Wow, misplaced priorities!

[conuly]

Dear Carolyn: I am a surgery resident training in a prestigious program. My wife was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, which was diagnosed after she saw (at my behest) my program director who happens to be a cancer surgeon with a national reputation. She has since met with the multidisciplinary team and started on chemotherapy.

The surgery part of her treatment won't happen for a few months, but here is my problem: My wife does not want my program director to be her surgeon! She thinks he is a "cold fish," and wants to ask a younger woman — whom she has met through departmental social events only — to do her surgery. The woman is also fellowship trained in surgical oncology, so there is not an issue of her competence.

I have tried to explain to my wife this would be an affront to my program director and would make things awkward for me, but she is pretty adamant. Please help.

— Surgeon

Surgeon: So, a recap: Your wife is fighting for her life, and you’re worried about the cost of insulting Mr. National Reputation to your “prestigious” career.

Yeah.

Even if your rationale weren’t jaw-droppy, it’s still Her Body. Find a way to make it not awkward, and give her what she wants without making her fight you for it.

Or just be awkward. Sweet Cheez-Its. She gets the surgeon she wants.

Make something up as a reason. “She wants a female surgeon.” You can craft some verbal fig leaf for the program director — assuming you even need to say anything.

This is traumatic and scary for both of you, so I’ll offer the grace of considering that this is your way of feeling like you can control even one small part of a traumatic and scary thing. But overruling your wife on her care preference is not the place to assert your power. Keep your focus on supporting your wife.

I’m sorry this happened, and hope she’s okay.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/carolyn-hax-your-wife-with-cancer-gets-the-doctor-she-wants-even-if-it-hurts-your-career/2021/04/23/48513e02-9896-11eb-b28d-bfa7bb5cb2a5_story.html

Comments

[jadelennox]

WOW.

[conuly]

I KNOW.

[conuly]

1. Last year I read this article about (male) surgeons who left extra skin after mastectomies for reconstruction against the explicit wishes of their patients who had told them they wished to just go flat.

My mother's surgeon and oncologist are both women, which is apparently quite rare, and nothing like that was even on the radar because it wasn't a risk. She said "Don't leave anything" and her doctors said "yup, got it".

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/a22984204/breast-cancer-survivors-mastectomy-sexism/

I don't know that LW's whatever is one of those Awful Doctors, but if this man can't accept "My wife wants a woman surgeon" as a valid reason, and will hold it against LW, then the odds are probably pretty good, actually!

2. From the comments:

What LW1 describes is, I fear, a common reaction not endemic to doctors. I had a 3-year battle with cancer, and my (now-ex)husband spent almost the whole three years wondering why this horrible stuff was happening to HIM: why did he have to miss work (when I had procedures I had to have someone there for); why he had to hire a house-cleaner (because I was too sick to maintain the house); why he had to constantly deal with telling our friends and family about surgeries and outcomes (because I was having multiple surgeries and people wanted to know the outcomes); etc etc etc. He really never seemed to get how this -- my surgeries, my loss of organs, my fear of dying, my pain -- was affecting ME. Now, 20 years later, I see that that's how he deals with all kinds of crises -- make it less scary/serious by not recognizing the true horror of it -- and as I said, I'm sure he's not the only one to use this strategy.

I did end up divorcing him -- which he says was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

I don't know about that commenter's conclusion that this is endemic to doctors, but I couldn't help but crosspost it.

[likeaduck]

I think from context that commenter might mean not exclusive to doctors?

*

[minoanmiss]

That article was educational and horrifying.

[cimorene]

I read the first half of that comment like, AND YOU CONTINUE TO PUT UP WITH THIS?! so the punchline just came as a huge relief.

In the current situation, I can only hope the LW argues explicitly with his wife enough that she divorces him as well...

[beable]

The article with those awful surgical results especially offends me because I know personally (my brother had a double mastectomy several years ago to correct his AFAB with his true gender) that it’s possible for mastectomies to have scars so subtle you can barely tell.

My brother loves sending photos where he isnt always wearing shirts and if you didn’t know that he used to fill a D cup you’d never know that he ever had had boobs.

[laurajv]

Top surgery is very very different from a cancer mastectomy, though. A mastectomy for cancer removes a LOT more, because the goal of the surgery is different. Top surgery the goal is a natural-looking masculine chest; the surgeon leaves in breast tissue and so on to create that result; muscle is untouched. Cancer surgery the goal is to get out the cancer. Mastectomies sometimes remove the chest muscle entirely.

[beable]

I have learned something new about top surgery!
My brother just described it beforehand as "the boobs must go" and didn't delve into detailed surgical nuances. Then again my father and I are both notoriously medically squeamish so that may have been a good thing!

[watersword]

Letter writer, I think the best solution here is for you to yeet yourself into the sun.

[minoanmiss]

FFS.

[raine]

It's typical of so many of the highly educated doctors, though, that I've run into, which doesn't excuse it, but gah. I used to be a continuing medical education coordinator, or as I like say, I got paid to chase after doctors and nurses who were volunteered/agreed to teach other doctors and nurses. When I finally quit, six years after I started, I had a highly-rated ear, nose, and throat surgeon leave a patient on the table in the operating room just so he could run over (across the street, mind you!) to my office to demand I tell him the name of the person he would be telling that he wouldn't have his syllabus materials ready until five minutes prior to his lecture. When I said I not only didn't know, but didn't care, he started begging me to stay. I was like: O.O, dude. Then I heard them page him back to OR, and that's when I realized he had left a patient waiting. Because it was all about him, not me, not the patient, y'see.

ETA: If I were the wife, I'd be making up an excuse about how it would look bad for her husband and then GTFO, but I had six years of elitist, bullshit attitude from "medical professionals", so I'm super biased.

[watersword]

Oh my holy fucking god. Uh. Is there a way to screen this type of asshole out, as a patient?

[raine]

Pay attention to whether they seem dismissive of you as a person, especially if they’re like, “Why are you bothering me with this elementary condition your regular doctor could’ve diagnosed if they weren’t idiots?” I say that with the caveat of they might be brilliant at their specialty but complete assholes at everything else, so it becomes a “do you want this asshole’s expertise, knowing he’s an ass,” or attempt to find a doctor whose asshole is firmly where it should be.

[melannen]

If your director is the kind of person to penalize you because a patient's treatment choices bruised his ego, then your wife made 100% the correct choice in picking a different surgeon.

[purlewe]

So much this.

[azurelunatic]

Yes.

[mommy]

Exactly.

[swingandswirl]

Exactly.

What a bag of dicks this guy is.

[librarygeek]

YES, to everyone above. I needed open heart surgery in 2017, to repair my congenital heart defects. Wasn't until the head of cardiac surgery at Temple University Hospital told us, that my husband *finally* understood that I was really sick right then. Husband kept telling me I needed to exercise more so I wouldn't be so tired and out of breath. 🙄

Fortunately, he believed that surgeon, but was still surprised by it being scheduled in just over a week. My mom's side had lost several cousins to heart problems and cancer, I was raised and trained with ALL the precautions to try and keep me alive longer than that family, and my mom's adopted, so it wasn't even genetics.

[mirlacca]

Hear hear!