Voluntary Informed Consent: Biological Sex of Clinician

Breast Screening: 
Biological Sex Female Clinician is Relevant to Female Patients


Human Resources are wrong, it is Patient Consent not clinician consent

I anticipated the above tweet by a few days but I was sufficiently anxious before a mammogram in Brighton, to feel I need to take these letters (below).  NB (Nota Bene not Non-Binary) NHS watchwords about #Consent is that it must be both #Voluntary and #Informed in order to be consent.

It was a very jolly atmosphere, on Xmas Eve, the two nurses greeted me cheerfully and said there was just a bit of paperwork. I replied "I have a little paperwork of my own." I hated putting them in this position.

Patient Consent wrt biological female clinician (copy, edit for your own use)

As they read the letters, a silence & solemnity fell upon them. The nurse about to carry out the mammogram immediately signed in the affirmative and the other said "What about cervical screening?" I had to reply "It's already happened." 

I can only imagine what was inside their heads but it seemed to me they might be realising the considerable drop in female people attending for breast screening or cervical screening if they could not be sure of the biological sex as opposed to the gender presentation of the provider of the screening. I also supposed that the one woman who asked about cervical screening was imagining that wasn't something she would find workable for herself.

Patient Consent wrt biological female clinician (copy, edit for your own use)

We proceeded in an unnatural silence. During the mammogram itself, I felt rather faint (not usdual for me) I can only assume the stress of having to confront this but otherwise I just wouldn't have coped with going at all.

The sign on the door as I arrived was t least a bit of encouragement.

You may not be able  to see sign on LH door: "Gentlemen please wait outside."

(below text to copy &/adapt for your own use)

To hand in for your Patient Records

24 Dec 2018

For the Avoidance of Doubt: Patient Consent for Biological Female Clinician

I give my consent as a patient for the procedure(s) necessary for a mammogram, on the basis that those involved in providing this procedure are biological females, ‘as determined close to conception and as observed at birth by a medical professional’ [The Lancet 8 Dec 2018] and communicated by the NHS to the Registrar as a legal fact at birth.

For the avoidance of any doubt this consent is not given with respect to clinicians who are biological males. Any such biologically male clinician should be obtained on a case-by-case basis. Should consent not be sought by a biological male, such consent would not have been either voluntary or informed and would constitute no kind of consent – neither ethical nor legal and may constitute criminal assault.

Yours sincerely

Clare B Dimyon MBE –

 For services to the human rights of ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender’ people of central & Eastern Europe

For signing by the Clinician responsible for care

24 Dec 2018

To Whom It May Concern & For the Avoidance of Doubt

The clinician(s) involved in the provision of a mammogram on the patient named above is/are biological female(s) ‘as determined close to conception and as observed at birth by a medical professional’ [The Lancet 8 Dec 2018] and communicated by the NHS to the Registrar as a legal fact at birth as found on their original birth certificate (issued within 6 weeks of birth).

This patient has consented to clinicians who are biologically female but no consent has been given to clinicians who are biological males, for whom patient consent should be sought on a case-by-case basis on each and every separate occasion with a wait time provided for a female clinician to become available.

Should consent not be sought by a biological male, such consent would not have been either voluntary or informed and would constitute no kind of consent – neither ethical nor legal and may constitute criminal assault.

Signature

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