The Perils of Imperial Research and Development.

A long time ago in a Trust far away, Moff was disappointed with the lack of progress on construction of his new Death Star.  Darth was visiting in a month to check audit results and review progress so it was essential that productivity was increased by then.  Moff thought chocolate cake might increase productivity by improving morale.  The only problem was, he had no evidence to support his hypothesis because the countless people who had used chocolate cake before considered it to be common sense and so had not published their results.  The Empire would not pay the Death Star caterers for time spent making chocolate cake due to the lack of evidence.  Luckily, one of the bakers volunteered his time because he felt enthusiastic about the project. “This should only take a couple of days” Moff thought to himself.  “I’ll get the construction workers to fill out a Quality of Life Questionnaire, give them chocolate cake and then get them to fill out the same questionnaire again the next day.  I can also look to see if the rate of use of construction materials changes between before and after the cake.  I will exclude workers with allergies to the ingredients, diabetes, obesity, tooth cavities or lacking the mental capacity to decide whether to eat chocolate cake or not, and there are no children on the Death Star, so I cannot see any ethical problems with it.”

Fearing the wrath of the Emperor, Moff decided to do it by the book and filled out an Imperial Research Application System (IRAS) form.  This requested the same information to be entered repetitively into different sections of the form and took Moff all day.  He had to send it to the Death Star Research Development (R&D) Team for approval.  Unfortunately, R&D was inundated with more important research requests.  A week later, they got back to him and told him that all of the construction workers eating chocolate cake had to sign several statements on a consent form before they could eat.  Moff’s draft consent form did not match R&D’s standard format, so he was told to re-write it.  The workers would also have to be given at least 24-hours between reading information about the chocolate cake and deciding whether to eat it or not, and Moff would have to personally witness each worker signing the consent form before eating the cake!  

“Surely if they are eating the cake they have consented to it, they have mental capacity after all” he argued to which he was told: 

“You cannot predict how people will behave; just because they eat the cake does not mean they agreed to it.”  

Finally after another week R&D approved of Moff’s documents but would not authorise the Imperial Research Application System form without prior approval from Darth.  Moff started to get the feeling that the system was out of proportion to the intervention he had proposed.  One dose of chocolate cake would be pretty harmless after all.

Darth was a little busy competing with rebels who had gone to far off places or disguised their research as audit to avoid the Imperial Research Application System, but after a week he finished studying the abundant paperwork surrounding the chocolate cake protocol and approved it.  Amazingly the Endor Research Ethics Committee approved the project just two weeks later, on the condition that translation services would be available for Ewoks working on the Death Star.  Moff thought his troubles were over just four weeks behind schedule.  He knew there were no Ewoks working for him.  The workers could eat chocolate cake, productivity would increase, and the Emperor would be satisfied.  The elation was short-lived.  R&D informed Moff the baker and the staff serving the cake would have to undertake Good Catering Practice (GCP) training before they could deliver the chocolate cake.  Moff had done GCP himself and it took half a day.  It was all about catering research.  He wondered why the baker and service staff needed to do it because they had no involvement in the research design and would not be doing anything outside their existing skill set.  Unfortunately this was out of R&D’s hands.  Their fear of the Naysayers of Imperial Hunger Research (NIHR) overwhelmed logic and reason.  The requirement of GCP training doubled the time demands on the baker, so he withdrew from the project.  Similarly the catering staff were overstretched and did not have time for the training either.  R&D also instructed Moff to fill out a Site Specific Form and get it authorised by Darth before any construction workers could be asked whether they would like to try chocolate cake.   Moff tried to recruit another baker and service staff, but alas it was too late.  Darth had arrived to carry out his inspections.

“Why must I fill out a Site Specific Form when my whole research protocol was based on only one site and has all of the relevant information in it?”  asked Moff.  

Darth let out a deep mechanical sigh, and the blackness in his eyes told Moff he had suffered these same pains hundreds of times before.  

