Excerpt: 'Ask Dr. Marie,' by Marie Savard
Sept. 29, 2010— -- ABC News medical contributor Dr. Marie Savard tackles the most intimate questions women have about the female reproductive system in her new book, "Ask Dr. Marie: Straight Talk and Reassuring Answers to Your Most Private Questions." In a tone a best friend or sister might take, Savard explains what's normal and what women should do when they believe they have problems.
Savard tackles issues according to life stages, moving from menstruation to menopause and beyond. She also describes how to get the health care you need and ways to make the most of the little time you have during a doctor's appointment.
Read an excerpt of the book below, and head to the "GMA" Library for more good reads.
The Doctor Will See You Now
Let's imagine for a moment that my office door is open. Come on in. We'll close the door so we can have some privacy. You're free to take all the time you need to educate me about yourself, share your concerns and questions, and learn from my knowledge and experience about women's health. Even more important, I want to give you information that will make you marvel at the miracle of your woman's body and inspire you to become your own primary caretaker for every aspect of your health, including prevention, medical records, lifestyle, and decisions about treatment options. After all, who cares more about your health than you do?
Before we begin our ideal office visit, I'm going to take off my white coat and come around from behind my desk to sit in the chair right next to you. I'm a doctor, but I'm also a woman. I want to connect with you as a person who has the same awe-inspiring but sometimes troublesome body parts that you do. I've been in the stirrups for gynecological exams, and I've given those same exams. I've lived the female life cycle of fertility from puberty through pregnancy, childbirth (a firstborn son, followed in short order by twin sons!), breastfeeding, menopause, and life after menopause. Not only that, but I've had my share of problems "down there" as well.
Yet in spite of the fact that I'm a doctor married to a doctor, at times I've been as guilty as the next woman of suffering in silence either because my complaints didn't seem important enough to mention—or because they seemed, well, unmentionable. I've gotten over that as you'll find out when I come forward with my problems in some of the chapters of this book. The point is, though, that even I kept these "female troubles" to myself for decades. I have long told each of my patients that whatever questions she has, she is not alone. Yet I had a blind spot when it came to myself. Believe me, opening up has been liberating. I'll also admit that when I was a young woman, I used to be influenced by the old patriarchal "yes, doctor" model of the physician as an all-knowing authority figure whose wisdom was not to be questioned. That era has long since passed and I've followed my own advice about taking charge of one's health and establishing a doctor-patient relationship based on mutual respect and clear communication. Yet I have become well aware that this is not always easy to put into practice, given the constraints of the health-care system in the United States today. For obvious reasons, office managers and group practice administrators are not pleased with physicians who spend as long with each patient as she truly deserves. (Nor are many physicians themselves, who worry they can't cover their expenses if they see too few patients.)
Consequently, the ideal picture I painted about our long and in-depth consultation in my office would be all but impossible to achieve in reality. That was my impetus for writing this book for you, as an alternative. The idea first came to me back when I was one of four physicians in a group practice with "panels" of thousands of patients. If you had been one of my patients, your visits with me in my office would have been limited to a mere fifteen minutes, which translates to about seven minutes of face time with the doctor, unless you had been scheduled for your annual full physical exam. Even then, we would have had a scant thirty minutes together to cover not only medical issues but everything else you might have liked to confide to me.
