Letter to PALS

[ailbhe]

Hi,

While at my pre-op today for a gynaecological issue I saw a notice up asking that staff remind women to shave before surgery. I asked the nurse if I should shave, and she said no, but that the consultant preferred "ladies" to "tidy the garden."

The consultant's aesthetic preferences are not a patient's concern, and should never be made a patient's concern, and if there is no surgical need - no incision within the hairline, etc - then there is no medical requirement to depilate. Genital exposure is personal enough without bringing the surgeon's personal aesthetic preferences into it.

I have a personal preference for a gynaecologist who can cope with normal adult female anatomy.

A.

Comments

[biascut.livejournal.com]

I know I said this on Twitter but NO ACTUAL WORDS.

I think it's a good letter, although I've seen advice to be clear in complaints letters about what you want to happen next. Do you want to re-arrange your appointment with a different consultant, or to make sure that any future appointments are with a different consultant, or to make sure that the nurse you spoke to and the consultant you are seeing are given training on what normal human genitalia look like? I think you tend to get a quicker and more effective response if they can see what you want them to *do*, even if it's just to say, "we can't do that, but we are doing this".