“Is this why the rebels are pretending their research is just audit or carrying out their research far, far away from the Naysayers?” asked Moff.  

“I find their lack of faith disturbing” replied Darth “The Emperor is not as forgiving as I.”

Moff quaked in his boots, but he need not have worried.  The Emperor resigned after the Cover-story Quality Checkers (CQC) alleged bullying in his ranks.  There is always a bigger fish.  So there is the story of why the Death Star was never completed; low morale due to lack of chocolate cake.  Where was the beneficence in that?

What the NHS Junior Doctors’ strike means to me as a patient.

The NHS has long been understaffed.  Public consultation for the 2000 NHS Plan revealed that the public wanted “more and better paid staff using new ways of working” and “improvements in local hospitals and surgeries”.¹  The resulting plan included:

• 7,500 more consultants and 2,000 more GPs

• 20,000 extra nurses and 6,500 extra therapists

• 1,000 more medical school places¹

At the time staff nurses and house officer’s were paid about £14,400 (equivalent to £22,320 today) and about £16,710 (equivalent to £25,900 today) respectively.^2,3  My local general hospital had just been closed despite public protests and its A&E department where my life was saved a couple of times, has never been replaced.  A nurse’s starting salary is now about £21,478  while a house officer’s basic salary is £22,636.^4,5  So what happened to the “better paid staff” demanded by the public in response to the NHS Plan consultation? 

Junior doctor strikes have been planned for 1/12/2015, 8/12/2015 and 16/12/2015 because the government expects junior doctors to work more anti-social hours without financial compensation in an organisation where they already voluntarily work extra unpaid hours to plug holes due to dangerous understaffing.⁶   What does this mean to me as a patient whose life has already been saved by the NHS on more than one occasion?

I do not want to be a patient during the junior doctors’ strikes, but who plans to be a patient?  When  I travel on motorways I have faith that should there be a motor-vehicle pile-up that I survive, I will be evacuated by (overworked underpaid) paramedics to the nearest A&E department or trauma centre.  When I cross a road, I look both ways first, but if a speeding driver or motorcyclist comes around a corner I have some faith that the NHS will provide for me.  The same applies when I go out at night at the risk of being mugged, or go to pubs or clubs where drunken violence is a real risk.  We never really know when we are going to get ill, and though consultants will be providing medical care the quality of care with reduced staffing levels will obviously be worse.  I am not going to take the same risks I have been doing on a weekly basis my whole adult life, because though the probability of things going wrong is very small, the potential consequences are going to be a lot worse.  If I had elective surgery between now and 17/12/2015 I would cancel it, because I would not want to risk still being in hospital during the junior doctors’ strikes in the event of unexpected complications of surgery.  

Hopefully though, the strike action will lead to a wake-up call for the government regarding underfunding of the NHS.  I hope other NHS staff organise strikes too, until they all get a fair deal and a future, publicly owned NHS has been secured.

1. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130107105354/http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh_118523.pdf

2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/01/99/nhs_in_crisis/252610.stm

3. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html

4. https://www.rcn.org.uk/support/pay_and_conditions/pay_rates_2014-15

5. https://twitter.com/VenthanMailoo/status/660727815717961728

6. http://bjgp.org/content/64/623/295

NHS Junior Doctors are obviously out of order for complaining about their pay.

Dear Samie,

Thank you very much for your questions. This is exactly the kind of dialogue required to shatter public misperceptions about what junior doctors do. Members of the public get fleeting glimpses of hospital doctors because we are so busy, and that can be misleading. My mum and dad worked in an ice-cream factory. I have also eaten ice-cream. I still do not feel qualified to comment on the relative workloads of different ice-cream factory workers. I appreciate your mum has done 3 healthcare jobs and you may have been a patient, so you have a perspective of what doctors do. I have been a patient and also had direct experience of several healthcare jobs so if as you say your mum has only worked in 3 roles, my experience has been more diverse than hers. I can tell you from experience that healthcare workers in general are overworked and underpaid, but I can also tell you that NHS doctors are being pushed to breaking point at the moment.

