If you saw the 1991 movie The Doctor, you probably laughed when the William Hurt character finishes the tough coronary bypass part of heart surgery and yells to the scrub tech to turn on the “closing music,” which turns out to be Jimmy Buffett’s “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw.”  Sure, we doctors are humans, and yes, we do listen to music in the operating room.

Not just a beating heart

But as funny as that may seem, I found myself cringing when I saw that scene in the movie. Here’s this person, with her chest cracked wide open, having had her heart just sewn back together, and her doctors are all singing about getting wasted and getting laid. It just felt disrespectful and made me want to leap into the movie screen and give the patient’s naked, exposed body a hug because I care. Even if she’s under general anesthesia, with her chest splayed open, she’s still a person to me, not just a beating heart.

Which is probably why I was so disturbed when I read this article on CNN about Dr. Alinsod, a Laguna Beach doctor who etched a woman’s name into her surgically removed uterus with an electrocautery tool and shot a photo of himself performing this “friendly gesture.”

Sure, the woman got a hysterectomy so he’s not as misguided as Dr. Allan Zarkin, the crazy doctor who branded his own initials onto a woman’s abdomen during a C-section. And while he did brand her hysterectomized uterus, at least he carved the patient’s name, as opposed to being tacky enough to brand the initials of his alma mater, like Dr. Guiler did.

So I can cut the guy some slack. But still. If you’re the woman who witnessed the photos of your doctor etching your name into your uterus, how does that make you feel? Like a cow being marked? Like a concentration camp victim? Like a slave?

Not. Cool.

Undergoing a hysterectomy can be a very emotional process for a woman. Even when medically necessary, many women feel very ambivalent about this particular surgery. Some feel as if their very femininity is being cut out, that they are somehow less womanly, less sexual, less whole. So to have someone do this to the part of you that makes you uniquely female -- well, it’s just not cool.

Not that it would be cool if this doctor had branded her gallbladder or her tonsils. But to have a doctor brand a woman’s uterus demonstrates a disturbing lack of disrespect for the sacredness of what the uterus represents for many women. This is not just any organ. Unlike the vestigial appendix, the uterus is the creatrix of the world. All human life spawns from the uterus. The uterus marks we women as vessels, as mothers, as being capable of creation. Many women like me even feel like they have a personal relationship with this part of their body (I call mine Yoni, and as you’ll read in my book What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend, we chat about all kinds of things). Desecrating such an organ is like throwing dirt on an altar or spitting on a Goddess. It’s simply not okay.

When a woman undergoes a hysterectomy -- or any surgery for that matter -- she deserves doctors who treat her with the utmost respect for the divine creature that she is. It kills me how many of my physician colleagues refer to patients in disrespectful ways. You’ll hear them barking to a nurse, “Go put an IV in Room 5.” Excuse me, Dr. Asshole. Room 5’s name is Ellie, thank you very much.

Patient Advocate

I may be a doctor, but first and foremost, I consider myself a patient advocate. Yes, I get it that we docs are subject to tremendous pressures from long hours, life-and-death decision-making, and the weight of our responsibilities. I understand that sometimes we have to cut loose, let it all hang out and let our freak flags fly. (The term “Work hard, play hard” gets bantered around a lot among doctors.) And yes, those pressures can lead doctors to do crazy, irrational, sometimes unethical things. I know. In moments of weakness, I’m guilty of forgetting how blessed I am to do what I am. But that’s no excuse. We must find better ways to manage our stress and still hold sacred the gravity of what we do.

So to Dr. Alinsod and any other doctor who fails to remember the preciousness of our job, the sacredness of our responsibility, and the privilege of what we are blessed to do, I’d like to remind you to take a deep look inside and rethink how you view your patients. If you need to, take a vacation. Whatever it takes to realign you with the heart of why we practice medicine.

And to the woman in Laguna Beach who had to witness the marking of her uterus, I’m sorry, love. Remember that you are whole, beautiful, and perfect, even without your uterus. No one can ever take from you what makes you YOU.

What do you think? Is this action reprehensible or just a goofy, harmless doctor’s attempt to make a funny in the OR? Am I taking this too seriously or do you agree that patients deserve respect, even when they’re asleep in the operating room? Have you ever felt disrespected by a doctor? I’d love to know how you feel.

Apologizing on behalf of doctors everywhere,

Dr. Lissa