h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Glad to hear it Z - you get the Agapanthus seal of good 'down there' manners.

Shame that the square of paper is still a mystery though. I don't suppose you could ask the nurse next time you meet her?

If that was a long-haul trucker he probably has a huge cab the size of a tiny apartment. If he turns off the engine, he won't be able to run the AC, the fridge and the tv.

dave - the waiting time to get a clinic appointment is offically five weeks at the moment though they can squeeze people in if they are begging. You can also get the same services from your GP, so I think most women who have symptoms are going there.

There's been a lot of media coverage of an STI epidemic recently and as a result a lot of people are apparently encouraged to get a check up if they are asymptomatic, (which is great) but funding hasn't followed increased demand.

STI services don't have any opitions to raise money apart from the government, - no one is going to hold a jumble sale in aid of the clap clinic!

Agapanthus, - thanks, but any suggestion of what would be a polite line to put a women at her ease before I prod with a speculum?

I asked the nurse about the square of paper thing afterwards, and she said 'to preserve her dignity!' and gave me a 'you wouldn't understand you're a man' look.

[MTG]

DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS INTERESTED IN GYNAECOLOGY.

Preserve dignity? Really? A complete stranger and another complete stranger are both staring at my - err - and one of them is about to prod me with something cold (unless they are Z of course) and my dignity is preserved by sparing me the sight of my own body? Tell the nurse what I said, I'd LOVE to hear what she thinks of that.

Reassuring lines to say to a recumbant and vulnerable woman? Don't try to say anything reassuring. She'll be thinking 'and you know what you're talking about how exactly?' The doctor I felt most relaxed with asked me if I understood the procedure, showed me how the speculum worked, warmed the speculum under the hot tap, asked me to tell him the second anything bothered me and then got on with it quickly and quietly and didn't ask stupid questions about my holiday plans. Then the nurse handed me a wad of tissues and pulled the screen across so I could reclothe in peace. The worst doctor came at me with stone-cold implements, told me to relax, asked me if I was going abroad this year while peering intently down there, [WARNING! TOO MUCH INFORMATION COMING UP] scraped so hard with the stick thing I bled, didn't give me any tissues, and he was the one whose colleague poked his head round the door to ask about another patient and he TURNED ROUND AND ANSWERED HIM with me all sans nothing on akimbo and speculatable. I burst into tears and the nurse hastily yanked the screen round to hide me and the silly a**e asked her what she was doing. I will say this was in Italy and not under the rule of out own dear NHS, where they do regard women as dairy cows sometimes.

I think what you did say, Z, acknowledging this was embarrassing and giving her the chance to back out, was good and did more for dignity than any amount of tissue paper.

*borrows both of d'Elaphant's dogs and tiptoes out to catch the to her 5k race*

Cajun Red Bean Burgers (from 'The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook' by Robin Robertson)

Chilling the burgers before cooking helps to firm them up.

Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons olive oil, plus more as needed
1/2 cup minced onions
1/4 cup minced celery
1 large garlic clove, finely minced
1 1/2 cups cooked dark red kidney beans or one 15 ounce can, drained and rinsed
3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans\1 teaspoon tomato paste
Dash of Tabasco sauce
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves or 1/4 teaspoon dried
1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
3/4 cup dry bread crumbs
6 burger rolls, toasted

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and celery, cover, and cook, stiring a few times, until sofened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

2. Transfer to a food processor and add the kidney beans, pecans, tomato paste, Tabasco, thyme, paprika, salt, cayenne, and 1/2 cup of the bread crumbs. Process until well combined, leaving some texture. Turn out into a bowl and shape into six burgers.

3. Coat the burgers lightly and evenly with the remaining 1/4 cup of bread crumbs. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes.

4. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. In batches, add the burgers to the skillet and brown, turning once, on both sides, about 5 miunutes per side, adding more oil to the pan as necessary. Place on toasted burger rolls and serve.

This is a great cookbook. And really popular. It circulates a lot. It also has recipes for Sunshine Burgers made with chickpeas, tofu and sunflower seeds, and Lentil Walnut Burgers made with lentils, walnuts and brown rice.

Good luck in the race Amy

Yeah, go for it Amy!

From ants to crabs - the aforegoing discussion about STDs reminded me of a charming tale concerning Germaine Greer and Frank Zappa. The Moderators and libel lawyers needn't get excited, because Germaine told the story herself after Frank died, to illustrate what a real gentleman he was. You can read it here: http://catalog.com/mrm/zappa/html/greer.html .

So dave, how many non-monogomous relationships? LOL Had to ask, you left it too open not to, I don't actually want an answer.

