She was a young woman who had come to our clinic for infertility. My Registrar had seen her and had advised investigations.
"This girl works as my maid servant" said the Head of one of the paraclinical services, pointing towards that woman. "Her investigations have been done."
"Let us see the reports" I said. I checked the reports. They were fine. The next step was to assess the pelvic structures fallopian tubal patency.
"She has been advised hysteroscopy and laparoscopy by your resident doctor" she said.
"That is correct" I said.
"I don’t want you to mess up her pelvis. Can you not do something else?"
"Why?" I asked. "That is the best procedure for her at this stage."
"She looks after my house. I cannot have her away for rest after the procedure."
So the motive was not to get correct treatment to the woman, but to show her that she had arranged for good treatment for her, and keep her working.
"I cannot think of anything else" I told her.
"Can’t you do some D&C or something?" she asked. The patient was standing by, not understanding a word of the conversation.
"D&C is not useful, and hence an unnecessary and harmful procedure. I do not recommend it" I said. I wanted to add that D&C would probably mess up her pelvic structures even more than endoscopy and that too quite needlessly. But I refrained from saying so. It would not have made any difference, I knew.
"OK. I will talk to her and see what can be done" she said and took the patient away.
You must have guessed, they never came back. The Head of that service either took that patient to someone else to get a D&C done. That was 25 years ago. The said doctor retired from her job ages ago. I have seen her periodically in some functions of the institute, heard people speak of her with respect, but could not feel any respect for her myself.