You asked how many patients I dress/undress: Countless when I was a healthcare assistant. Since then I have rehabilitated disabled people to be able to undress and dress themselves as an occupational therapy assistant and occupational therapist.

You asked how many IVs do I attach and unattach: I have set up drips for collapsed soldiers and hung the bags in trees. Attaching and disconnecting drips is not physically demanding or time-consuming though it must be done properly using aseptic technique. Try cannulating an obese patient, or somebody who is in shock. Try doing it at night with poor lighting. These tasks are completed multiple times per shift by junior doctors and are far more difficult than connecting a drip. Admittedly nurses (not doctors) usually prepare IV antibiotics and that is time-consuming, but in my current job I prepare IV antibiotics and give drugs myself.

“How many aggresive patients do you deal with?”: Patients often get aggressive due to the frustrations of how long they have to wait to see a doctor. That is because there are not enough of us, and as they see nurses first, nurses deal with the brunt of the aggression. After checking for and treating medical or surgical causes of aggression, such as lack of oxygen, low blood sugar, poisoning or intoxication, infections, metabolic diseases, head injury or cancers, if patients are unreasonably aggressive I let the security staff deal with them.

How many patients' buzzers do I answer at night? Unlike a ward nurse, a junior doctor covers multiple wards at night and usually gets bleeped relentlessly. On one occasion I had to deal with two patients with acute chest pain, at the same time, at different ends of a hospital, and on another I was called to simultaneously deal with a possible transfusion reaction on one ward and sepsis on another. At night, doctors may not have time to sit down, let alone eat or drink and after some night shifts I was barely fit enough to walk home and would have been unsafe to drive. The nurses know this and try to look after us, but often we do not have time to be looked after. How many nurses have you heard of falling asleep at the wheel or being unable to concentrate and crashing their cars on the way home due to exhaustion?

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/health/staff_at_norfolk_norwich_hospital_pay_tribute_to_promising_doctor_killed_in_car_crash_1_4181293

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13166072.Hospital_working_hours_cut_after_death_of_junior_doctor/

In some places nurses are understaffed, particularly at night, and personally I think this is dangerous, but doctors are understaffed too. You asked: “How many hours do you spend with each individual patient?” Exactly! Doctors spend minutes with each patient, because we are spread too thinly and have too many patients. We do not get the quality patient contact that would increase our job satisfaction. I had more job satisfaction from patient contact when I was a porter and healthcare assistant. Patients and relatives often get annoyed by how difficult it is to see a hospital doctor. Even nurses can get annoyed and shout at us when we do not come to talk to their patients’ relatives quickly enough because they do not realise how busy we are when we are on wards other than their own. That is because there are too few of us. When it is a choice between spending time giving vital medical care to keep somebody alive, or talking to patients and relatives, the vital medical care takes priority; that does not mean we would not rather be talking to our patients. In A&E when patients are queueing in corridors waiting for beds, the reason they are not being seen by doctors is because the doctors are busy, seeing one patient after another. You stated that “doctors do not undertake the physical workload” and that is mostly true, but our work is intellectually, emotionally and physically testing, especially if we forget to eat or drink. I would recommend our job to anybody who wishes to lose weight, because as a junior doctor you will lose weight, not only due to having limited time to eat, but also due to the number of miles you walk each day walking from ward to ward, from patient to patient, the glucose consumption of your brain and the increased metabolic rate provoked by anxieties about patient care. At the start of my medical career I used to worry about my patients when I should have been sleeping at night, but as time goes on, I have got used to that stress. You stated: “You should just appreciate that you get to do a job you love which has a good wage.” Yes. I love my job, but it is like chocolate. In reasonable doses it is great, but too much chocolate on any one day will make you ill, and too much chocolate over a cumulative period will have serious health consequences, just like working as a doctor. “Antisocial working hours and poor work–life balance have been linked to stress, anxiety, depression, cardiovascular risk, gastrointestinal disorders, obesity in men, and workplace accidents possibly due to sleep and circadian rhythm disturbances, social marginalisation and poorer dietary habits. Excessive working hours have also been linked to increased alcohol consumption by women, lack of sleep and increased smoking for both sexes, and lack of exercise for men. Medical careers are a risk factor for substance misuse and suicide.”: http://bjgp.org/content/64/623/295 The wage is good, but if you include the unpaid hours we do, the hourly rate is often not good. In one of my surgical jobs I was working on average two extra unpaid hours per day; that is the same as working 6 days per week but only being paid for 5. If all we cared about was work, doctors would only be complaining about risks to patient care, but guess what, we would like to have lives too, and as it stands, a career in medicine in the NHS will ruin your life. When our Saturdays are considered a ‘normal working day’ it will be even worse.

