Are marital history and sexual activity mutually exclusive? Twitter erupts in a debate

Should gynaecologists ask about marital status to establish if a patient is sexually active?
This question became the subject of a debate on Twitter when a user, Soumya Mishra (@soumya_mishra), complained of being judged by her doctor for being sexually active without being married.
Meetings with gynaecologists are often talked about in hushed tones. Doctors too are hesitant to probe too deeply if they feel patients are not comfortable talking about their intimate relationships. But sometimes it is relevant to the treatment.
While responding on Twitter, most doctors justified these kind of questions and said they are relevant to the line of treatment. Still Mishra got a flood of tweets supporting her complaint. Read their tweets below to see where you stand:

 

Soumya gained support from fellow users. People were quick to point out how asking about marital history is irrelevant and comes across as judgemental.

One user said, while asking about marital history in itself is not the issue, using it as a euphemism for sexual history is.

 

Priyasamagod, another user, clarified how asking about marital status does not answer questions on sexual history.

 

Asking about sexual activity is a violation of someone’s privacy said, twitter user, @M1Jazz.

 

Pratyusha Parakala, shared her experience with the gynaecologists stating it has been very exhausting.

 

On the other side, doctors also, justified asking about marital history. While some said, directly asking about sexual health has caused them problems, some were of the opinion that this helps in proper diagnosis.

One doctor posted that asking about marital history determines whether they could proceed with transvaginal ultrasounds.

 

Another doctor shared his experience of being assaulted by a female patient’s family as they deemed such direct questions on sexual health to be inappropriate.

 

Sharing a similar experience, Sujeeth on Twitter says a lot of places consider these topics sensitive and this is an appropriate way of asking about sexual health.

 

Another doctor on Twitter, Priyam Saikia (@Priyam_Saikia80) said marital status and sexual activity are necessary information from a medical perspective.

 

User @AnesthesiaMedic weighed in their perspective by saying how people deem direct questions about sexual health to be offensive.

 

@dr_veeprakash elaborated on how asking about marital history helps in diagnosis, and it is not the doctor judging the patient.

 

 

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