Originally published at: Man tests positive on pregnancy test… but it wasn't that | Boing Boing
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Maybe another major religion is destined to emerge from Jordan…
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That’s a pretty awful medical diagnosis. At least he got to learn about it in an original way, I guess.
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Reminds me of this classic:
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The man did not test positive for pregnancy, the man tested positive for human chorionic gonadotropin. Yes, that’s almost always linked to pregnancy, but is far different from finding a pregnancy in a male human.
What the article fails to mention is why someone ran that test in the first place? Probably an error. If they were using an electronic medical record, we see that error when someone has an “order set” that is not sex specific, and fails to uncheck the pregnancy test. It is pretty common to accidentally run an HCG on a trauma patient, bc the computer order sets aren’t yet ‘smart’ enough to match the HCG and pt’s listed Sex and then flag such an order for review.
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I would think it would be good to do in a trauma situation because you’re not going to take the time to make sure of what bits they have. Better to run some extra pregnancy tests than miss a pregnancy in someone male-appearing. I’ve turned “female” in enough medical records because people jumped to a conclusion based on my name. (When I was born it was a legitimate male name, albeit uncommon.)
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Hmm, maybe someone should look into passing some HIPAA laws there…
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Seems like a crowning achievement.
[Seriously, I hope he’s going to be OK.]
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That’s actually a better choice. To give an opposite example, there are XY humans whose bodies do not recognize testosterone and thus they look like XX humans. Just because someone seems to be male doesn’t mean that’s what’s going on in their hormones. And in this case, testing someone (who apparently is in fact male, inside and out) means they caught an important medical issue.
It’s only slightly more time and money to test everyone, so why not do it, for the edge cases that wouldn’t be caught otherwise?
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Is no one protecting the life of that tumor??
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I thought this was pretty well known. I read years ago that if a male tests positive on a pregnancy test, it’s usually bad news.
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Or from this guy.
Usually it’s an urban legend or lie. They aren’t in the habit of running UI cups through pregnancy tests.
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