The subject line of the email sending me this article read “omg omg omg omg omg.” How else would one react to the following:  an Australian obstetrician/gynecologist, who performed countless surgeries on countless women over the course of his career, has been found to have botched many many surgeries — and to perhaps maliciously alter many more. In one case, a woman went into the hospital to have a small lesion on her labia removed. As she slipped into unconsciousness (from the anesthesia), he leaned over and whispered to her, “I’m going to take your clitoris too.” Sure enough, she woke up to the searing pain of genital mutilation. Because of her trauma and embarrassment, the woman didn’t speak up for two whole years. Because no one was checking credentials, neither this woman nor the countless others who visited Dr. Graeme Reeves, knew that he had been barred from practicing obstetrics in 1997 because he had refused to treat a woman’s puerperal fever. The woman later died. The medical board found that the doctor had “impaired mental capacity”. But he didn’t stop practicing, and he even lied his way into a job in 2002–the position in which he later mutilated Carolyn, the woman whose story is related above. There’s more:  

 Another woman went in for surgery on an ovarian lesion, and ended up with both ovaries, both Fallopian tubes removed; and a kidney gone, also, after complications ensued.

Another woman reports that Reeves failed to use gloves when performing a gynaecological examination, and used an “intimate, sexual” touch, as well as touching her breasts unexpectedly.

Another woman says that Reeves spent over an hour painfully attempting to insert an IUD after she had an abnormal Pap smear, saying “I haven’t got this right”. He performed no cervical biopsy, and she was later found to be riddled with cancer throughout her pelvis. 

So how did Dr. Reeves get this far? Why did more women not speak up?  And why, for the love of all that is holy, is Dr. Reeves’ medical malpractice insurance not covering care for Carolyn’s injuries? Like Hoyden (linked above), I’m going to say that this is a product of patriarchy at work. Hoyden writes:

This isn’t a borderline case, a known but unfortunate side effect, a medical slip: this is a seriously impaired doctor practising for many months in completely inappropriate ways, mutilating, and raping patients - and nobody around him, not his colleagues, not nurses or other staff, were able to stop him. Did they convince themselves that it “wasn’t that serious, really”? Did they convince themselves it was none of their business? Did they fear personal repercussions should they blow the whistle? Why did nobody so much as check his registration when he was employed? 

No one spoke up because women are told to feel shame about their bodies, and are made to feel like deviants for talking or thinking about their sexual and reproductive health. Carolyn waited two years (two years!) before speaking up about what Dr. Reeves did to her. And while I can’t for the life of me begin to explain why Reeves did this, I can’t help but think that it’s in some way connected to some sort of patriarchy-fueled desire to mark/own/control women’s bodies.What’s more, our society (this took place in Australia but is reflective of trends worldwide) continues to tsk-tsk men like this but not really to punish them. Dr. Reeves is not practicing any more, true, but he’s not in jail. Seems to me he’s much more dangerous than the average non-violent drug offender who finds him or her-self serving a long prison term, a victim of the US’s overly harsh drug laws. So now, 11 years after the first complaint was lodged about Reeves, he’s finally being held back from raping and injuring any more women (even if not by jail cell bars). But 11 years!? Makes me wonder if we’ve made much headway tackling subconscious misogyny and antipathy toward women’s sexual lives. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 3:41 pm and is filed under human rights, feminisms, international, law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.