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‘Correct’ Answers on My Medical ‘Knowledge Assessment’
I just started the recertification process for my Family Medicine board certification. Today I’m doing an online exam (which now has the academic-sounding name Knowledge Assessment) on general medicine – no specific topic like cardiovascular disease or dermatology. It’s supposed to cover typical stuff that one is likely to encounter in a primary care office, and make sure you know what you’re supposed to do in various common situations. The first few questions were as expected, rashes, heart disease, intestinal issues, and so on. Typical stuff. And then I get to question #6:
A 13-year-old who was assigned female at birth has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. His parents fully support their child and affirm his gender as male. On examination the patient has a sexual maturity rating of Tanner stage 3. Which one of the following steps would be appropriate for optimal support and therapy for this patient?
Ok. So the patient was “assigned female at birth.” I wonder why? Eh, no matter, I guess.
And now this patient “has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.” Who diagnosed the patient with gender dysphoria? How? Is this doctor more likely to be correct than the doctor who “assigned female at birth“?
The question emphasizes that “His parents fully support their child…” His? Are you sure? And what exactly does “support their child” mean? Do they support “him” more than other parents support their children?
Tanner stage 3 means early puberty changes. Which, if the patient was “assigned female at birth,” that means breast development, etc.
So then, I’m supposed to answer this. And I need to get it right, so I can score high enough on the test to pass, and move on to the next stage of my recertification. I know that the first answer, “Encouraging conversion of the patient’s gender identity to be congruent with the gender assigned at birth” is obviously wrong, and is only there to identify Republicans and other hate-filled bigots. So I skip over that one.
Next, “Recommending delaying any gender-affirming treatment until he is at least 18 years old to prevent adverse psychosocial outcomes of puberty suppression“. Of course not. Another obvious trap.
The next choice seemed like a decent cop-out: “Ordering genetic testing and ultrasonography to confirm the gender assigned at birth“. I chose this one, because I wouldn’t have to mutilate a healthy child, but I could sort of pretend to play along. Why I would need “genetic testing and ultrasonography” to identify a girl I can’t imagine, but I chose this, because I just couldn’t bring myself to click on the obvious correct answer:
“Recommending GnRH analogue treatment” – using hormone analogues to shut down puberty and normal development.
As you can see, I got the question “wrong.” And my test grade fell a couple points.
They list “Peer Responses,” and 40% of physicians chose the correct answer. Probably because it’s obviously correct, and they’re trying to pass a test. I like to think that they wouldn’t actually do that to an actual child, but of course I don’t know.
Remember, this is a test question about a condition that didn’t exist until a few years ago. And now, we have “correct” answers on tests about it. You should bear in mind that we’re still arguing about how to treat heart disease, which has been killing people for as long as there have been people. We’re still not sure. But with trans-sexual children, we’re sure. So sure, that it’s on the test. With “correct” answers.
Just a few years ago, some women were more masculine than others. That didn’t mean that they weren’t women. And some men were more feminine than others. That didn’t mean that they weren’t men.
But now, just as with leftism in general, there’s no room for diversity. Try being a black Republican. Or a Democrat who is anti-abortion. Or a medical school professor who disagrees with hormone blockers in children who feel like the opposite sex.
This is how we’re treating kids who are finding their way through life. If they don’t fully conform, then we tell them they’re sick. There’s something wrong with them. They require “treatment.”
The intolerance of the left is getting worse. Fast. In all sorts of different ways – even in medical recertification exams.
This is not the first time this has happened. Looking at previous examples of leftist intolerance, the results have been horrific.
The memes and jokes write themselves for such absurdities. But this is not funny.
This is scary, scary stuff.
Published in General
It is not OK (natural) with monkeys either-or else gender is a social construct for rhesus monkeys & macaques as well….
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-29418230
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/
Parents who fear getting medical care for their children because doctors and other medical personnel will force this “care” on them by removing their children will be driven into living apart from society. They–the Democrats–have created a legal disaster for parents.
We need to support the work of ParentalRights.org. This organization is working to pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a parent’s or legal guardian’s right to direct his or her child’s healthcare and education.
Once that right is secured, then we can argue against this way of treating children. Until it is passed, parents will fear drawing attention to themselves on this issue.
This is, of course correct. But I’ll remind all of the refusal (over a very long period) by public school personnel to accept and address equally real unhealthy behaviour, observed from young ages over extended periods, by children (primarily boys) in school settings, rarely reported to or discussed with parents.
Instead – millions of dollars are spent by schools ( and therefore by actual working taxpayers) on vaguely defined and described student “health assessments” that justify “interventions” which require additional social emotional learning sessions (presented by highly trained and paid “specialists” with content not disclosed to parents,) individual education plans and exploding special education budgets.
This report brought to you from school budget season in NH, where in our small town with 173 K-8 students, the budget for next year will be $40,000 PER STUDENT and 5o% of the “education” part of the budget will be for special education for about 15% of the population. Budget for gifted students, you ask? Zero. Only by a very teeny margin did the State legislature last year restrict schools’ authority to keep student health issues (like this gender business) from parents.
Ask me how I really feel. This infatuation with unreality and magical thinking has been nurtured a long time.
That’s kind of my point.
Noooo-sending the child to a psychiatrist, in the vast majority of the cases, is tantamount to sending the lamb to wolf……
I agree, and that’s what I think will start to finish off this bizarre fad – lawsuits, not, unfortunately, a return to reality and common sense.
There are no words to adequately express the shock we must all feel after reading this, and I am so sorry you are expected to give the “correct” response to this nonsense.
