Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
May
24
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…We Can Always Chop Him Out.”
“Don’t worry, if your labor isn’t progressing, we can always chop him out.” – OB’s reply to mother’s question on whether an ultrasound scan could show whether baby’s head was likely to be too large for her birth canal.
There are 24 comments to this post.
First thing that came to mind is that Food Network game show, Chopped.
*sends the good doctor out into the forest with a flannel shirt and a blue ox*
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Umm Abdullah Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 5:44 am (Quote)
quote: *sends the good doctor out into the forest with a flannel shirt and a blue ox*
—
she’d probably be better off that way… sheesh!
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Dear Doctor:
You’re. Not. Funny.
Love,
Mom
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Cmat Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 6:34 am (Quote)
My thoughts exactly. If they were attempting humor they failed miserably. Mom is obviously a little worried, now would be the time for some compassion and I don’t think it would hurt for you to ease her fears with something other than a c-section.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
May 24, 2010 @ 7:38 am (Quote)
Are you sh*tting us? Somebody actually SAID that?
That was so awful I couldn’t stop laughing. I’m still laughing. I’m hoping my hysterical laughter doesn’t trigger preterm labour. I’m pretty sure my Braxton-Hicks are getting harder because of this. I’d be peeing in my preggie pants, too, but I do lots of Kegels, so I’m good on that front at least.
CHOP?
Hoo boy.
Lizzie Borden, paging Dr Lizzie Borden…
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Heather (qtberryhead) Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 3:36 pm (Quote)
Your first line was exactly what came out of my mouth when I read this.
“Paging Dr. Lizzie Borden” is priceless.
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Sarah G. had this to say,
May 24, 2010 @ 8:25 am (Quote)
Unbelievable! It’s nice to know that, when it comes right down to it, mom is just a piece of meat to hack apart
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Jane Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 9:00 am (Quote)
Not to mention that if you “chop something out” it’s probably not emerging in one piece, so he’s joking around using a term that implies death and dismemberment to at the very least the baby and possibly the mom too.
If the OP shows up to claim this gem, I’d like to know whether the OB laughed after he said this. It’s seriously unfreakingfunny.
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The Deranged Housewife had this to say,
May 24, 2010 @ 9:06 am (Quote)
Another OB who thinks he has a lot of wit and is sooo funny. Please. Considering the violent ways babies were historically delivered when a mother *truly,* desperately need a cesarean before the surgery was perfected, I don’t really find this all that hilarious.
OP – were you able to deliver vaginally?
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 1:01 pm (Quote)
I did, but not for the comment itself. What I found funny was the train-wreck, “I can’t believe he actually SAID that” quality of the comment.
I think that’s the sort of thing that Steve Martin used to make a trademark of his routine in his earlier days – playing a jerk who made you cringe just watching him, because every time he opened his mouth, it just kept getting worse and worse…
In short, the comment isn’t funny, but the fact that the doctor doesn’t realize what an ass he’s making of himself is.
I’m sure I would have burst out laughing in the examining room, but if he’d looked at all pleased and self congratulatory, I’d have felt obliged to let him know that I was laughing AT him, not WITH him.
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Birth Unplugged had this to say,
May 24, 2010 @ 11:35 am (Quote)
that’s…disturbing, doc.
this woman obviously had concerns, and you just dismissed them with a tasteless joke–*so* not helpful. We need to have our concerns acknowledged and addressed (something like “I understand why you would be worried about that, since so many women these days are having cesareans, but most women’s bodies only grow babies that can fit, and I will do my best to help you have a vaginal birth”)
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I’m thinking of my husband’s radial arm (chop)saw. No thanks! So much worse than being carved open like a thanksgiving turkey (my description of my c-sections.) CHOP is such a bad choice of words, but thanks for the insight into how your brain works. The warmth and respect just flow right through! Just can’t wait for the pretend labor thing to be over so you can get in and get out and go home while I recover for the next 6 weeks while taking on this new roll of mommy.
Correct response might be perhaps we need to get you into a swat or on all fours.
Dear OB,
There are several options between supine and helpless and the OR. Perhaps if you intend to stay in this profession you need to learn some of them!
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Assuming this OB is a male, I can think of other things I’d chop he’d said this to me…
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:36 am (Quote)
Oh, cool. Then he’d get a Darwin award, and the circumstances of his removing himself from the gene pool via his own stupidity would be written up for all the world to see.
Works for me.
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Add Your Comment.
You should have asked if he was a lumberjack or a Dr. and that if he wanted to go chop someone up he is in the wrong practice. Go be a pathologist, a surgeon, anything but an OB. We’re not aggressively cutting out cancer she is delivering a baby damn it!
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GranolaRN Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 4:58 pm GranolaRN(Quote)
an obstetrician IS a surgeon.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 9:07 am Sarah Dorrance-Minch(Quote)
And primarily a surgeon, at that. Most of an obstetrician’s training consists of learning surgical interventions for various crises. This is good if there is a true emergency, because in an emergency, you want the highly trained specialist, but very awkward in a normal, healthy birth, because OBs aren’t trained to “manage” those, except as an afterthought – looking back and seeing the birth as having been healthy and normal after all.
Birthing in a hospital, with an OB as your primary care provider, is kind of like choosing to birth in the emergency room.
Given that this particular surgeon is fond of “hacking,” if you say he’d make a better “surgeon,” he might be better suited for real ER work, say, taking care of amputated limbs. I think he’d better avoid brain surgery, though.
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Serene Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:46 am Serene(Quote)
….no, not everywhere. Obstetrician does not always equal surgeon. In fact in many countries it requires an extra post-graduate course to be surgically qualified.
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