As we have been discussing in previous classes, the doctor’s word is treated like the word of God. This either causes the individual with an illness/condition to doubt their instincts or when they trust their feelings not be taken seriously when making decisions about treatments and operations. Lourde makes a good point that the individual should be responsible for their own health, a doctor’s role should be to advise and/or treat an illness when applicable, but not to make the decisions for the patient. However since doctors tend to know more about the condition than the patient, they sometimes end up making the decisions. As Lourde shows, the way to combat this is to arm oneself with as much information as possible.
It scares me to think that if I had an illness and knew how I wanted the illness/condition to be addressed, my opinions could be dismissed. Fear is powerful and forces people to take actions which may be different from what they would have done had they had time and not felt pressure to make a decision. We saw this with the woman with the intersexed individual who was told who had dealt with the issues she was facing.
The woman felt her situation was a private matter and that she was alone. For Lourde, by wearing the prosthesis it was as if she was being told to hide what had happened to her body and in deciding not to wear one was treated as if she was the only one who felt did not need to wear one. Lourde also identifies this pressure to make a decision to wear prosthesis after having a mastectomy as in indicator of society sees the female body as objectifiable and merely serving sexual and reproductive purposes. In contrast to a leg amputation where a prosthetic leg functions in helping the individual perform physical tasks, a breast prosthetic performs an emotional task which may sometimes benefit others more than the individual.
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I agree whole-heartedly with "Class Act's" assessment and response to Lourde's article. She says that doctor's tend to know more about the condition than the patient, therefore they end up making the decisions. This almost summarizes the strangeness of the doctor-patient relationship. An individual with knowledge about the condition makes decisions regarding the life of the individual with the condition. the problem begins where doctors equate the patient with the disease and treat the person like an inanimate, unfeeling, completely dependent examination chart. The patient is devalued and the physician is deified. Oddly enough the answer to the problem is not within the doctor, it is within the patients. Only their bodies know how and why they became ill. I have experienced a doctor scolding me for asking questions. He wouldn't even tell me all the details of what was going on in my body when I asked for them. Funny enough, he was my gynecologist. And if anything I would think that I am entitled as a patient and a woman to know as much about my body as I can learn. All patients have that right as well as responsibility. Just because we know more about our bodies does not mean we will try to remedy things ourselves. I believe that the reason people still try to do that is because of lack of trust between doctor and patient.
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