The crazy thing is, as a medical professional, it's super easy to just... chart what's happening.
Let's say it's because a certain medication has birth defect risks. I tell you the risk. You say you understand but don't care (because of the hysterectomy in this case), then I just type that into the box.
This problem is made of meat. Doesn't matter how many boxes they put in there if the doctor doesn't want to put the info in there for whatever personal reason.
If you want to assign "personal reasons" to the equation, I won't argue with you.
I'm just saying the system, as intended, is meant to prevent harm. If the risk of harm is understood by the patient, why should I care beyond that?
If a patient with diabetes doesn't understand the importance of a diabetic diet, it's my job to educate them. If they DO understand and still want to carb load, that's their decision.
As far as I understand it, it's to protect the people that have a poor enough understanding of their anatomy to believe they couldn't possibly be pregnant and insist on going ahead with whatever procedure...only to find out they are in fact pregnant after the fact and the fetus is negatively impacted, and then regret it (and possibly blame the medical providers).
I'm sure you've seen a post or two on reddit about "what's the dumbest thing a patient has done?", right? There's always a story about someone who is flabbergasted that they could be pregnant despite obvious evidence.
Medical providers have no way of knowing the person saying "I've had a hysterectomy" or "I'm a lesbian" even knows what those words mean, no matter how confidently they say it.
You're 100% correct. A lot of people don't even know the names or functions of the medications they take every day
And generally speaking, you'd ask some follow up questions to ascertain they do in fact understand the situation/risks. When it comes to gender though, a lot of people are walking on eggshells
And to be fair, it's new territory for a lot of people. Your lesbian example is perfect, because someone could say they're a lesbian and they have never and will never have sex with a man... but their girlfriend might be a transwoman that's still completely capable of insemination
ESPECIALLY in such complicated, heavily regulated positions, with adjacent positions relevant to quality of care where something going wrong COULD be theoretically pinned on you for failing to handle/treat it as urgently as the other person documents it being.
Depends on the degree of teratogenicity and med. Some meds require contracts signed that pregnancy will be avoided through either abstinence or birth control. Similar to a pain contract for chronic opioids
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u/Nectarine143 Aug 01 '26
The crazy thing is, as a medical professional, it's super easy to just... chart what's happening.
Let's say it's because a certain medication has birth defect risks. I tell you the risk. You say you understand but don't care (because of the hysterectomy in this case), then I just type that into the box.
Takes literally 1 minute