A Doc's Life is a underground Medical Blog about some poor Singapore doctors. They are sibei sian and very buay song. Best practices not observed!
(Warning: Grammar is non existent in this blog. Those obsessively compulsive about good English please go no further and book an appointment to see your psychiatrist in Singapore.)

Friday, August 12, 2005

Until Months Later


When we first become doctors, we have to declare whether we are objectors. This has certain implications. If we choose to be objectors, we say that we are against abortions and we would not do anything to “facilitate” the process.
When a woman who is more than 14 weeks’ pregnant, and she decides that she cannot or does not want the baby, she will need to undergo MTTP (Mid-Trimester Termination of Pregnancy). Prostaglandin tablets would be inserted into the vagina to the cervical region (cervix… not the head and neck region!). Basically, the purpose is to “induce” labour and wait for the woman to have a “miscarriage”. The woman would suffer contraction pains and eventually, the foetus would be “aborted” through the vagina. Just like giving birth.
At 14 weeks plus, the foetus looks like a small baby. I am an objector. I did not participate in the insertion of the prostaglandin tablets. But when the baby got aborted, my job would require me to take photos of the abortus, to fill in some forms etc. There were times that I had to take samples from the abortus. I had to use a pair of scissors or scalpel to remove part of the body. And there were times that the abortus was still moving.
The tiny chest wall moved up and down. Those lungs were never meant to breathe air until months later. The skin was never meant to be exposed to room temperature until months later. The foetus was supposed to live in darkness until months later. Instead of being swaddled in a nice cuddly blanket and placed in a cot, this foetus was lying on a “green surgical cloth” placed in a kidney dish. Instead of happy parents taking pictures of the newborn, welcoming him/her into the world, this foetus had a complete stranger taking pictures of him/her to be filed in some folder somewhere.
Very soon, the foetus’ movement would stop. It was expected to stop. But those moments seemed like eternity. Oddly enough, I was never paged to do something else during those moments, no matter how busy the call was before and after. It was awkward, being in the cold treatment room with the dying/dead foetus. The foetus could make no sound. But I would like to think that if the laws of the universe & of physics could change, I would hear weeping.
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9 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:31 AM

    I am surprised that being an objector you still have to perform work on the aborted foetus. Does it not still make you feel that you are part of the process?

    What a thing to have to do...I would weep too.

    I had a friend who told me she's going for abortion. As they were both in love and working adults, I tried my best to advise them to keep the baby and get married. But the gal was young and she wants to pursue further education, saying that they are not financially secure.
    There was once she relented when I told her about how the baby is fully formed by then and that it is a cruel procedure and that it might affect her fertility...
    Then she suddenly backed out and dropped all communications with me n went for an abortion...
    When I finally learnt about it I felt a great sense of loss...
    That nite, while travelling back on the MRT, a bouncy happy baby was seated next to me with her mom...
    I lost control and wept and wept and wept for the lost baby...gone forever...j like tt...

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  2. There is a reason why it's called the Silent Scream.

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  3. Anonymous11:49 AM

    Your post touched a raw nerve.. and after all these years, I finally shed a tear for my little one.

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  4. hmm... after reading your post, i am now having qualms abt being a doctor. now, i am not really that sure if i can pull it thru. there are many implications for me, well, at least emtionally, if not spiritually.

    it's a struggle to think that "it's just a job" vs "being humane and feeling for it".

    i guess i have a long way to go. i hope they won't ask us to kill chickens.

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  5. In some cases, the baby has already died in-utero, meaning, while he or she is still in the womb. The mother knows that she has to "give birth" to a dead baby. In cases like this, I would help manage the case.

    Once the foetus passed out of the mother's womb, the mother is still a patient. She is still in danger of certain complications etc. And we do have a duty to our patients. Perhaps like what they say in a religious context..."condemning the sin and not the sinner"...

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  6. Anonymous6:32 PM

    Thanks for the great post and for giving us a different perspective on a very sensitive issue. Thankfully its something that most of us will never have to deal with.

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  7. I wonder how many of your readers are aware that there were 14,000 abortions in Spore last year. I was very saddened when I learned about this a couple of months ago and wrote a post in my blog on this subject. (But sorry don't know how to insert link. Addr. is: www.badnewsonthedoorstep.blogspot.com)


    “I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the point of conception. I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood and any interruption at any point constitutes a termination of human life.”

    Dr Jerome LeJune, genetics professor at University of Descartes in Paris; and discoverer of the Down’s Syndrome chromosome.

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  8. andrew: take a look at this http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/medicalinfo/abortion/fact-abortion-silent-scream.xml

    then decide if it's really a silent scream

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  9. Anonymous9:02 PM

    its so sad and m weeping now.... doesn't this apply to all forms of living beings? Like i posted earlier, how do we decide??

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