We have a new, heavily made-up face in our local medical community, that of Dr. Elizabeth Vaughn. You can check out her web site at:
In particular, I enjoy her section on “Bras and Breast Health”, where she employs the most spurious medical reasoning possible to encourage women to throw away the titslings. (A noble goal, perhaps, but a horrible path to get there.) The picture on that page is indeed worth a thousand words, though none of them are very good words.
She also introduces us to the concept of Nipple Phobia, which she clearly does not have herself, as the site is plastered with pictures of Dr. Vaughn in a wide array of bikinis and other scanty costumes. She even issues an annual charity calendar suitable for hanging in your basement, rec room, or automobile repair shop.
I am simultaneously trying to convince my residency program that we need to get Dr. Vaughn to come in to give Grand Rounds on the subject of bras and breast health, and that our program needs its own charity calendar. I have already called October.
Well the high heels part seems normal enough, but the bra thing doesn’t. I mean, I NEVER wear a bra and I think that’s okay, but I don’t know that medically it’s better or worse not to.
I can tell you that it’s definately LESS attractive to not wear a bra. Speaking as someone that’s seen a lot of topless women in their 40’s that never wore bras.
Alas, no–she’s real. She’s moving to Greensboro to open a “fee for service” practice, where she’ll charge her patients an “enrollment fee” (basically, a retainer) of $1500/year (or $2500/couple, plus $500/child), then charge for her services by the hour. I can’t imagine what the hourly fee will be.
She is moving here because she thinks the economy in Martinsville, VA, where she is, can’t support this sort of practice. And Greensboro’s can??
I suspect that she won’t bother getting privileges or admitting at the hospital, which means that we (the residents) will have to take care of her patients when they come in. I’m afraid.
The downside is that she may have to get privleges if her practice doesn’t take off the way that she is anticipating. You know how many docs take ER shifts to supplement their incomes while opening a new practice.
That sucks. Is she actually saying that high heels are healthier and that bras cause breast cancer? I thought the latter has been debunked time and time again?
There’s a lot to be said for living in a country where individual medical practitioners are prohibited from advertising (although the media-savvy ones find ways to get editorial coverage which is as good as paid advertising).
Just out of interest, why would enrolling in her “fee for service” scheme be attractive to anyone? Those who can’t already afford medical insurance won’t be able to afford her services, and those who already have medical insurance have plenty of doctors to choose from. It seems like all she’s selling is the “exclusivity” of being one of her patients.
Well, going braless may be all fine and well for small-breasted ladies like Dr. Elizabeth, but some of us happen to need the support of a bra for comfort. A set of 36B’s swinging around all day can get downright painful. And may I also point out that large, unsupported breasts don’t so much “jiggle” as “violently bounce up and down” during rigorous exercise? Ow.
It has been my experience over the last 20 years in medicine, that the conferring of the degree of MD on an individual does not serve as any sort of guarantee that said MD is not a complete wingnut.
Anyone notice the fact that A) she gives few, if any, medical qualification for her statements and B) she apparently has misspelled her own domain name?
Maybe this is just my imagination, but if I were trying to prove a point in the medical world, I’d want as much proof of my assertation as reasonably possible. This person doesn’t seem to have anything beyond her own personal experiences.
What is that saying … the plural of anecdote is not data?
Actually, drvaughan.com also works. Having worked with a guy named Vaughan whose name was routinely misspelled Vaughn, my guess is that she simply registered both domains and has her web folk duplicate everything in both domains.
(This is not to defend her on any other point, but she has enough to criticize without accidentally fixing on something that is not actually an error.)
