[work] Dr. Hern
Aug. 17th, 2009 01:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thejunipertreeThe Director of Patient Support Services where I work posts articles on a bulletin board in our lunch room once in awhile that she thinks are good for the staff to read. The most recent one is about Dr. Hern in Boulder, CO. He's the last doctor in the United States who will perform late trimester abortions since the murder of Dr. George Tiller.
It's an extremely eye-opening article, which may be found here.
I didn't say much online in response to Dr. Tiller's murder. In meatspace, I wouldn't shut the hell up about it, but online- I just couldn't muster the energy. It was extremely close to home for me and I was saddened, sickened, and a host of other emotions. I wrote something up in a community in response to some abortion!wank, but that's about it.
For those who care, what I wrote is behind the cut.
Ever since I found out about Dr. Tiller's murder on Sunday, I have been attempting to put my feelings on the subject into words. And I keep failing terribly. So, forgive me if this gets disjointed.
I don't have any personal experience with abortion, as I am beyond paranoid about becoming pregnant, but (as I have mentioned in the past, but I doubt anyone remembers because I rarely post) I have worked for an abortion provider for the past five years in their administrative department. So, while I have never gone through the procedure myself, I have witnessed and assisted in quite a number of other women's procedures.
The provider I work for has fifteen offices in four states and while not every single location gets blasted with protestors on a daily basis, the majority of them have serious problems. We get the usual assortment of old ladies praying the rosary by roadside and incorrect graphic images held aloft. But, throughout the time the company has been in operation, we have also dealt with the harassment and stalking of our staff, fake anthrax mailings, law-breaking (one office had a protestor walk in), injury (another office's district manager was struck by a car driven by a protestor and is now crippled for fucking life), filming of patients as they walk into the office, libel, the posting of some of our doctors' information on the Nuremburg files, and attempts at filling up our appointment slots with pseudo-patients. In two of our locations (which are in multi-tenant buildings), anti-choicers have set up shop down the hall from our offices and will actively lie to patients to get them to not go to their appointments. Oh, are you here for an ultrasound, sweetie? Come right this way...
This is not even a tenth of what Dr. Tiller had to deal with when he was alive, but our offices do not go as far into the gestational period as he did (most of ours stop at around 14-16 weeks, although some go to 24.6 weeks). But, that in itself doesn't diminish the difficulty we have with staying open and providing services.
I know that Dr. Tiller's death and the subsequent asshatted reactions from meandering fuckheads have filled me with such rage, my hands start to shake. I've seen the women coming into our offices with the difficulty of the choice they have made written all over their faces. I've listened to them when they wanted to tell someone, anyone about why they were doing what they were doing. About why they couldn't carry this pregnancy. The stories I have heard run the gamut from horrific tales to make your blood run cold involving abuse, rape, and molestation to just-the-facts-ma'am types who purely just can not or do not want another child right now or any child at all. They are all valid, regardless.
Providers are dwindling, all across the United States. Every year, there are less of us. And not because there's less of a need. Rarely, it's because patient numbers don't support the continued operation of a location's provider; in other places- like Mississipi or Kentucky or Western Pennsylvania, they are simply forced out. Two of our own locations have not seen patients in the past year because we can't retain doctors there. The last one we had in that area left our practice because his wife had been ostracized by her social group and they had been receiving harassing phone calls and mail. We constantly put effort into recruiting, but there is not much we can do.
Women, all across the country, are finding themselves with no where to turn when the options of you're adult enough to fuck, so you're mature enough to keep the baby and just adopt it out! are unacceptable or impossible. Dr. Tiller's murder robbed them of yet another one, one that was so incredibly necessary.
I keep telling myself that I'm going to start looking for another job. The pay is low, the stress is high, the employee benefits are expensive, and anyone who has ever worked for a doctor can attest to the fact that they can be more than a bit difficult to deal with. I keep saying that I'm going to look for a quiet job, a normal job. A job that doesn't require fifty hours a week. A job that doesn't come home with me every single goddamn day or cause me to blow up in long-winded rant. A job that doesn't cause me to look over my shoulder when I'm walking to my car or wonder who the weirdo is wandering around our parking lot and if they have a gun.
And every time I start to seriously consider trying to leave, it happens about three times a year or so, something happens to remind me why I continue putting up with all of this.
The last time, it was a patient who asked to hold my hand while I waited outside with her for her ride home. Her boyfriend had dropped her off for her appointment earlier and didn't want to stick around because he had "more important shit to do than listen to [her] cry for three hours". He refuses to wear condoms and won't allow her to take the pill because it makes her "bitchy". I sat on the bench out front with her and held her hand. She cried the entire time and kept asking me if she was going to hell.
This time, it was the senseless killing of someone I liked, admired, and looked up to. Devestating, but a much needed kick in the ass all the same.
