Doctors know it all?

I remember the first time that an acquaintance of mine began medical school and I realized that he was going to be a doctor in a few years. A doctor. This person I knew. And the only thing that would change is that he went to school for a few more years.

That is the point at which I knew that doctors are not omnisceint. In fact, not even close.

We've all been in school, right. And we all know that schools have agendas, many teachers have their own agendas, and all these things effect what you hear in your classroom. And sometimes books aren't right either. They are all written by people, who learned from teachers, who had agendas too. And particularly in the medical field, the pharmacutical industry is totally and completely invested in what future doctors are going to prescribe to their patients, so their agendas come into play as well in the classroom.

All this is to say that if someone is suggesting that maybe birth control is not the best answer for you, do not dismiss them because they don't have a medical degree. Remember what a medical degree means. I'm not saying doctors are not intelligent- I certainly couldn't make it through med school- I'm just saying they are human and thus not infallible. That's why you go to get a second opinion about any big medical decision, right?

As usual this is prompted by the MP Evaluations. There are always a few women who write that they can't do NFP because they have a medical condition that requires the pill. And immediately I think of all the work that some doctors are doing in this country to really investigate fertility/ reproductive problems verses immediately presribing the pill for a quick fix. That's our modern mentality. But there are usually more natural ways to help women if you are willing to treat each person individually and listen to what is going on, which is not what many doctors do. And probably until they meet a doctor who does do that, many women will not even know that they should be listened to. I want to say to all those women- make sure that your doctor is listening to you, and do some research on your own to see what else might be possible, if there is any part of you that wonders about taking a pill everyday. And, if it is supposed to just regulate what your body does naturally, there's no reason not to learn more about what it is doing and how you can tell.

One small example. A friend of mine was pregnant. They gave her a due date which she thought was a little off. Using her NFP chart, it was pretty simple for her to say "Look, I know when we conceived" but the doctors did not listen to her. Pretty soon, they were saying that the baby was too small and they needed to perform all sorts of tests to make sure everything was ok. And once again, my friend thought this was very wrong because babies in her family tend to be quite large. So finally she got a midwife to look at her chart, to humor her. And sure enough, when the midwife calculated the due date according to my friend's calculations, the baby was exactly the size she should be for her stage of development. No extra tests needed.

I'm just saying that doctors don't know everything.