“You say you should be compensated for studying through your life, what do you think us mere mortals have to do if we are teachers/ pharmacy assistants/emts etc.” I was not always a doctor. I was an army 'medic, physiotherapist and occupational therapist. I had two previous degrees before I started medical school. Trust me on this one. The ongoing personal study I had to do as a physiotherapist or occupational therapist is so insignificant compared to the ongoing study required for a medical career, that any comparison is laughable. My other half is a nurse. She sees how much work I do and I am 100% positive that she would agree with me on this one. The amount of study I have to do strains our relationship.

You said: “be thankful for obviously being academically minded enough and having a decent education to provide you with opportunity” Eduction is not handed to us on a plate and neither are opportunities. We get into medical school through dedication and hard work. When our friends were watching Sky TV, playing on their Playstations and going out, we were studying. I am dyslexic and got poor A-level grades. Due to that and another unseen disability I had to do two other degrees just to meet the entry requirements for medical school. None of that was ‘provided’ to me; I worked for it. I remember while I was in medical school I heard on the radio on my way to a hospital placement a discussion with people complaining that they think doctors get paid too much and I thought to myself ‘Anybody who thinks doctors are getting paid too much should try medical school, to see what we are being paid for’. If you pay us any less, students will give up when they hit walls in medical school, because they will quite rightly recognise that the personal sacrifice is not worth it.

“If you want to orchestrate change focus on the issues which matter, being paid upto £22 an hour is not one of them.” A NHS doctor has to work for 11 years and pass post-graduate exams to be able to earn a basic rate over £22 per hour. You seem to have missed the £10.85 starting wage, which is after dedication at school and 5 years of hard graft at medical school. This does not account for the unpaid hours we do because the NHS is short-staffed. Not having the best people in medicine will matter. But by the time you realise that, it will be too late.

“And if you even have to ask why you should be a doctor other than for financial compensation, then maybe you shouldn't be.” You may be absolutely right on this one. The entry interviews for UK medical schools should have the following screening questions:

1. Would you like to spend time with your family?

2. Would you like to choose where in the country you are going to live?

3. Do you have any leisure activities you would like to continue regularly?

4. Do you value your own health?

5. Do you like getting a good night’s sleep?

6. Would you want to be compensated if any of the above were taken away from you?

7. Would you be upset by having to move house every 6-months to a year, or commute long distances between cities to work?

If anybody answering “yes” to any of the above questions was automatically denied entry to medical school, perhaps you would get the future doctors you are looking for.

What is the point of professional associations of occupational therapists?

One thing I have noticed about the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy during my 18 years of membership is that they are politically active, and try to act in the best interests of the general public; not just the interests of physiotherapists.  I do not feel that the British Association of Occupational Therapists has given me such a good impression.  That is a shame.

