary measure; I had not.

For all her outward concern about pronouns, the George Washington resident did not act concerned about a possible infection. She (they?) did not order a urine culture to check for infections, nor send the stone I passed while in the ER for laboratory analysis. She and her supervising physician also questioned the need for a CT scan, which had been standard practice during prior bouts of kidney stones, claiming that a scan would only be needed if I had a blockage or infection — an odd claim, given that I had yet to provide a urine specimen for analysis.

As a health policy analyst, I recognize that over-treating patients can cause complications such as anti-microbial resistance, not to mention raising health care costs for all of us. But when my primary care practitioner, who also happens to moonlight in another emergency room in the nation’s capital, identified basic precautions that the staff at George Washington failed to take, I became concerned not just that I had received poor care, but that the resident’s attire — one button referencing pronouns, another supporting the SEIU affiliate union representing the hospital’s resident physicians — suggested a focus on things other than patient care.

I contacted George Washington University Hospital about the care I received, but its press office did not respond to multiple calls and emails. Had hospital officials responded, I would have asked first why the hospital subjected me to a combination of questionable care and woke propaganda, and second why it billed my insurer nearly $21,000, of which my insurer expects me to pay nearly $3,000, for the privilege of receiving both.

My experience suggests that physicians should heed two lessons. For starters, leave the ideology at home. While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, others don’t necessarily want to hear them, particularly in a place like a hospital.

Rather than engage in ostentatious virtue signaling that alienates as much as it attracts, doctors should spend more time listening to patients than talking at them. Ensuring patients feel heard regardless of skin color, political beliefs, and yes, pronouns, will prove far more meaningful than putting a button on one’s scrubs.

I don’t believe that the staff at George Washington University Hospital listened to me and my symptoms, and my experience makes me fear that the low-income patients the hospital treats — the kinds of individuals my ER resident likely wants to help — may suffer from poor care and not even recognize it. Rather than injecting cultural Marxism into medicine in a way that politicizes the entire health care system, perhaps this generation of woke medical students should understand that the best type of social justice involves them simply doing their jobs.


Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book "The Case Against Single Payer."


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Society
KEYWORDS: competency; doctors; healthcare; pronouns; woke
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To: SeekAndFind
I contacted George Washington University Hospital about the care I received, but its press office did not respond to multiple calls and emails.

I consider myself a seasoned expert at disrupting corporate complacency.

Every corporation has a hierarchy, and every hierarchy has a ladder.

The trick is to get between the guys who want the CEOs job.

In this case, I would have complained to HR and the medical director. It helps if you say something like, “How many VPs do I have to complain to in this sh!thole before I get someone who will stand up for me?”

Also good to call the CEOs office and tell his secretary he’s got a bunch of disloyal VPs under him who’ll throw him under the bus to total strangers who call to complain.

41 posted on 05/24/2024 2:12:10 PM PDT by IncPen ("Inside of every progressive is a Totalitarian screaming to get out" ~ David Horowitz)
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To: ridesthemiles

I have a neighbor—elderly now—who’s a retired mechanic.

One day he called me as I was driving home from work and asked me to pick up a few cans of Coca-Cola and drop them off.

He was working on an old international cub cadet that’s he’d dragged out of a field— it had been there many years. He had the head off and the cylinders were obviously completely rusted.

I watched as he poured the coke in there, and a couple of days later he called to say they’d all freed up.

First I’d heard of it.


42 posted on 05/24/2024 2:21:44 PM PDT by IncPen ("Inside of every progressive is a Totalitarian screaming to get out" ~ David Horowitz)
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To: ridesthemiles

Drinking that much coke- you are probably not troubled by kidney stones.


43 posted on 05/24/2024 2:29:37 PM PDT by arthurus ( covfefe Tc)
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To: GSWarrior

I asked two of my doctors in the height of the pandemic if I should get a COVID shot, just to see what they would say. They both asked, “Why would you want to do THAT?”


44 posted on 05/24/2024 2:35:25 PM PDT by gitmo (If your biography doesn't match your theology, what good is it?)
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To: AlaskaErik

Laser blasted or sonic blasted?


45 posted on 05/24/2024 2:50:35 PM PDT by stateofit
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To: Bob434
"go to hospital"

Was the doctor a cave man or a brit?

46 posted on 05/24/2024 2:58:31 PM PDT by TangoLimaSierra (⭐⭐To the Left, The Truth is Right Wing Violence⭐⭐)
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To: SeekAndFind

I was told my kidney stone cure was a 6 pack of beer and lortab. I liked that doc.


