Yep. Does “because we’ve always done it that way” count? 
We’re not ready for that kind of self-empowerment in health care. Seriously. We still think “preventative medicine” means screenings and tests, not eating better and exercising and quitting smoking. We want it to be that going to the doctor once a year means he’ll find anything wrong sooner, and that will make everything turn out just fine.
My doctor has gone to every three year paps and will refill birth control pills yearly. You do need the pap at three years though.
That’s awesome. I hope it spreads!
Here’s an article that outlines some of the research un-supporting annual PAPs, as well as suggesting some of the reasons why they are still so widely routine. (Hint: money is not uninvolved.) Holding Birth Control Hostage – Mother Jones
ETA: Here, for example, is one doctor’s form to his Medicare patients, telling them that while Medicare will pay for a PAP every 2 years (Medicare being post-menopausal women), he still recommends one every year and expects his patients to pay out of pocket the years Medicare won’t cover it.
Yeah, as far as I can tell they just hold the birth control pills hostage because, um, they both involve vaginas or something, so why not?
Okay, yeah, I know, birth control pills may raise the risk of cervical cancer a bit, but they also may raise the risk of breast cancer and they don’t refuse to give you birth control pills if you don’t have mammograms. Besides, you have to have a pap smear when you first get the pill, before your risk of cervical cancer would even have started. It’s bullshit, but I don’t know if it’s regular bullshit or sexist bullshit. Is there anything like this for men?
Well, at least now I can trigger a bloodless abortion by telling my daughter not to wear that to the party and to be home by 11.
We discussed this is an earlier thread. Since the ovum is a human individual already, failure to provide for its fertilization is manslaughter. What was once called “rape” now becomes an act of crime prevention.
This only happens to you when you go to the OBGYN? Because it happens to me any time I go to the doctor for absolutely anything. Oh, you have bronchitis and can’t stop coughing and wheezing? Yeah, when was your last period again? Oh, strep throat? Yeah, but when did you last bleed from your hoo ha?
FWIW, my doctors have always given me a breast exam when I was forced to get a pap for birth control. Not a mammogram or anything, but the whole naked on the table, arm over your head, awkward conversation breast exam.
Yeah, me too. I hate that. And if I was old enough I’m sure they’d *recommend *a mammogram, but it wouldn’t be “fuck you, if you don’t want to have a mammogram then I guess you’re just going to have to get pregnant.”
And yes, they ALWAYS ask when my last period was, no matter what. Of course, they also always do weight, blood pressure, and heart rate, and those are fine to do just for fun I guess because they’re not painful, invasive, costly, etc. like a pap smear.
I don’t work OB, but if my patients were not postmenopausal, I’d ask them their last menstrual period. Even if I’m not particularly interested in the Genitourinary system at the moment, her response may give me valuable information about how she feels about health care, her body, her cycles, me asking intimate questions…
Is she an FAMer who can tell me her LMP and the hour she ovulated and she’s got 73 months of tracked cycles she can show me right now? Does she not know when it was because she’s so busy with 4 kids and the sole breadwinner in the household that she can’t give a thought to herself right now? Is “medical stuff” too icky or uncomfortable for her to talk about? I’d take that kind of information into account when trying to elicit useful answers in the rest of our interview, and for creating realistic care plans the patient might actually agree to.
Does she, maybe, not menstruate? Well, then I’d like to know the underlying condition causing that - hysterectomy? Hyperthyroid? Anorexia nervosa? Some rare endocrine disorder? Something that could, maybe, be useful information to have even if you’re not there for your vagina’s sake.
But, uh, yeah…probably still not particularly relevant for diagnosing bronchitis.
Do some pregnant women experience false periods after conception?