I recently submitted an editorial to BJOT saying that the Paralympics being separate from the Olympics is an example of social exclusion and it would be more inclusive if they were combined. I also suggested that public and athletes' views on this were something that the occupational therapy profession is well placed to research.
They sent me a rejection e-mail on Friday saying:

"I am not convinced that the best audience for your message are occupational therapists. They are not in a position to change the way the Olympic movement plans its events and it certainly not before 2016. Nor, have you provided an argument for why occupational therapists would be the best people to conduct the research you suggest. If you are urging inclusion, then it should be disabled people themselves who undertake the research and advocate for the change in the games."

I sent them an e-mail back saying:

"I feel disturbed by the reviewer's lack of vision regarding the role of the occupational therapy profession in society. To suggest that it is the responsibility of 'disabled people' rather than the society that is disabling them to research potential avenues for social inclusion, seems to me as ludicrous as to suggest that it is the responsibility of victims of racism to research racism!"

I am glad I am not wasting my money on BAOT membership anymore and feel that my efforts to promote the occupational therapy profession over the last 10 years have been about as useful as sticking a spoiler on the back of a Toyota Aygo; there is no point bigging something up if it consistently fails to rise to the occasion.

In future when hear people mocking occupational therapy, I might just shrug my shoulders and think "if the shoe fits..."

V

Dignity in health and social care? Perhaps not, if you are male.

Do women need protection from men but not visa-versa?
When I was at school, female physical education teachers regularly used to use the male changing rooms as a shortcut to their office, even while schoolboys were changing or coming out of the showers. The thought of male teachers doing this to schoolgirls is unthinkable, but when I complained, it seemed that nobody was willing to listen. Why? Anybody believing that there is no such thing as female paedophiles is sadly mistaken.^{[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]} Even when female paedophilia is identified however, it seems to be taken less seriously than male paedophilia.^[12] This double standard is a recurring theme. I have noticed female-only gym and swimming times at public facilities where there are no male-only times for example. I believe this theme is also apparent in healthcare.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=da8_1394506711

Double standards with respect to gender in health care:
My second ever job was as a healthcare assistant in operating theatres. I worked in various theatres, but most of my work was in genitourinary theatre. Most of the patients were men with prostate problems and I did not feel that the way they treated was dignified. Most of them were awake during surgery. They arrived wearing hospital gowns with nothing underneath, were transferred into the operating table, and then their legs were put up in the lithotomy position, exposing their genitals and anuses. When I started work there, there were young female student nurses and young female Royal Air Force trainee operating department practitioners working in the theatre. I remember thinking about how humiliating the experience must be for the patients. Female patients were treated very differently. They wore their underwear under their hospital gowns. Most of them were given general anaesthesia and their underwear was only removed in theatre when they were unconscious. On the very rare occasions when female patients were awake, male theatre staff were minimised as far as possible to maintain patient dignity. What was the reason for the difference in treatment? I still do not know to this day, but I have a sneaking suspicion it may have been sexism.

Far more recently, I worked in a genitourinary medicine clinic for a couple of days. I noticed that there were separate male and female waiting areas clearly marked with signs. On my second day on arriving I noticed two female medical students sitting waiting in the male waiting area. I told them I thought it might be a little intimidating for male patients to see on arrival two female medical students sitting in their waiting area. One of the students had not realised that she was in the male waiting area, because they had both been told to sit there by a female nurse. The medical students got up but the nurse came out and told them to stay in the male waiting area. In summary she said:

“Men are not allowed in the female waiting area”

What did this mean exactly? Later that day I noticed that men and heterosexual couples were waiting in the area marked ‘Male Waiting Room’ while only women were waiting in the ‘Female Waiting Room’. I consider this to be a sexist attitude. On later discussion, both female medical students admitted to feeling awkward sitting in the male waiting room while there was a lone male patient sitting there. One of the female medical students later told me that most male patients probably do not mind women being in their waiting room, but most female patients probably would mind a man being in their waiting room, hence the double-standard. Even if this is true, I do not think it should apply to staff sitting in the patient waiting rooms, because there is a power differential between ‘healthy’ staff and ‘vulnerable’ patients.

