Comments on: Medical roundup

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 19:04:12 +0000

So far as I can see both sides here have had their chance to weigh in on the debates over what to call transgender persons familiar from countless other comments sections, so if anyone feels they need to amplify the thread further, please consider sticking to other aspects of the New Jersey hospital case.

By: MattS

MattS — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 15:53:37 +0000

In reply to John Rohan.

John,

You seem to be ignoring a possibility, that the transgender person in question is female to male, not male to female.

A female to male sex change would require a hysterectomy to complete the gender reassignment.

By: John Fembup

John Fembup — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 15:39:52 +0000

In reply to John Rohan. Yeah, obtuse.

By: Cecil

Cecil — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 14:13:50 +0000

Stats to correct are simple/straightforward. Take the percentage of “risky” procedures and weight the calculations based on that weight. So, a facility that specializes in “risky” procedures and does them 90% of the time would have a weight of 1.90 and a facility that avoids risk if at all possible that performs “risky” procedures 1% of the time would receive a weight of 1.01. It’s a fairly standard normalization technique. The devil is in defining “risky” procedures…

By: John Rohan

John Rohan — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 14:01:55 +0000

In reply to mx. It's not being obtuse. TG advocates insist that sex is not gender. So you can change your gender (male) at will, but not your sex (man). Of course, the article contradicts that because they embrace that principle or ignore it depending on when it's convenient for them.

By: Oh c'mon

Oh c'mon — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 23:04:47 +0000

mx, don’t be obtuse yourself. You know perfectly well what Rohan means…..if you’re a biological female, you’re not a man.

By: JMJ

JMJ — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 22:12:13 +0000

Regarding the for profit hospital study. There is an allegation that the Joint commission has an implicit bias in its statistical analysis because it does not account for the amount of “risky” procedures done at a facility. That is, hospital X can be a top performer over other local hospitals, but that award doesn’t account for the fact that hospital X performs far fewer “risky” procedures than other local hospitals.

In my view, it is a legitimate criticism of the JC’s methodology. not being a statistician, I’m not sure how to tell them to fix it.

The point being, the linked article says that Harvard used the JC’s studies as its inputs. It would therefore have the same implicit statistical biases that the JC studies do.

By: mx

mx — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 21:10:38 +0000

In reply to John Rohan. Don't be obtuse. There's no contradiction. You know perfectly well what it means.

By: Hugo S Cunningham

Hugo S Cunningham — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 20:48:52 +0000

Again on the second item. Like many others, I am not particularly enthusiastic about transgender issues. Nevertheless, there are some thoughtful comments on the Stephen Miller piece highlighting other problems with Catholic hospitals, eg:
(1) In many rural areas, there are no easy alternatives to Catholic hospitals.
(2) Such Catholic hospitals accept lots of money from the taxpayers.
(3) Catholic administrators often ban medical personnel from carrying out procedures they are willing to.
(4) Apart from unpopular transgender surgery, Catholic administrators also ban birth control services, voluntary sterilization, fertility treatments, and abortion to save the life of the mother.
(4a) If Congressional holy warriors succeed in shutting down Planned Parenthood, that is going to make birth control hard to find in many rural areas.

By: John Rohan

John Rohan — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 17:18:21 +0000

Your second item could be more clear what type of surgery they are talking about.

The headline at the website is amusingly contradictory: “Transgender man sues Catholic hospital in Paterson for refusing hysterectomy”.

If this was a man, he wouldn’t need a hysterectomy in the first place.