I don't think this was quite what you were looking for in this post and I doubt anyone is even reading the thread at this point so late in the game (I actually hope not because 2:45 in the morning writing is not my friend). But, it is what it is. It's my story, my knowledge, and my condemnation.
It's an extremely eye-opening article, which may be found here.
I didn't say much online in response to Dr. Tiller's murder. In meatspace, I wouldn't shut the hell up about it, but online- I just couldn't muster the energy. It was extremely close to home for me and I was saddened, sickened, and a host of other emotions. I wrote something up in a community in response to some abortion!wank, but that's about it.
For those who care, what I wrote is behind the cut.
Ever since I found out about Dr. Tiller's murder on Sunday, I have been attempting to put my feelings on the subject into words. And I keep failing terribly. So, forgive me if this gets disjointed.
I don't have any personal experience with abortion, as I am beyond paranoid about becoming pregnant, but (as I have mentioned in the past, but I doubt anyone remembers because I rarely post) I have worked for an abortion provider for the past five years in their administrative department. So, while I have never gone through the procedure myself, I have witnessed and assisted in quite a number of other women's procedures.
The provider I work for has fifteen offices in four states and while not every single location gets blasted with protestors on a daily basis, the majority of them have serious problems. We get the usual assortment of old ladies praying the rosary by roadside and incorrect graphic images held aloft. But, throughout the time the company has been in operation, we have also dealt with the harassment and stalking of our staff, fake anthrax mailings, law-breaking (one office had a protestor walk in), injury (another office's district manager was struck by a car driven by a protestor and is now crippled for fucking life), filming of patients as they walk into the office, libel, the posting of some of our doctors' information on the Nuremburg files, and attempts at filling up our appointment slots with pseudo-patients. In two of our locations (which are in multi-tenant buildings), anti-choicers have set up shop down the hall from our offices and will actively lie to patients to get them to not go to their appointments. Oh, are you here for an ultrasound, sweetie? Come right this way...
This is not even a tenth of what Dr. Tiller had to deal with when he was alive, but our offices do not go as far into the gestational period as he did (most of ours stop at around 14-16 weeks, although some go to 24.6 weeks). But, that in itself doesn't diminish the difficulty we have with staying open and providing services.
I know that Dr. Tiller's death and the subsequent asshatted reactions from meandering fuckheads have filled me with such rage, my hands start to shake. I've seen the women coming into our offices with the difficulty of the choice they have made written all over their faces. I've listened to them when they wanted to tell someone, anyone about why they were doing what they were doing. About why they couldn't carry this pregnancy. The stories I have heard run the gamut from horrific tales to make your blood run cold involving abuse, rape, and molestation to just-the-facts-ma'am types who purely just can not or do not want another child right now or any child at all. They are all valid, regardless.
Providers are dwindling, all across the United States. Every year, there are less of us. And not because there's less of a need. Rarely, it's because patient numbers don't support the continued operation of a location's provider; in other places- like Mississipi or Kentucky or Western Pennsylvania, they are simply forced out. Two of our own locations have not seen patients in the past year because we can't retain doctors there. The last one we had in that area left our practice because his wife had been ostracized by her social group and they had been receiving harassing phone calls and mail. We constantly put effort into recruiting, but there is not much we can do.
Women, all across the country, are finding themselves with no where to turn when the options of you're adult enough to fuck, so you're mature enough to keep the baby and just adopt it out! are unacceptable or impossible. Dr. Tiller's murder robbed them of yet another one, one that was so incredibly necessary.
I keep telling myself that I'm going to start looking for another job. The pay is low, the stress is high, the employee benefits are expensive, and anyone who has ever worked for a doctor can attest to the fact that they can be more than a bit difficult to deal with. I keep saying that I'm going to look for a quiet job, a normal job. A job that doesn't require fifty hours a week. A job that doesn't come home with me every single goddamn day or cause me to blow up in long-winded rant. A job that doesn't cause me to look over my shoulder when I'm walking to my car or wonder who the weirdo is wandering around our parking lot and if they have a gun.
And every time I start to seriously consider trying to leave, it happens about three times a year or so, something happens to remind me why I continue putting up with all of this.
The last time, it was a patient who asked to hold my hand while I waited outside with her for her ride home. Her boyfriend had dropped her off for her appointment earlier and didn't want to stick around because he had "more important shit to do than listen to [her] cry for three hours". He refuses to wear condoms and won't allow her to take the pill because it makes her "bitchy". I sat on the bench out front with her and held her hand. She cried the entire time and kept asking me if she was going to hell.
This time, it was the senseless killing of someone I liked, admired, and looked up to. Devestating, but a much needed kick in the ass all the same.
I don't think this was quite what you were looking for in this post and I doubt anyone is even reading the thread at this point so late in the game (I actually hope not because 2:45 in the morning writing is not my friend). But, it is what it is. It's my story, my knowledge, and my condemnation.
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Date: 2009-08-17 04:43 pm (UTC)