While I was there, I could not help but notice one other thing. Male doctors, when examining a female patient, call for a female chaperone. What sex chaperone do you think female doctors were using when seeing male patients? Female! Men attending the clinic would therefore have their private parts seen by a minimum of two women (instead of one) if they consented to being examined. Perhaps I could rationalise this in my mind if I thought that women were less predatory in the sexual sense than men. Unfortunately however, I am not under that illusion, because pictures of male models in states of undress were on display on the wall of the nurses’ laboratory.

It seems we live in a society that expects men to be insensitive, trains men to be insensitive and then blames men for being insensitive. Perhaps that has something to do with why so few medical students are male nowadays.

References:
1. http://www.kxxv.com (2011) Teacher gets 3 days in jail after having sex with student. Available from: http://www.kxxv.com/story/16011854/teacher-gets-3-days-in-jail-after-having-improper-relationship-with-student Accessed: 19:44 21/11/2011
2. Thompson P. (2011) Is this America's worst teacher? Middle school reading instructor, 41, 'had sex with ELEVEN teenage boys in three month period'. Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2059491/Teacher-Cindy-Clifton-41-sex-ELEVEN-teenage-boys-month-period.html Accessed: 19:03 21/11/2011
3. Chick T. (2011) Linda Lusk is back behind bars. Available from: http://www.keprtv.com/news/live/133411228.html Accessed: 19:41 21/11/2011
4. Narain J. (2011) Female RE teacher who bombarded 14-year-old pupil with sex texts is spared jail. Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055705/RE-teacher-Kathryn-Roach-bombarded-pupil-sex-texts-spared-jail.html Accessed: 19:05 21/11/2011
5. Slack C. (2011) Woman, 33, who pretended to be nurse to lure 14-year-old boy for sex is spared jail. Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2045214/Woman-pretended-nurse-lure-14-year-old-boy-sex-spared-jail.html Accessed: 19:35 21/11/2011
6. FoxNews.com (2011) Florida Teacher Who Pleaded Guilty to Having Sex With Boy Asks Judge to Reduce Probation Available from: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/22/florida-teacher-who-pleaded-guilty-to-having-sex-with-boy-asks-judge-to-reduce/ Accessed: 18:58 21/11/2011
7. WorldNetDaily.com (2011) The big list: Female teachers with students. Available from: http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=39783#ixzz1eN07B200 Accessed: 19:32 21/11/2011
8. Russia Today (2011) ‘Cougar epidemic’ rages as teachers seduce students. Available from: http://rt.com/usa/news/cougar-sex-teachers-students/?utm_source=2leep&utm_medium=2leep&utm_campaign=2leep Accessed: 19:48 21/11/2011
9. Daily Mail (2010) Single mother had sex with boy, 12, almost 200 times... and marked each encounter with a star in her sordid diary. Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1244367/Single-mother-36-faces-jail-seducing-boy-12-having-sex-200-times.html Accessed: 19:37 21/11/2011
10. Ramirez M. (2008) Nun who abused boys gets 1 year in jail, 10 years' probation. Available from: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-02-02/news/0802010620_1_age-and-health-problems-abuse-sentence Accessed: 18:41 21/11/2011
11. Karvunidis J.M. (2011) Apology to Men's Rights Activists. Available from: http://www.chicagonow.com/high-gloss-and-sauce/2011/10/apology-to-mens-rights-activists/ Accessed: 19:52 21/11/2011
12. Hermann C. (2011) Oh, Boys. Available from: http://communityvoices.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/opinion/the-radical-middle/29629-oh-boys Accessed: 19:58 21/11/2011

What defines homophobia and misogyny?

A couple of days ago I was accused of homophobia and misogyny at a Student Council meeting. It could be true, so I sent out a mass e-mail to the Council members asking in what way I was homophobic.

