At A Glance Author Asurfael Contact [email protected] IAM Asurfael When N/A Some of you might have read my previous editorial [link] about my own goals in becoming a doctor. Looking at how both medicine and body modification are things near and dear to me, it keeps me thinking about the relationship almost constantly.
Most of us in the body modification community have heard of dentists just putting their ungloved fingers to people's mouths. Most of us have heard of emergency rooms full of blood. Blood everywhere. And cross contamination going on. We've heard of hospital germs that are the result from sometimes overly enthusiastic cleaning of the hospital surfaces, whilst the real cross contamination issues remain hidden from the public. The nurses and doctors not wearing gloves, the tools laying around in air contact instead of the autoclaved bags. The nurses and doctors being almost uneducated about cross contamination.
Most of us have also seen piercers change gloves several times during a simple piercing procedure. We've seen tattoo and piercing artists take their equipment out of the autoclaved bags. But as main stream as tattoos and piercings are, to the general public the making of those is still a huge mystery. They believe what they hear and trust. This being the doctors, unfortunately.
Ever since we're children we're taught that whatever the doctor does, even if it hurts, you need to go through it. A doctor is a figure of authority you don't question. The doctor is always right, and doing things for your best interest. And as I said in my previous article, there's just this aura of respect around a doctor. Even if the work they do at the public clinics pays them very little, the work is stressing and most of them have to work like dogs, when you say you're a doctor people automatically think of something glamorous. This sage-like old man with a white beard, glasses, and a friendly smile. The kind you see in children's books.
That is the image we receive starting from when we're very little. When we're old enough to watch ER or Chicago Hope we see the other side to the doctor's work, or so we think. The emotionally stressful environment with blood, gore, dying children and miracles. This isn't your average day of work for most doctors though. But the main issues that should be thought about are even in those series for everybody to see. But the doctor is always right, and you ignore it. Doctors getting covered up in blood and then treating (or meeting) other people with still blood on their clothes doesn't shock your average house wife for a bit. A piercer wearing gloves does. You don't know where his hands have been to!
What's the first thing that we see when it comes to tattoos as a kid? Popeye, probably. Or this man with very colourful arms your mum tells you not to stare at. Sailors. People we shouldn't stare at because they might hurt us. Thus it's no wonder that when a doctor tells us how evil or horrible body modification is we're bound to believe it, even if doctors themselves do far more dangerous and unsterile procedures all the time without us even paying attention to it. Or them, for that matter.
I've heard of people who have heard the worst bull ever from their doctors. About how a tongue piercing can permanently damage the nerves of the tongue, rendering you unable to pronounce certain letters forever. About how needles can't be put through a tattoo, some nurses refusing to take blood samples through tattooed skin. About how nipple piercings will make you forever unable to breastfeed.
The doctors that actually are at higher positions rarely give you a load of complete bull though. Instead, they're all too keen on informing you about the risks because of their own prejudices.
Recently, well a few months ago during the summer, a local paper ran an article about tattoos. How tattoos are a fad nowadays, and how everybody who's trend conscious is getting them for the summer. They had an article interviewing the local tattoo artist. And they had an interview with a dermatologist. The reporter had written an excellent piece based on the information, and then they published both interviews.
This dermatologist was the head dermatologist on this area. At first he told very professionally about how tattoos don't really have many risks. He said that hepatitis and HIV can be risks if it's done unhygienicly. That out of the way, the only bad thing considering your skin he could think of was that some people are allergic to red ink. But as he apparently didn't like tattoos, he filled in most of the article about the sociological problems tattoos cause, and the psychological problems that might be lying underneath the tattoos. Anybody see anything wrong with this? While he was probably right with his statements about the sociological and possible psychological problems... He wasn't a psychiatrist. He was interviewed as a dermatologist, but because of his own views on tattoos he just spent the rest of his article slandering tattoos because he couldn't find enough dermatological problems caused by tattoos. He wasn't lying, per se, but he was most definitely jus t trying to write his article in a manner that would discourage people from getting tattoos instead of providing them with real information.
But does this matter to your average reader? It doesn't. They see a doctor stating that tattoos are a bad idea. And for most that's enough to make them stop thinking about that budding idea. And the tattoo artist, what does he know, he's got his face full of metal too! That makes him suspicious no doubt, and he isn't a doctor, either. He only does that for a living, you know, with a successful business.
What can we do about this mismatch? Most doctors actually do know what they're talking about, but they try to make it seem worse than it is. I don't recommend that you try to educate your doctor. Or even the school nurse for that matter. I'm fairly sure that if I had told my school nurse that I'm pretty darn positive getting my septum pierced didn't cause my flu and the slight sinus infection she would have just thought that I'm a cocky know-it-all. Instead of coming out as a cocky know-it-all you can try to educate the people who ask you about your piercings. You know, the annoying type that comes and asks you, just because you have visible piercings or tattoos, about whether it hurt and about whether you know that you can get all sorts of horrible diseases from that. A lot of those people have their own answers already, probably.
But the trick with this is, you don't know it all. You don't have to come out as bored, or terrifying, or cocky for that matter. The point is, when somebody comes ahead with a "don't you know how unhygienic those are?" you can respond with a "don't you know how unhygienic it is when your dentist just puts his ungloved fingers in your mouth?" If they ask you about things you don't know about, tell them so. Otherwise you're just doing the same thing doctors often do - even not knowing about the subject you still present your opinions as the only right ones.
We people often take things for granted. It isn't in our nature to question just something that is. We'd rather question something that seems like a mystery to us, that seems intriguing. Not the every day things. Only when we're kids we ask why to everything. And the response is always taken as truth. When at that point the children are told that tattoos are evil, whether they grow up to be doctors or not they're likely to believe that for the rest of their life, too, unless they're one of the few lucky ones that start to question it.
The cure to this is, make them question it. Giving them an already chewed answer won't benefit anything. It will just encourage their own views. Instead, making them revaluate their views is the key. Working with them from the inside. If they came to ask you about something it at least shows interest. The key is sparking that interest up instead of letting it die down. When they tell you your tongue piercing will get infected and kill you, ask them whether they think that their wisdom teeth removal and opening a huge socket through the skull like that is good and safe. And when your dentist put those gloves on and lowered the light above your head, do you really think he hadn't touched anybody else that day and done the same thing? Ask this politely and remaining calm. It's very likely that they go in denial about this. Just ask them to think about it.
I feel that it's too late to try to convince the doctors we have now about how tattoos or piercings can be good. But those idiots that question you, who knows. When you have visible piercings people are bound to remember you more vividly than they remember people without those. It's up to you to create the mental image of modified people to them. It's up to us to make them question what they've been taught. And who knows, with luck, one of them ends up being the dermatologist in the paper in a few decades telling people about the possible allergies, about the minimal risks of bloodborne pathogens that can be prevented, and about how tattoos otherwise aren't harmful.
Me, I've been looking more into my chances of making a slight change. With some luck and a lot of hard work, in a year I'll be studying my first year in med school. The piercings I've got are mostly hideable, with a septum and tongue blending in. Put in a transparent retainer and lift my glasses up and the bridge disappears, and after that I'm just like everybody else. Only when it comes to me and piercings later, I'll know better. I can make that small change where I live. I encourage everyone to try to do the same on their own way. If you want respect, you must respect the other person first, no matter how ridiculous respecting that "did that hurt?" person might feel like. They probably feel as ridiculous about respecting you in the first place. Show them respect, and maybe the next person they ask will get more respect from them. What goes around, comes around, and you can be the person to start it.