You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Evidence Based Medicine’ tag.
If you would like to learn more about Therapy First, to support our work, or to find a therapist for you or your child, please reach out: www.therapyfirst.org. Go to their website and check them out – they are mental health resource that puts therapy instead of the farce that is gender affirming care in the spotlight.
I have been a practicing psychologist for over two decades and this is, by far, the most difficult work I have ever engaged in. I can understand why many therapists do not feel equipped to work with young people who are convinced that the only way for them to live in their bodies is to transition socially and medically.
It is challenging to sustain a meaningful connection with someone who is stuck in a black/white mindset and who is exquisitely attuned to whether you participate in the culture and language of social justice and gender affirmation.
Depending on how committed an individual is to a transgender identity, he or she may not tolerate the slightest indication that the therapist questions or is agnostic with regard to the existence of “true trans”. They may see you as a good, kind, caring person for months and then, if in a moment of crisis, they don’t perceive you to be fully aligned with their belief system, they will reject you without hesitation.
At the same time, frightened and exhausted parents are putting their faith in you to loosen the vice-like grip that trans identification has on their child and, by extension, on every member of the family. Having been such a parent myself I feel enormous empathy.
I also know that most of the work has to happen at home, in the family. I am more than willing to offer guidance and support, and even clear instructions in real time on what to do and say when escalations happen.
When things go wrong, what rage parents and children cannot safely direct at each other will get directed at me. As a process-oriented clinician that’s what I sign up for.
In truth, I don’t possess skills or knowledge that any well-trained and experienced mental health practitioner doesn’t have or isn’t capable of acquiring. Therapy is still just therapy.
What’s different is the real damage that medicalized transition can do to young people who are in emotional pain and in need of thoughtful care and attention. What’s also different is the urgency with which families approach us hoping we might hold the key to pulling their children out of harm’s way. There’s so much on the line.
Clinicians who work with trans-identifying teens and young adults feel a pressure that we do not experience when faced with other issues that are no less serious than gender dysphoria. Moreover, we are doing this work in a professional and political climate that is hostile to the very ethical principle that we vow to live and work by, to first and foremost do no harm.
The good news is that since its establishment three years ago Therapy First (formerly GETA) has grown from a small handful of clinicians to now almost 400 strong. We are here for each other so that we can be there for you and your family. While the treatment of gender dysphoria has become weaponized, our aim is to move the focus away from the political and back to the clinic, back to the work we are confident and passionate about.
If you would like to learn more about Therapy First, to support our work, or to find a therapist for you or your child, please reach out: www.therapyfirst.org.
So here is thought, let’s not do medical practices that are unreliable and unable to justify the risks and uncertainties experienced by the patients (children).
“Systematic reviews represent the highest level of evidence analysis in evidence based medicine. The three European countries that did these reviews independently came to the same conclusion: Due to their severe methodological limitations, studies cited in support of hormonal interventions for adolescents are of “very low” certainty.
For health authorities in these countries, this meant that the studies were too unreliable to justify the risks and uncertainties of “gender affirming care.” Sweden, Finland, and England have since placed severe restrictions on access to hormones. Although these countries now allow hormones in a very carefully selected cohort of patients who fulfill the criteria of the Dutch protocol, they do so against the findings of their own systematic reviews.
That is because the systematic reviews found the Dutch study, on which the Dutch protocol is based, also provides “very low” certainty evidence. Finland’s Council for Choices in Healthcare recognizes medical transition for minors as “an experimental practice.”
The medical establishment in Ireland is being led away from evidence based medicine by the gender ideologues. Nothing good can come of it.
“This week another expert in his field offered a considered opinion and he has been studiously ignored. At various times in recent years, his expertise has attracted personal abuse. His credentials are unimpeachable but the problem is he is bearing inconvenient truths at a time when such truths are considered to be more trouble than they’re worth.
Professor Donal O’Shea is well known for his media contributions on obesity. He is the HSE’s national clinical lead on obesity but he also works as an endocrinologist in the National Gender Service within the executive. He has worked for over twenty-five years within the area of gender dysphoria. Last weekend he told the that he and his colleague, psychiatrist Paul Moran, are alarmed that the HSE is trying to set up an “activist led” gender service which will be “dangerous for patients”. The HSE is currently advertising for a clinical lead in the National Gender Service but bizarrely prior experience is not a prerequisite.”
Better to stop it before it takes root my Irish friends. The damage it has done to children here in Canada is an ongoing tragedy.
What the hell is this? Am I living in the US or something?
This story broke on on CBC radio June 27th, and listening to what happened I filled this news tid-bit safely under the “smart people doing stupid things” category. The tale of this doctor’s mixed up medical ethos stuck in my brain though and managed to annoy me enough inspire a blog post on the topic.
“A Calgary doctor is being criticized by patients for refusing to prescribe birth control at a walk-in clinic. When Dr. Chantal Barry is on shift a sign at the WestGlen Medical Centre informs patients that the doctor on duty does not prescribe birth control pills.”
Whut? Naw, lets append that to, “What the ever living frak is Dr. Chantal Barry thinking/smoking?”
“The Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons has a policy that states doctors are not required to provide care that violates their moral or religious beliefs. However, physicians are expected to refer patients for care in a timely manner.”
Okay, a stupid policy if I ever heard one, but at least it has the proviso that patients that you happen to neglect because of your particular voodoo should be referred to another doctor that is less reality challenged then yourself. In this situation though, being a clinic with only one doctor on duty per shift, that particular option doesn’t exist.
Pam Krause, head of the Calgary Sexual Health Centre, said she is shocked to hear about a doctor at a walk-in clinic refusing routine medical care.
“Easy access to birth control works,” she said. “It prevents pregnancy and it prevents other social problems down the road, and it should be easily accessible in a city like Calgary from a family physician.”
The solution, Dear Doctor Barry , is keep your ‘morality’ hung discreetly under that MD in evidence based fucking medicine and do your damn job.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…