I discovered that my homophobia was manifest by mentioning HIV and homosexuality in the same sentence / same slide of a PowerPoint presentation:

“

• HPV is the most common cause of anal cancer in men.
• 61% of HIV-negative and 93% of HIV-positive gay and bisexual men have been estimated to have anal HPV infections.
• HPV is thought to play a role in 30% of mouth and throat cancers.
• HPV vaccination is not available to boys or men on the NHS.”¹

At first, I thought this basis for the accusation was ridiculous, because I had used the information to illustrate how boy's healthcare needs are not being addressed by the National Health Service with respect to HPV, in contrast to the vaccination program currently offered to girls. I think if I was homophobic I would be more likely to think of 'homosexual men' as a separate entity from 'men' and I would not have sourced the data from the National LGBT Cancer Network. In my mind, it came down to simple statistics and targeting healthcare provision based on need. I would not for example think somebody was racist for mentioning the terms 'Asian' and 'diabetes' in the same sentence. The presentation I used was even checked by a homosexual friend before I distributed it, and he did not find it offensive.

On reflection, it comes down to sensitivities. HIV unfortunately has a stigma attached to it that diabetes does not a share. As a healthcare professional I do not discriminate on the basis of HIV sero-status and paradoxically I have become less sensitive to that stigma as a result (forgetting that people in general may fear it). If I was a homosexual man, I probably would not like to constantly be reminded of associations between homosexuality and HIV positive status, and I would not want the public reminded of it either. Science is for healthcare professionals and political correctness is for the public. Lesson learnt.

As for my misogyny, this was the motion I proposed to Union Council:

This Union Notes:
1. There are fewer male students than female students at UEA.
2. National statistics suggest that male students are at greater risk of violent crime than female students.
3. Domestic violence against men is largely overlooked.
4. Men have a lower average life expectancy than women.
5. Male suicide rates are higher than female suicide rates.
6. Male sexual health services have been cut from the UEA medical centre.
7. Boys are currently not offered vaccination against HPV on the NHS, even though the viruses contribute to oral, anal and penis cancers.
8. Students should check that their sexual partners have the mental capacity to consent to sex (i.e. are not intoxicated beyond their capacity to consent). Individuals that fail to do so may be committing sexual assault and men that fail to do so may be committing rape.
9. Union Council currently has a Women’s Officer but no Men’s Officer.
This Union Believes:
1. Male students are a minority on campus
2. Male students need as much protection from the threat of violence as female students.
3. Domestic violence against men, such as spitting and face-slapping in addition to more serious crimes should be openly identified as unacceptable and not trivialised. The students union should have a zero tolerance policy on violence, including female violence against males.
4. The health and social care needs of men are not currently being addressed adequately or in an equitable way.
5. Male students are generally at greater risk of suicide than female students.
As for 4
As for 4
6. Greater male awareness of legal issues surrounding sexual activity and intoxication could benefit both male and female UEA students.
7. In the interests of sexual equality, the UEA students Union should consider having a Gender Equality Officer post.
This Union Resolves:
1-9. To hold a general meeting open to all students for open discussion regarding the pro’s and con’s of having a Gender Equality Officer post.

Apparently this motion was also offensive, to the extent that during the Council meeting the first two parts were completely deleted to avoid offending anybody and the third part was changed to something like:

This Union Resolves:
To hold a series of meetings open to all students for open discussion regarding the pro’s and con’s of having a Gender Equality Officer post, and then feed back to Student Council.

To be honest, I am still at a loss as to why the motion I proposed is misogynist, or why the first two parts had to be deleted. Perhaps any suggestion that men have any sex/gender specific needs is misogynist. The PowerPoint file was checked by a female Cheerleading Law student and we both scratched our heads in wonder and amusement as to the reaction it produced. Perhaps 'misogyny' is defined by feminists rather than women in general.² A female friend from the Buddhist Society told me that she did not like the tone of the presentation and that statistics mean nothing to her because the margins for error are always high. I can understand that, because I presented the data in the same style I have seen data presented in feminist propaganda. Looking in the mirror must have been an uncomfortable experience for them!

