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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
Exactly. Sometimes goodness is a weakness and left left excels at using our rules and weaknesses against us. The problem now is it is almost too late. The left has poisoned enough minds and gained enough power that they can now punish those who don’t support their whims.
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Sort of.
I don’t think that the problem is “goodness” being a weakness. I think that the problem is that “goodness” is considered the same as “niceness.” Sometimes being good means rejecting evil, forcefully. Sometimes being good means being intolerant of wickedness, or falsehood.
But, of course, doing so creates conflict. Many people don’t like conflict. This is especially true of women, who are higher in trait agreeableness and higher in trait neuroticism.
I hypothesize that the addition of women to the political realm changed the social dynamic, in a way that made it more difficult to uphold traditional virtues. From some limited research on the issue, it seems that women may have been more conservative (meaning traditional) in this regard in the early decades of women’s suffrage, but this shifted around the 1960s.
Of course, there remains a lot of conflict in the political realm, but it’s generally about identification of a “victim” group which, like an infant, must be defended against whatever evil monster is attacking them.
In theory, I might disagree because [blah, blah; subtleties and complications].
But, basically, I agree.
(Yes–I have that very unfashionable opinion. First time for everything, eh?)
Ditto.
We would consider tolerance to be a good thing. The left follows Alinsky’s rules so they take a virtue, tolerance, holds us to it, and demands we tolerate all sorts of depravities that weaken a moral society. They have wiped out our ability to distinguish good from evil. Goodness in itself isn’t a weakness but our moral confusion makes it a weakness. Moral confusion can turn any goodness into a weakness that can be exploited.
I think I heard this on Pints of Aquinas, when discussing OT vs NT and the differences in how God and Jesus handle sin.
The theologian/apologist being interviewed said something along the lines that it wasn’t God who changed, but people. Pre-Babylon, there was too much tolerance of wickedness and the law dealt intolerantly with it – it was harsh for a very lax people who did not take sin seriously.
But in Jesus’ day, the law and sin were taken so seriously that the law was held above easing human suffering – like leaving a man to rot in his own filth in order to avoid work on the Sabbath. And so Jesus emphasized mercy.
But God is perfectly just and perfectly merciful. There is such a thing as too much mercy and too much judgement. We may not succeed in putting it all in practice, but the extremes should be avoided at both ends.
I think we need to move away from this radical tolerance as a virtue and embrace some measured judgement.
I don’t think that the problem is just the Left.
I think that part of the problem is your opening sentence here. Why do you consider tolerance a virtue? Always? Or just sometimes? You do make it clear that we shouldn’t tolerate everything, so it seems that at most, tolerance is a virtue sometimes.
This implies that tolerance is not a good thing. It may be a good thing sometimes, and a bad thing sometimes.
And in South Carolina:
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2023/01/17/video-doctors-trained-to-affirm-transgender-identity-among-children/
California now has one of the highest rates of trans identifying youth in the US, with 1.93 percent of those between ages 13 and 17 identifying as transgender—almost 38 percent higher than the national average
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/its-a-social-contagion/
From another meme post, I think:
(And, if it’s “natural,” why do certain states seem to be creating them?)
Tolerating an evil isn’t a virtue ergo I don’t assign tolerance blanket status as a virtue.
Isn’t the first time they have drawn heat.
I don’t believe tolerance is ever a virtue. We don’t have to tolerate the good, we can actually celebrate it! Which is what the demands of tolerance have led to with homosexuality and now transgenderism, as if it is good that men sodomize each other in a so-called “marriage” or children undergo chemical and surgical mutilation.
From the article, Truth Demands Charity — Not Mere Tolerance:
When something other than God/Love is made the highest value, there is the potential for sin.
Or, as I used to tell my children, lots of things matter. Nothing matters more than love. (With love, of course, carefully defined as agape, not just as “niceness.”)
Tolerance can be a good thing—that is, a loving thing. It can be the outward expression of humility, patience, faith that God is working things out for a person/group in God’s own way. It can be a bad thing, the outward expression of cowardice, ignorance, denial or moral sloth.
“Love your neighbor” sounds so easy. It is the single most difficult challenge of human life. It’s not surprising that we fail. The surprise is that we ever do anything but fail.
Right. We only ever love well by God’s grace.
I did not mean to suggest tolerance is never good, only that it is not a virtue. I believe the etymology of the word means to carry a burden.
I like the title of the article I quoted: Truth demands charity. The modern demands of tolerance insist on lies like babies are disposable depending on the whims of the mother and two men or two women can be married.
The trick — and therefore the criticality of God’s grace — is to tell the truth with love.
I read a book very recently in which the authors said the etymology of the word virtue is “excellence”:
This was a new translation for me, but I trust these authors. So it’s probably both. Or perhaps excellence is a burden. :)
It’s a great book. I really enjoyed it. It’s the second book I’ve read by this author group. Stoller is a doctor with the Cleveland Clinic. The book contains some interesting pandemic anecdotes. It was written for the business books market so I don’t think most Ricochet members would enjoy it as much as I did. But I learned a lot. Peter Rea is essentially an ethicist.
We ascribe goodness or badness to a lot of things that are not necessarily good or bad in themselves. Here are some other examples that have come up on Ricochet that can be good and can also go bad: Freedom, Democracy, Populism, Nationalism, Hate, Food, Sex.
A few weeks ago someone here on Ricochet introduced us to the musical duo, Rachael and Vilray. I quickly became a fan and have since enjoyed a lot of their musical videos, as well as those of Rachael Price and her Lake Street Dive group. Rachael and Vilray’s latest song that came out just a few days ago is one that made me wonder if they’ve been thinking about this topic, too. Maybe he’s just having some fun, but at least somebody is thinking about the meaning of the word “hate” and perhaps even in the context of its recent use in politics. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Vilray is the songwriter of the two, and in another video where he performs alone says “Hate is the Basis for Love” is an “original, commissioned song.”
Exactly. And they often go bad because they have been made the highest good, rather than a kind of derivative good.
It’s both.
It comes from the word for manliness, and ultimately from the word for “man,” i.e., “vir.” It sounds like the authors decided to stay away from the Roman history of the word, which I suppose is not surprising.
The Greek arete, which came first–“virtue” or “excellence.”
You’re talking about the later virtu in Latin, which could mean “virtue,” “courage,” or “manliness.”