But don’t they have a shield with “this was accepted practice at the time” type stuff?
And this in a state whose motto is “live free or die.”
I think it might be more “I was a minor, and adults, including these physicians, coerced me into chopping off healthy body parts.”
Me to my doctor: Where did you go to medical school?
Doctor: Harvard
Me: Appointment cancelled, my dude!
Poor little squirt.
Take away her phone and computer. Limit her tv/streaming exposure. Hug her, tell her she is beautiful. Tell her she is just having weird obsessive thoughts. Find a doctor who won’t comply. Maybe don’t take her to a psychologist. Encourage her in a hobby.
Maybe it was Iowahawk, David Burge:
1. Identify a respected institution. 2. kill it. 3. gut it. 4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
That would be a good reason for not answering what you actually disagree with.
They can still spin that, if the majority of those who respond, agree. And if only those who disagree don’t answer, that happens even sooner.
I’d think identification would be fairly simple. Watch the parking lot, if the parents pull up for their appointment wearing masks in a Prius, then there’s a good chance. At the appointment, ask a few simple questions about social justice and QRT and that should nail it down.
Reminds me of some law school and bar exams where the question writer starts off with the answer they want and then writes a nonsensical fact pattern for which the answer is wrong for a reason they did not consider.
BTW, we also have the issue of the word “appropriate”. There is a disconnect between “appropriate” and “optimal”. The question writer seems to have wanted to use the word “mandatory”.
v. important
Maybe my 3 year old granddaughter can help them.
As soon as she started using the toilet last year (and ditched the diapers) she noticed that she pees differently from the way her 5 year old brother pees. She now knows it’s because she’s a girl and he’s a boy, and boys and girls are built differently.
That she likes to play cars with her brother, and climb things like her brother does, does not change the fact that she is a girl. Liking the same things many boys do does not make her a boy.
Girls pee differently from boys because girls and boys are different. As my 3 year old granddaughter gets older she will learn more about the other differences too.
People will have an increasingly difficult time finding any professional who disagrees with the opinions encapsulated in the test question.
These people know what they are doing. They have been very successful in changing public opinion to their side. Bending society to their will has been going on for a long time, since the Scopes “trial.” I read a great deal about this trial a few years ago and came to the conclusion that William Jennings Bryan may have been one of the most intelligent people western civilization has ever been blessed to have.
As long as the only path to becoming and staying a doctor is through the academic and professional organizations, we have no way to get around the doctors who think this way. These people are in control of the entire supply chain.
I seem to recall a sort of moral panic many years ago about how it was was no indicator of a child’s sexuality for boys to play with “girl toys” and girls to play with “boy toys.” This was perfectly normal.
And now if a girl plays with “boy toys” or a boy plays with “girl toys,” we’re lectured that these children are transgender.
I don’t know – I would be interested in hearing what our Ricochet lawyers think about that. But I believe some lawsuits have started in the UK.
Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it?
Transsexual is the new normal.
I enjoy being a dissident.
Of course this is repulsive, that all of a sudden the medical profession is faced with these harmful absurdities. It started somewhere by someone. You know what was on the last normal test you took. Was that 2 or 3 years ago? Last year? Do you have to take these tests yearly (most of us don’t know)?
I cannot imagine this is the norm now all over the world. For example, in South Africa or Turkey or Sri Lanka, are these questions on the tests? What are the ratios for gender confusion in other countries, especially poorer nations, where food, clean water and work is always the main concern?
I wish we could track back to the poisonous spiders in the webs of deceit and name names – organizations – for the children and teens that are being hurt and misled by this trash. I mean no dis-respect to anyone who is conflicted with a serious condition, but these instances of gender confusion were rare until most recently.
No weird questions from my doc when I was in last week. He was more concerned with symptoms and what he would do if any tests were positive (Covid or flu). They were negative. He refilled my daily pills and wished me well.
I doubt anyone would ask adults if the adults feel transgender or something. This is about children.
Doc, I appreciate the post, but I think that your diagnosis is wrong. By this, I mean your diagnosis of the problem.
The problem is not the intolerance of the Left. The problem is the tolerance of the Right. The answer to the whole “gender” nonsense, starting with the very use of the word “gender” instead of sex, should have been “no.”
I’ve been saying this for years.
The problem, frankly, is the unholy alliance of the obvious Leftists with the libertarians, who are also Leftists but are in denial. They believe in Liberty, in the face of reality. This approach has been breaking down traditional sex roles, and undermining the family, for 150 years or more. It probably started with that first statement of feminism that I’m aware of, the Seneca Falls Declaration, in 1848.
It’s been a slow-motion train-wreck since that philosophy gained ascendance, in the early 20th Century. It started with the revocation of the criminal and tort claims against adulterers. Then came no-fault divorce, and the breakdown of the taboo against illegitimacy. Then sodomy and other perversion, and now the undermining of the very idea that there is a difference between men and women. Sex is considered to be a whim, not a physical fact.
Because, Liberty. You can be anything you want to be, in this philosophy. You don’t have to conform to the traditional roles of our culture and society.
Unsurprisingly, it’s been a downward spiral into immorality, perversion, and now mutilation.
Because Leftists, including libertarians, can’t stand anyone saying “no” — except when they say “no” to everything decent and normal.
I’m a bit surprised that anyone is surprised. It’s been years since I encountered the whole “gender assigned at birth” nonsense. The Newspeak aspects of the terminology are so obvious that a blind man could see them, yet people seem to go along with it. Because heaven forbid that we tell a twisted, perverted adult that there’s something wrong with him for wanting to be a woman, or vice versa.