Yep. Even as a mere medic, we are supposed to at least consider any woman from 9 to 99 could be pregnant. And it fast and easy to ask, assuming a responsive patient. The overwhelming number of times it didn’t play into my treatment plan doesn’t matter. All it takes is just one time to not consider it and someone can be severely injured or dead because I didn’t consider it. If I had any doubt about pregnant or not, I asked the patient straight up.
I think explaining rationale for what you’re doing can be very helpful for patient comfort (not to mention compliance). Cis man here, but on the one hand I hear about enough women’s medical concerns getting dismissed to understand why that might be the assumption even when there’s good reason; and just from my own experience I like to understand what providers are thinking / working on with me.
Yep. Even as a mere medic, we are supposed to at least consider any woman from 9 to 99 could be pregnant. And it fast and easy to ask, assuming a responsive patient. The overwhelming number of times it didn’t play into my treatment plan doesn’t matter. All it takes is just one time to not consider it and someone can be severely injured or dead because I didn’t consider it. If I had any doubt about pregnant or not, I asked the patient straight up.
I think explaining rationale for what you’re doing can be very helpful for patient comfort (not to mention compliance). Cis man here, but on the one hand I hear about enough women’s medical concerns getting dismissed to understand why that might be the assumption even when there’s good reason; and just from my own experience I like to understand what providers are thinking / working on with me.