*groan*

I realized that after it was already in

None actually.

Agapanthus - you're spot on there. A copy of your posting should be given to every med student on the planet - male and female.

I've never had high blood pressure in my life, in fact it's always been slightly on the low side - until the time I was left sitting knickerless without anything to cover my dignity, for 25 minutes on a small square of paper on an examining couch, waiting for the doctor to come and do the glove-puppety stuff. During this time people kept sticking their heads around the door to ask the nurse questions.
No wonder my BP was up! Harrumph!

Darn, I'm too late to wish Amy

For examinations down below I do my best to think of something else during the procedure. Not easy, but on the whole I can almost relax. I love your phrase, Teuchter: glove-puppety thing!

I always get raised BP at the surgery, last time I was loaned a mini sphygmomanometer so that I could check it over 24 hours. Apart from being alarmingly high after a trip to the supermarket, it was reassuringly low at home.

I phoned ntl today to ask for an upgrade to a 1meg broadband connectionas the 600k was disconnecting every 30 mins or so. Now it's about every hour , I suspect the modem is dodgey.

Thanks Agapanthus, this is really useful actually. I would have thought that making conversation about something else would be relaxing! Which was silly of me.

Thanks Teuchter as well, this is really useful, it's dead easy to get stuck in a rut doing this things and it's easier not to get the bad habits.

Plastic speculums have been in use for at least two years metal ones aren't available any more. Something to do with serlisation being more difficult. I think I'll go for pointing out that the speculum is plastic and not cold as an introductory line and offering reassurance.

I think it's down to the indivdual doctor rather than the system how women get treated. I've seen some middle aged male ones who are fantastic at making women feel comfortable, and some female ones who think as they are used to being examined then the young girls who are embarrassed are 'just being silly'.

I do think that far from being a negative thing the fact that medicine is going to become a female dominated proffession will mean that women get far better treatment.

For instance when a gyneacologist told us in a lecture that it didn't hurt to have a cervical biopsy a student intrupted (loudly) with 'yes it does, I felt like I was sitting on a bleeding hairbrush for a week!' It will mean that there's always a female doctor on hand for people who aren't comfortable with a male one.

I've just looked at the marking scheudle for the Obs and Gyne exam and on the station where we have to take a smear (from a model) we get marks for 'using drapes to preserve a patients dignity'. Hummmmmm.

Good luck in the race Amy

*waves shamrocks at Amy*

Oh, am I having a day! And I had hoped the aggro was out of the way after that encounter with the lorry driver at 5 am.

I drove over to the Hurd Gallery to do some photography for the web, then carried on to the Mighty Wal-Mart, and, while I was driving, a small rock spurted up from under the wheels of a lorry thundering in the other direction and whacked my windscreen, causing a star fracture right in the middle of my field of vision and nearly causing me to die of fright.

I continued on to the Mighty Wal-Mart (BP well up) and did lots of shopping only to discover in the checkout line that my wallet was at home, next to the computer, when I had to enter credit info to set up my eBay item. Fortunately my bank has a branch inside the Mighty Wal-Mart, and even more firtunately they know me, so I was able to get some cash on the strength of my SSN.

It's clouding up; we're going to have more rain this afternoon.

Thanks for all the best wishes . Sadly, I didn't finish the race . The 5k is essentially three laps of a public park and on the first lap I was bringing up the rear of the field as usual when a group of lads decided to get mouthy. I made a joke of it and continued on my way but on the second lap they'd decided to try to stop the slower runners. They wouldn't let me pass at all until some male runners came up behind me to lap me and the lads couldn't stop all of us - and some of the men were quite strong-looking - so I escaped but I couldn't face going round for a third time when I'd have been all by myself and very tired.

I feel annoyed with myself for not finishing and for allowing myself to be intimidated.

Perhaps I'll have better luck in the third and final race of the series in four weeks time.

for Amy. I think you should let the race organisers know that you had such an unpleasant time. Where other runners wearing numbers? If so do you remember any of them held up by the yobs? Have another

An observation from my days and I did a lot of gynae, is that so much depends on whether the (male or female) actually likes women. You'd be surprised at the number of gynaecologists who don't actually ~like~ women, but true.

Oh Amy, that's awful! I would have been intimidated as well. And the race organisers need to know that this happened, so that they can pass out guns. Tranquilizer dart guns, of course.

I'm going to email the race organiser later in the week - when I've calmed down a bit.

Hmmmphh! I bet they were feeling intimated by you being able to run the race while they were not. I wish I - or Kristina, rather - would have been there!

Well done for completing part of the race nevertheless, Amy!