Dr Drew insults women's health problems as "garbage bag disorders"

[Gypsy]

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/29/dr_drew_doesnt_understand_your_garbage_disorder/

Dr. Drew Pinsky is a board certified internist and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at USC, but most of us know him better as radio and cable television’s most tireless ambulance chaser. Over the years, he’s doled out a variety of less than sound and/or helpful ideas. But when he speculated recently to a “Loveline” caller about his fiancée’s endometriosis, he definitively made the case against getting medical advice from flippant talk show hosts.

As Erin Gloria Ryan first noted on Jezebel, Pinsky was fielding a call from a man who was concerned about his girlfriend’s “multitude of conditions,” including endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, lactose intolerance and what he described as “no stomach lining.” The good doctor quickly interjected before the listener could even pose his question, explaining, “These are what we call sort of functional disorders. Everything you mentioned, everything you mentioned, are things that actually aren’t discernibly pathological. They’re what we call ‘garbage bag diagnoses,’ when you can’t think of anything else, you go, ‘Eh, it’s that.’ So, it then makes me question why is she so somatically preoccupied that she’s visiting doctors all the time with pains and urinary symptoms and pelvic symptoms, and then that makes me wonder, was she sexually abused growing up?”

Though the caller did acknowledge that his fiancée had in fact survived abuse, let’s take a step back here and observe that he never said the woman was “preoccupied” and “visiting doctors all the time” – on the contrary, he said she almost always “refuses” to go to doctors, even when she’s “in so much pain.” But Dr. Drew had a handy explanation, stating, “Trust me, she saw lots of doctors before you.” He then went on to explain why her early abuse was causing her problems now. “When people have unexplained pain, pelvic pain, it’s called somatoform dissociation,” he said, “and the only way her body, which was suffering during those early experiences, can tell its tale of woe is with pain. And she really needs to see a trauma specialist, not a urologist. Know what I’m saying?” This was immediately segued with Pinksy’s colleague joking that an additional way someone could have unexplained pelvic pain was by having sex with the show’s guest, Alan Thicke. Charming.

http://jezebel.com/dr-drew-insults-women-with-endometriosis-ignites-mass-1568906681

 

[minkeygirl]

I "did" like him. No more. IMO If a doc calls a symptom Garbage Bag because he doesn't have the energy to actually figure it out, then that's on the doctor, not the patient. Leave it to a psychiatrist to minimize someone's suffering and say it's all mental.

 

[Gypsy]

This is not the first time he has made these remarks. I remember quite a while back a woman with IC called in and he first asked her if she took "spinning classes" (exercise class) that could cause that sort of pain, and when she said no he immediately went into the whole "has there been any sexual abuse in your past?" song and dance.

It is insulting to people who are sick AND insulting to people who have actually survived sexual abuse. It minimizes sexual abuse to ask about it so casually and flippantly.

Oh, and Dr Drew is not even a psychiatrist, he just plays one on TV! He is certified in internal medicine and "addiction medicine specialist".

 

[minkeygirl]

He's a TV and Radio doc. He's supposed to make it interesting even if his answers are BS.

 

[Gypsy]

He's a TV and Radio doc. He's supposed to make it interesting even if his answers are BS.

Yes. And then the mindless pions repeat the BS as if it is actual fact. That is how our society gathers its news and information now a days. They can't be bothered to research a topic themselves with an open mind.

I am starting to sound like an old grumpy man. Bring me my rocking chair!

 

[Undisclosed]

These doctor celebs tend to say stuff like this on purpose because controversy gets attention. If you are boring, you don't get the ratings. If you don't get the ratings, you get cancelled.

He's a walking garbage can disorder who has likely forgotten the Hippocratic Oath because he is too busy being a celebrity.

 

[Snow Leopard]

Truly awful.