47 posted on 05/24/2024 3:22:51 PM PDT by wgmalabama (Censored!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Kidney stone ping.


48 posted on 05/24/2024 5:47:44 PM PDT by TChad
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To: stateofit
Laser blasted or sonic blasted?

I couldn't tell you. All I know is it worked.

49 posted on 05/24/2024 5:50:40 PM PDT by AlaskaErik (There are three kinds of rats: Rats, Damned Rats, and DemocRats.)
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To: SeekAndFind
For all her outward concern about pronouns, the George Washington resident did not act concerned about a possible infection. She (they?) did not order a urine culture to check for infections, nor send the stone I passed while in the ER for laboratory analysis. She and her supervising physician also questioned the need for a CT scan, which had been standard practice during prior bouts of kidney stones, claiming that a scan would only be needed if I had a blockage or infection — an odd claim, given that I had yet to provide a urine specimen for analysis.

I've battled chronic kidney and bladder stones for three years now, and anytime I went to the ER for a kidney stone issue, an immediate CT scan and urinalysis was standard procedure.

I recently may have discovered what was triggering them, and I've been stone free for three months now. I hope you overcome whatever issue is causing yours.

50 posted on 05/24/2024 5:56:50 PM PDT by eastexsteve
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To: SeekAndFind

Marc Steyn was denied a needed blood transfusion in a leftist hospital in Burlington vt.

If you are confronted bya leftist in your health care leave if at all possible.


51 posted on 05/24/2024 6:02:53 PM PDT by Chickensoup
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To: TangoLimaSierra

good question- he did have an accent


52 posted on 05/24/2024 7:35:34 PM PDT by Bob434
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To: SeekAndFind

About his kidney stone and his very small urethra 😆😁

Replacing the ‘Ol Knee | Bill Engvall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpqpFlyQvuk

Bill Engvall - I Have A Small What!? | Bill Engvall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3XtH2DPqPs

Bill and Gail Pull a Stent Bill Engvall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0gPebnQmow

Living in the Hospital | Bill Engvall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMDC-1sNxZo


53 posted on 05/25/2024 2:41:18 AM PDT by minnesota_bound (Need more money to buy everything now)
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To: MtnClimber

This should help....

Half of all UCLA medical students can’t pass basic medical exam
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13454451/UCLA-medical-school-dean-Jennifer-Lucero-DEI-affirmative.html


54 posted on 05/25/2024 2:50:07 AM PDT by minnesota_bound (Need more money to buy everything now)
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To: minnesota_bound

And assume this nationally. Because the directives are coming from a nation oversight commission.

The problem with admitting unable people to any career is that they find their niche in paper pushing and oversight since they actually cannot do the work. And they are not really able to do the oversight because they are angry jealous and less intelligent.


55 posted on 05/25/2024 2:54:52 AM PDT by Chickensoup
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To: sarge83

Kidney stones run in my family on my Dad’s side, I’ve had several bouts with them and, yeah the pain is terrible. Like having a knife stabbed in your back then twisted.
Luckily my urologist knows our family history and we get the treatment we need. And no problem with our “pronouns”!


56 posted on 05/26/2024 8:55:53 PM PDT by RedMonqey ("A republic, if you can keep it" Benjamin Franklin.)
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To: 1Old Pro

“Inner city hospitals are going totally woke.”

Women and minorities hurt most.


57 posted on 05/30/2024 4:01:08 AM PDT by beef (The pendulum will not swing back. It will snap back. Hard.)
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To: Fiji Hill

“My current doctors are excellent, but as they move on, they will be replaced by products of “affirmative action” and our increasingly woke universities, medical schools, dental schools, nursing schools, etc.”

I have exactly the same concern. I won’t willingly go to a physician unless they were trained and graduated in the 20th century.


58 posted on 05/30/2024 4:17:05 AM PDT by beef (The pendulum will not swing back. It will snap back. Hard.)
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To: 1Old Pro

And the rural hospitals provide lousy care.


59 posted on 05/30/2024 4:19:18 AM PDT by mewzilla (Never give up; never surrender!)
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To: beef

“I won’t willingly go to a physician unless they were trained and graduated in the 20th century.”

I won’t willingly go to a beautician unless she was trained to cut a Dorothy Hamill wedge in the ‘70s. (I’m running out of options.)


60 posted on 05/30/2024 4:20:14 AM PDT by MayflowerMadam (Navarro didn't kill himself.)
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