Tag: surgery

After Surgery in Germany, I Wanted Vicodin, Not Herbal Tea – The New York Times

I recently had a hysterectomy here in Munich, where we moved from California four years ago for my husband’s job. Even though his job ended a year ago, we decided to stay while he tries to start a business. Thanks to the German health care system, our insurance remained in force. This, however, is not a story about the benefits of universal health care.

Thanks to modern medicine, my hysterectomy was performed laparoscopically, without an overnight hospital stay. My only concern about this early release was pain management. The fibroids that necessitated the surgery were particularly large and painful, and the procedure would be more complicated.

I brought up the subject of painkillers with my gynecologist weeks before my surgery. She said that I would be given ibuprofen. “Is that it?” I asked. “That’s what I take if I have a headache. The removal of an organ certainly deserves more.”

“That’s all you will need,” she said, with the body confidence that comes from a lifetime of skiing in crisp, Alpine air.

I decided to pursue the topic with the surgeon.

After Surgery in Germany, I Wanted Vicodin, Not Herbal Tea – The New York Times

Why More Teen Girls Are Getting Genital Plastic Surgery

By college, a third of women and 90% of men have viewed porn, which some experts say has become a main source of sex ed for millions of American teens. “A lot of girls watch porn to learn how to have sex,” Bernstein said. “What they see there influences the way things should go, and how they think things should look.”

Especially, it seems, how things should look. Between 2014 and 2015, there was an 80% increase in the number of girls 18 and younger receiving genital plastic surgery, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. The numbers shot up so quickly that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued new guidelines this monthfor doctors who perform labial and breast surgery. Among the recommendations: physicians are now encouraged to screen girls for body dysmorphic disorder, an obsession with an imagined or slight defect in appearance.

Time