So I’ve been trying and trying to study for PR, sadly I think I’ve hit a mental roadblock. So, pfft.

I spent a good hour today ringing up hospitals and clinics in Subang/PJ trying to find out whether they had the HPV vaccination that I blogged about earlier. Let me tell you, it’s not easy—being put on hold, so-called pharmaceutical professionals not knowing what the hell HPV is or keeping up to date with breakthroughs in the medical world—shit man, I’m not even in the medical line.

My major conclusion is that hospitals are cheaper than clinics, after ringing up a good 10 clinics and hospitals. Hospitals (private) can afford to charge less than privately-owned clinics; I dunno about government hospitals though.

One experience doing these round of calls weirded the crap out of me.

Finding numbers on the Superpages, I picked a few within my area to ring up. One of the last calls I made was to this specialist women’s clinic in PJ. After being passed to two different people, the doctor finally came on the line and seemed friendly enough; yes, they had the vaccination.

He also asked me why I was calling, and I mentioned, ‘I’m doing personal research’. Apparently this ‘R’ word is taboo, because he got really defensive and told me ‘to be honest with myself on why I’m doing this research’ and slammed down the phone on me.

Obviously I was shocked. Perhaps private practices get calls from big pharmaceuticals’ marketing departments trying to find out things, posing as patients, but for goodness’ sake, don’t jump to assumptions immediately! When a real patient rings up to find out more I hardly think it’s right to accuse them of having an ulterior motive!

Just as I was having a gripe to my grandmother, the doctor rung back (must’ve had caller ID) asking what company I was from. I was like, er, what? And he kept insisting I was from a company and he wanted to complain to my supervisors wtf! He kept insisting also that I was doing research, and finally deigned to ask what kind.

I had to clarify then that it was personal research, because I wanted to find out about it because hospitals were all charging different rates. Honestly, so defensive right? All the other places were fine giving me the information I needed, it was just this one place. He was curious to find out why I wanted the vaccination, very patronisingly asking if I was ’scared to death of getting cancer’.

WHAT KIND OF STUPID QUESTION IS THAT?

It’s safe to say everyone’s scared of dying to a certain extent, especially of something as scary as cancer, and if there is a prevention why not go for it right? He made insinuations that ‘big companies’ are just using scare tactics on the public, and just want to make money out of us, especially young urban female students.

When I told him about the reading I’ve done up on it, he also said in a very ‘sigh, you young people, think you know so much…’ fashion that I’d obviously not done enough research. Huh! If you want to compare the medical knowledge of someone like me to that of his, obviously there is no comparison right? You’ve received formal training in a diverse and dynamic field, I am but one of the trillions of hypochodriacs out there,cut me some slack won’t you?

Being talked down to like I was an idiot made me get really defensive and I wanted to flare up already. Especially after he invited me down to his clinic to buy him lunch or a coffee in exchange for his views on this topic. He even promised not to charge me consultation; wow, how kind.
Which brings up several questions: if his clinic does have the vaccine, why is he on such a moral high horse about it? Wouldn’t he rather not stock it if he didn’t believe in it? If it doesn’t work, wouldn’t there have been more media attention to this alleged ’scam’? Also, would the Australian government be providing young female citizens in the country free vaccinations if they didn’t believe in it?

Journalistic mode then kicked in and I came upstairs and checked out more of the pros and cons of getting the vaccination. I came up with this article, which I found rather helpful. Honestly, if the only ‘con’ to it were the price (ranging from RM400-500; trust me, I made the calls) and the social debates of whether it encourages promiscuity, which are entirely individual choices, why not?

I’m not saying, yeah, go out and have sex ‘cos your chances of getting cervical cancer are reduced, what you want to do is none of my concern right?
As the author of this article I linked argued, just because you have a tetanus jab, does that encourage you to step on rusty nails? Same application.

I admit I am also curious to go and find out why this doctor is so against the idea of the HPV vaccine and his views on it. However, I also do not appreciate my time being wasted by someone who would want to pass judgments on my personal lifestyle choices (pfft, not like I have much of a lifestyle save for the two instances of clubbing this year; most of it is spent studying!) or my health concerns.

But yet, I keep thinking there has to be more to it than that, no? Hmm, food for thought.

/Edit

For those of you interested in finding out more, the Australian government’s site has a very good FAQ section. Have a read. Wah you all damn lucky I am doing research for the masses hey LOL.