An active hospital such as Harrison
Fort Worth is just one indication
of the changes in women's medicine.
In the eighteen hundreds women were
more likely to be confined to their
homes if they were ill.
They were not to be out affecting
other people with all the diseases
they supposedly carried.
They were regarded as a sickly part
of American society.
Part of the reasoning for women's
stickiness was directly attributable
to the risks of childbearing.
In 1915, 61
women die for every ten thousand
live babies born.
Besides that, medical treatment was
really rather hazardous.
Leeches were often used to bleed bad
blood out of women.
Those procedures aren't used
anymore, and medical advances have
greatly reduced the other risks.
Today, two women die for every 10000
live babies born in hospitals
like Harris have very sophisticated
methods of treating and curing
illness.
Women to have changed and are
continuing to change.
Some of them are demanding more from
their doctors.
They will not accept a diagnosis
and recommendation for treatment
without getting more information.
Well, I had my annual checkup
and they found a suspicious
cancer cells, I thought.
And so I went in for further tests
and it turned up cancers.
And then I said, I want a second
opinion. So I went to another doctor
and he did all the tests again.
And here I am now
and I'll be operated on in the
morning for
advanced cancer.
Do you are you still glad that you
asked for that second opinion?
Very much. Very much.
I couldn't have lived with them, you
know, without knowing that I
definitely did the right thing.
So why did you decide?
Why did you decide that to have that
second opinion?
Well, it just would have been
something I think I would always
thought about.
Did I do the right thing or could
have been a mistake somewhere in the
lab with the doctor
or just could have
been just something
wrong with my body that day.
And it wasn't necessary all and all.
But I'm real glad I went.
Now I'm I'm accepting
it.
It's nothing else I can do about it.
Like Mrs. Artemy, most of us are
frightened about surgery.
We would like to be sure that we
really need an operation.
Some doctors say that many
operations, such as hysterectomies
and radical mastectomies, are
performed when they really aren't
necessary and women need
to know more about their bodies.
And tomorrow, in part two of women's
medicine, we'll talk to a doctor who
has some ideas about where and how
to find that information.
She'll also tell us what a woman
should do when confronted with the
possibility that she might have
breast cancer.
Mary Ruth Carlton, The Texas News.