Member-only story
Why What Your Doctor Doesn’t Ask Actually Matters More
Most people are relieved when they aren’t asked many questions on an intake form or by their doctor.
I’m not one of them.
Yes, I hate questions about goiters and gas like you do. Topics that seem irrelevant or too personal are a turn-off for everyone. Similarly, questions that feel like a waste of time (“how many glasses of alcohol do you drink in a setting?” Um, three? Scratch that. Let’s say two.) are simple to fudge. It’s easy to add extra time on the elliptical or omit those several months in our 20’s when we smoked with a new partner. We often fill out intake paperwork without much thought. Does our embellishing or omission matter? It doesn’t seem to. But what does matter is what we are not being asked.
What every healthcare professional — from doc to dentist- should ask about is sexual abuse.Talk about a personal question! I get it but hear me out.
About 33% of women and almost 16% of men are survivors of some form of contact sexual violence. That’s abuse involving touch only. Forcing someone to watch pornography, peeping on someone and unwanted sexting- none of that counts. But if everyone exposed to any form of sexual violence — from catcalls to rape — counted as a survivor, numbers would be higher than 1 in 3 and almost 1 in 6.
