A new article in the Journal of Women’s Health by Westhoff, Jones, and Guiahi asks “Do New Guidelines and Technology Make the Routine Pelvic Examination Obsolete?”
The pelvic exam consists of two main components: The insertion of a speculum to visualize the cervix and the bimanual exam where the practitioner inserts two fingers into the vagina and puts the other hand on the abdomen to palpate the uterus and ovaries. The rationales for a pelvic exam in asymptomatic women boil down to these:
Screening for chlamydia and gonorrhea
Evaluation before prescribing hormonal contraceptives
Screening for cervical cancer
Early detection of ovarian cancer
None of these are supported by the evidence. Eliminating bimanual exams and limiting speculum exams in asymptomatic patients would reduce costs without reducing health benefits, allowing for better use of resources for services of proven benefit. Pelvic exams are necessary only for symptomatic patients and for follow-up of known abnormalities. Read more »
I first heard about the female condom in 2006. I was in Seattle to see what was happening at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. One of the many impressive projects it was supporting was at PATH, a non-profit organization that was developing and promoting a new female condom. The sad, age-old reason: the health of millions of women around the world is threatened by irresponsible men. Read more »
This is a very scary reality. A recent study from the Indiana University School of Medicine suggests that half of young urban women will get a sexually transmitted infection (STI) shortly after sexual debut, while screening typically begins years later.
Researchers conducting the eight -year study found that by age 15, 25 percent of the adolescents in the study had acquired an STI, half within two years, and most often Chlamydia. The results also reflect a high repeat infection rate, with 25 percent of the teens getting at least one reinfection or other STI within 4 to 6 months.
The results, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine call for health practitioners to inquire about sexual activity and screen teens, preferably every 3 to 4 months.
Jill told me that she wrote Seductive Delusions out of sadness and frustration with her inability to protect young people from STDs. Jill saw new cases of sexually transmitted diseases in her patients every week, and wanted very badly to reverse this trend. No amount of counseling “after the fact” had a sufficient effect on new cases, so she decided to launch a preemptive strike: an educational book targeting those who never thought they could contract an STD.
Seductive Delusions uses a “case based learning” approach to educating readers about STDs. Each chapter begins with two true life stories about young people who succumb to STDs. Characters are based upon the lives of patients whom Jill has treated over the years, but stories are blended to protect anonymity. The story-telling format (followed by fact-based summaries) makes the content more entertaining and engaging to read. I doubt that a textbook could hold readers’ attention as effectively as Seductive Delusions does.
I chose to read Seductive Delusions cover-to-cover in 2 sittings, and such a concentrated dose of horror stories made me feel hesitant about ever having sex again. I can also say that there was one uncomfortable moment in an airplane (I read the book on the way back from Albuquerque) when the man sitting next to me glanced at the cover and gave me a very shifty look, and spent the rest of the flight leaning noticeably towards the seat on the opposite side.
That being said, I did enjoy the book. Jill’s characters have an innocent quality to them – like the cast from “Leave It To Beaver.” And I think that was exactly her point – you’d never expect the Cleaver family to be touched by STDs, and yet the truth is that they are succumbing to them in record numbers. Part of the danger of being one of those supposedly “low risk” individuals is that sufficient precautions against STDs are not taken due to a false sense of security.
I had assumed from the title of the book that “everyday people” would include a wider range of characters than were presented. I have been concerned about the reemergence of STDs, for example, in the retiree community in Florida, and thought that Seductive Delusions might touch on that unexpected risk group. However, the target demographic for the book is the late teen to thirty-something heterosexual male and female. I agree with Jill that there’s an educational gap there – but I would have enjoyed her casting a wider net.
The other potential short coming of the book is that the narratives describing how the various characters contracted an STD are so engaging that the reader is left disappointed at never hearing about the long-term outcomes for these individuals. I became emotionally invested in the story (for example) of how Evan contracted HIV from his very first girlfriend (a woman who had been with a man who used IV drugs prior to dating Evan). I felt as if I were there with Evan when he received the devastating news about being HIV positive, and then he drifted away from the pages of the book never to be heard from again. The lack of resolution left me with an uneasy feeling – probably the same feeling that Emergency Medicine physicians experience at the end of each shift.
Nonetheless, I would highly recommend this book to all sexually active young people. It is eye-opening and disturbing in the right sort of way. It’s the kind of book that will help people think twice before they become intimate with others, and take stock of the true health risks involved. I can only hope, along with Jill, that this book will reach the right eyeballs at the right time – and reduce the devastating spread of sexually transmitted diseases in America and beyond.
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