V

References:

1.National LGBT Cancer Network (undated) HPV and Cancer. Available from: http://cancer-network.org/cancer_information/hpv_and_cancer/ Accessed: 20:02 12/3/2011

2. Wilkins A. (undated) UEA Women’s Campaign: what do we need it for? Available from: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=141786891654 Accessed: 20:04 12/3/2011

What kind of racism do Tamil people face in Sri Lanka?

The Sri Lankan government is doing a very good job of re-writing history at the moment. I have seen evidence in the Canadian press that people think "Tamils are terrorists" etc. The French company Ubisoft is producing a computer game in which you can hunt terrorists in Sri Lanka [1]. I wonder how many of those 'terrorists' will be dressed in Sri Lankan army, navy or air-force uniforms. The Sri Lankan armed forces have a long history of rape and mass murder and racist violence against Tamil people in Sri Lanka prevailed long before Tamil terrorism emerged [2]. Somehow I doubt those realities are going to be portrayed in the computer game, so this generation of gamers will grow up thinking Tamils are terrorists and the Sri Lankan armed forces are heroes.  If you want to see the kind of religious extremism and racism Tamil people face, you only need look on the internet. Some examples are included in this blog. 

A fake Tamil profile on the wall of: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=43859695674 probably set up by a Sinhalese Nationalist to make Tamil people look like idiots.

Chaaminda Wijekoon implying that Tamil Nadu is populated by savages: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tamil-Nadu-history-is-a-disgrace-to-Hinduism/353953823732

Claiming that Sinhalese people are Aryan: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tamil-Nadu-history-is-a-disgrace-to-Hinduism/353953823732?v=wall

Claiming that the Buddhist religion could not survive without the Sinhalese race: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=72170069437

Homophobic racist obsenities: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tamil-Nadu-history-is-a-disgrace-to-Hinduism/353953823732?v=wall

Comments on www.youtube.com stating that Tamil women are too ugly to rape, and should be sterilised so that they cannot have children.

Various fake profiles set up by armchair-warriors to hurl abuse on a group wall: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2215400217

I have also received various personal threats and attacks for speaking out on this issue:

A sick reference to the murder of 3000 Tamil people by a racist mob in 1983: http://www.blackjuly.info/ from a profile with a fake name: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000098712823

Another immature threat accusing me of being a member of a terrorist group simply because I am Tamil: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000307926422

All of this is due to an underlying Sinhalese Nationalist psyche pushing the Sinhalese language and the Buddhist religion while treating all other Sri lankans as outsiders, based on the belief that Tamil people are inferior.

Chamara Senaratna claiming that "Tamil society is rather a backward society": http://te-in.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2201225225&topic=7696

Many people believe the solution is do deny what is going on and blame Western Christians for the short-comings of Sri Lanka putting full support behind the president despite his megalomaniac oppressive regime.

A wall post here: http://www.facebook.com/wall.php?id=130764207002 about this video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/01/07/ctw.anderson.intv.alston.cnn

This is just the tip of the ice-berg. If you look for the evidence, you will find it in abundance despite the Sri Lankan government's best efforts to cover it up.

If you were Tamil, would you like to live in Sri Lanka?

V

References:

1. Loewenstein A. (2010) Thank you Ubisoft for backing Colombo’s war crimes. Available from: http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/08/18/thank-you-ubisoft-for-backing-colombos-war-crimes/ Accessed: 13:44 25/8/2010

2. Jivan (undated) Occupational Alienation: a personal perspective. Available from: http://www.metaot.com/blog/occupational-alienation-personal-perspective Accessed: 13:47 25/8/2010