Dr. “X” Speaks: Contentious Surgeries and Patient Rights in Mexico City, 1928–36
Friday, January 8, 2016: 2:50 PM
Room M301 (Atlanta Marriott Marquis)
In 1933, a medical student in Mexico City reported a scandal in the General Hospital. He claimed that practitioners often performed “unnecessary” and “experimental” hysterectomies, and described patients who resisted surgeons and escaped the clinic in panic. Through an examination of surgical records, this paper shows that doctors subverted federal laws prohibiting sterilization and performed the operations clandestinely. During the conservative Maximato (1928-1934), three factors enabled doctors to perform sterilizations without legal repercussions. First, during the reorganization of the National University, university-affiliated practitioners who administered public clinics experienced little bureaucratic oversight. Second, the anti-clerical federal climate led officials to turn a blind eye to sterilizations, which were seen as a form of rebellion against the Catholic Church. Third, politicians viewed working class people as culturally backwards, and promoted efforts to scientifically reform their behavior.
By late 1933 the National University implemented a temporary ban on the medical research that students performed on patients for their doctoral theses. Yet even after this measure and the beginning of Lázaro Cárdenas’ populist presidency, doctors continued to perform high numbers of surgeries and some sterilizations. Here the paper analyzes a series of medical students’ theses in order to illuminate a substantial group who opposed the operations, and who argued that their colleagues were committing human-rights abuses. They advocated homeopathies and massages, in line with the ‘indigenist’ cultural trend popular during the Cárdenas regime (1934-1940). Finally, the paper explores the perspective of women who underwent medical procedures. A compiled database of patient records offers insight into the women’s social status, and letters of complaint reveal that patients utilized post-revolutionary rhetoric about the state's duty to protect citizens from abuses. Nonetheless, not all patients identified as victims of sterilizations. Many women sought to control their fertility, and forbidden sterilizations became particularly contentious when patients requested the operations.
By late 1933 the National University implemented a temporary ban on the medical research that students performed on patients for their doctoral theses. Yet even after this measure and the beginning of Lázaro Cárdenas’ populist presidency, doctors continued to perform high numbers of surgeries and some sterilizations. Here the paper analyzes a series of medical students’ theses in order to illuminate a substantial group who opposed the operations, and who argued that their colleagues were committing human-rights abuses. They advocated homeopathies and massages, in line with the ‘indigenist’ cultural trend popular during the Cárdenas regime (1934-1940). Finally, the paper explores the perspective of women who underwent medical procedures. A compiled database of patient records offers insight into the women’s social status, and letters of complaint reveal that patients utilized post-revolutionary rhetoric about the state's duty to protect citizens from abuses. Nonetheless, not all patients identified as victims of sterilizations. Many women sought to control their fertility, and forbidden sterilizations became particularly contentious when patients requested the operations.