Today, I’m going to do something a little bit different. No, it’s not the COVID mask. Today is our first Dr. Rich Reacts. I’m going to react to the Internet’s gynecology memes.
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Hi, my name is Dr. Rich, and I’m passionate about providing every woman with practical knowledge about the world of women’s health. Today you’ll be catching my genuine reactions to urogynecology memes that I’ve never seen before. All right, internet, do your worst. I’m ready. And the first one is, “You say you have a pain in your what now?” I don’t get it. “You say you have a pain in your what now.” I guess there’s this old lady and she’s trying to look at the internet. I don’t know. Maybe this lady has come up with something that nobody would expect her to have pain in. I’m not sure, but yeah, that’s a good one. All right. Second one.
Yeah. That’s about right. So I’ve seen t-shirts with this too, so “I’m not a gynecologist, but I’ll have a look.” And I’ve never thought about putting the world’s most interesting man on that one. There’s definitely better world’s most interesting man memes, but that’s apropos. So, that does bring up a couple of thoughts. From the Animal House, at the end, the guy becomes the Beverly Hills gynecologist. That’s like the pinnacle of careers that you could have. So it’s a job. It’s a job where we get to serve and do meaningful work. And at the end of the day, it’s like anything else when you’re at work, you work, when you’re not, you’re not. As far as self-diagnosis, that’s another, I guess, background question that that brings up. You can Google, you can look for things, ultimately though, having the benefit of a medical school education, your physician is going to be able to come up with a differential.
If you’re just reading something and you don’t have that background knowledge, the first thing you’re going to read, you’re going to assume that that’s what you have. But that’s what clinical practice is about, is getting experience so that we have the entire breadth of information in front of us. So we can make a better diagnosis, a more accurate diagnosis. So, if you’re the old lady looking on the screen, or if you’re the world’s most interesting gynecologist, if you have an issue, make sure you come and see your doctor. All right, number three.
That’s horrible. All right, so you got Spider-Man facing what I can only imagine is Venom, and they’re saying, “I don’t want to be a gynecologist anymore.” Now I will say that of all the specialties of all of the body secretions and things that can come up during the course of clinical practice, I’ll take gynecology over ENT, gastroenterology, a number of other specialties any day. Okay. Moving on, none too soon. Number four, let’s see. Okay, so this is an homage to Star Wars, I guess. So instead of Obi Wan Kenobi, OB-GYN Kenobi. Actually, there’s a colleague of mine, that’s his handle on Instagram, OB-GYN Kenobi, so they beat you to it. So I guess in a way we’re all like Jedi’s, right? So we’re the master of our particular skillsets. We are one with the force. All right. Next one.
Okay. I think you probably would have to be in medicine to get this one, or maybe on an episode of Scrubs, but yeah, the cervix can be a challenging, evasive organ to identify. So, as we teach the incoming interns how to do exams, oftentimes, it’s like an Easter egg hunt. You got to keep looking and you can’t find it, but rest assured by the time they graduate, the residents are very good at finding the cervix. And the meme is perfect because the ladies bending over, squinting, “Is that the cervix?” We’ve certainly found a number of other foreign bodies that shouldn’t be there that can be confused with a cervix over time. So it’s an interesting specialty, to say the least. And next.
So we’ve got the kid with the fist pump, you made your OB-GYN blush during an exam. Yep. That’s happened. I’ve had patients stream Instagram, their colposcopy before. Not highly recommended, but we’ve all had that circumstance happen. And whereas it’s certainly flattering, we’re here to do a job. We’re at your cervix and we’re here to save lives. And that’s all the reward that we need. So it’s come up, certainly as someone who is responsible for educating residents, there’s a discussion point that has been around maintaining professionalism at all times.
And that’s the goal, guys. It’s an intimate type of job that we find ourselves in and got to be professional. So, moving along. So I guess we’re sticking with the theme, right? So Idris Elba is here being like, “Hey man, that’s just how I roll.” Yeah. So, okay, that’s happened. But again, professionalism, that’s what we teach. Everybody remain calm, do the job. And, in all seriousness, we’re here to serve and we’re here to identify health issues and save lives and Idris Elba or not. And moving on.
