jayparkinsonmd: I just finished reading Bonk by Mary Roach.  I spent 4 years in medical school and 5 years in residency. I went to Penn State for medical school and St. Vincents in the West Village for Pediatrics and Hopkins for Preventive Medicine. I never once received lectures on sex and sexuality. It’s sad to think that doctors must teach themselves something so important to us all. Speaking of that, here are the other topics that were either skipped over entirely or given a blurb in a lecture throughout my nine years of medical training: Behavior change Diet and nutrition Exercise Death and dying Communication skills The business of healthcare in America (aka, how to run a practice) These are just off the top of my head. What are the others? I finished medical school last year at the Australian National University, and now am working as a junior doctor. Our course actually covered most of those topics listed above through our Social Foundations of Medicine branch. Sometimes the issues were only given a short amount of time - there is so much to fit into the medical curriculum already. One notable lecture was given talking about implicit prejudices in the medical field. I’ve written about it previously and there are links to a great study at Harvard where you can test your own embedded associations. For that lecture an obese woman spoke about her experiences and her advocacy work. Another great lecture was given by a transgendered person, discussing sexuality and identity. I felt quite privileged to have these people come and speak to us - and admire their openess and generousity to discuss things with a bunch of medical students. Makes our med school look quite enlightened doesn’t it! But… the post above reminded me of our lectures on sexual function. We had one on male sexual function - a whole hour. At the end I asked if we’d be getting an equivalent lecture on female sexual function, to which the female lecturer replied “I don’t know, but it’s [female sexual function] all a bit of a mystery isn’t it”. Appalling. I spoke with our course coordinator about it and for the next 3 years of med school there was no introduction of an equivalent lecture for female sexual function for us or the years below. And people say there’s no need for feminism…

jayparkinsonmd:

I just finished reading Bonk by Mary Roach. 

I spent 4 years in medical school and 5 years in residency. I went to Penn State for medical school and St. Vincents in the West Village for Pediatrics and Hopkins for Preventive Medicine. I never once received lectures on sex and sexuality. It’s sad to think that doctors must teach themselves something so important to us all. Speaking of that, here are the other topics that were either skipped over entirely or given a blurb in a lecture throughout my nine years of medical training:

  • Behavior change
  • Diet and nutrition
  • Exercise
  • Death and dying
  • Communication skills
  • The business of healthcare in America (aka, how to run a practice)

These are just off the top of my head. What are the others?

I finished medical school last year at the Australian National University, and now am working as a junior doctor. Our course actually covered most of those topics listed above through our Social Foundations of Medicine branch. Sometimes the issues were only given a short amount of time - there is so much to fit into the medical curriculum already.

One notable lecture was given talking about implicit prejudices in the medical field. I’ve written about it previously and there are links to a great study at Harvard where you can test your own embedded associations. For that lecture an obese woman spoke about her experiences and her advocacy work.

Another great lecture was given by a transgendered person, discussing sexuality and identity. I felt quite privileged to have these people come and speak to us - and admire their openess and generousity to discuss things with a bunch of medical students. Makes our med school look quite enlightened doesn’t it!

But… the post above reminded me of our lectures on sexual function. We had one on male sexual function - a whole hour. At the end I asked if we’d be getting an equivalent lecture on female sexual function, to which the female lecturer replied “I don’t know, but it’s [female sexual function] all a bit of a mystery isn’t it”. Appalling. I spoke with our course coordinator about it and for the next 3 years of med school there was no introduction of an equivalent lecture for female sexual function for us or the years below.

And people say there’s no need for feminism…