Dr. James Burt believed women's bodies were broken, and only he could fix them. In the 1950s, this Ohio OB-GYN developed what he called "love surgery," a unique procedure he maintained enhanced the sexual responses of a new mother, transforming her into "a horny little house mouse." Burt did so without first getting the consent of his patients. Yet he was allowed to practice for over thirty years, mutilating hundreds of women in the process.
It would be easy to dismiss Dr. Burt as a monstrous aberration, a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein. Yet as medical historian Sarah Rodriguez reveals, that's not the whole story. The Love Surgeon asks tough questions about Burt's heinous acts and what they reveal about the failures of the medical establishment: How was he able to perform an untested surgical procedure? Why wasn't he obliged to get informed consent from his patients? And why did it take his peers so long to take action?
The Love Surgeon is both a medical horror story and a cautionary tale about the limits of professional self-regulation.
| ISBN: | 9781978800960 |
| Publication date: | 17th July 2020 |
| Author: | Sarah B Rodriguez |
| Publisher: | Rutgers University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 272 pages |
| Series: | Critical Issues in Health and Medicine |
| Genres: |
Gender studies: women and girls Legal ethics and professional conduct Legal systems: regulation of legal profession Medical ethics and professional conduct Health, illness and addiction: social aspects Women’s health History of medicine Gynaecology and obstetrics Popular medicine and health |