We got our little, “My lining is strong and independent. It grows wherever it wants. Isn’t that cool?” Is this a reference to endometriosis? We were just talking about this the other day. Maybe we should have had this meme for that one. So my line, so, okay. Anatomically, the uterus has three layers. So it’s got the endometrium, which is the inner layer, also called the lining, which I think they’re referring to here. The majority of the uterus is made it from muscle, 90% is just the muscle wall that’s used for in labor and delivery to contract and deliver the baby. And then there’s an outer covering like a saran wrap called serosa. So the inner lining is independent and strong, grows where it wants. Isn’t that cool? Oh, it wasn’t cool. Oh, now I get it. So if this is in fact a reference to endo, it grows wherever it wants, meaning that the lining is supposed to be in the uterus, but when it goes outside of the uterus, it can implant onto ovaries, ligaments, bowel, bladder, and cause pain on all these organs.
And that definitely wasn’t cool. I’m not sure who’s supposed to get this joke to be honest. All right. Well, that’s the explanation, guys, if you ever saw that before. All right, share? Oh my God. And this is actually not that far fetched, so there’s a possibility to commercialize anything. So with healthcare and obstetrics, it’s a process where you see your provider and they’re there to make sure that everything goes well, everything was safe, healthy babies, healthy mothers. And I don’t know if they’re still doing it, but for a while, when the 3D ultrasound first came out, they were doing that as a gimmick at large malls where you would come in and they would sell you images of the baby.
So, now they just have the built-in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, which I imagine, I suppose, that’s what everybody does anyway. They get the image and then they post it online. So I guess that’s what we have to look forward to guys, the sharing straight from the doctor’s ultrasound probe. And I suppose that brings up another HIPAA privacy question. Should we share all of our protected health information on the internet? We have to realize and remember, even though it’s a 24 hour news cycle, the internet does have a very long memory. I’ve had patients that have wanted to stream an actual interview.
I would probably give pause to some of those things, have some thought around, is this the type of information I want shared with the world? Now I’ve had some very brave souls come onto the channel and share their endo stories, share their hysterectomy stories. And the purpose there is to engage with the world, to engage with other patients who have questions, who want to learn when it is appropriate to get evaluated, when is it appropriate to have medicines or surgery. And perhaps prevent those individuals from suffering in the way that they suffered. So there’s purpose, intent. I think it needs to be focused and directed and meaningful. I don’t think we should just throw all of our health information out there on the internet.
That’s good. “I ovary acted.” So yeah. I’m going to share that one with my wife anytime we get into an argument. I hope you’re not watching. Yeah, that’s good. “I ovary acted.” So I guess that’s a lesson to all of us when we’re engaging the healthcare system as a consumer of healthcare or as a provider, let’s not overreact. Let’s make sure that we get all the information, get all the data and make an informed decision. It’s interesting, this is a play on words, but some of where we get the roots, the Latin roots for words. So hysteria is the same root word histor as we use for the uterus in hysterectomy, to remove the uterus. It was thought many, many years ago, thousands of years ago, that the uterus would actually detach from its position, the pelvis, wander around the body and make its way up to the brain and would result in a type of a delirium hallucination. And this would happen in a cyclical fashion once a month.
So, men, when they had control of the system would describe it in a way that made sense to their observation, that the unpredictable behavior that can occur is because of a wandering uterus that moves around the body. So thank God for education, knowledge and MRI scans that we know that’s not the case. There’s a hormonal effect, but again, don’t over react. Okay. That was super different. I had a lot of fun. Those were actually my genuine responses. I hadn’t seen those memes before. I hope you had some laughs. I hope you got some information. If you’re looking for more engaging, quality content, don’t forget to hit subscribe and we’ll see you next time.
