I’m intrigued by the media reports concerning Jessica Lynch, the US soldier rescued after being held as a POW in Iraq. According to CNN (the same reports are also widely published elsewhere),

Iraqi doctors who treated former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch dismissed on Friday claims made in her biography that she was raped by her Iraqi captors.

[...]

Dr. Mahdi Khafazji, an orthopedic surgeon at Nasiriyah’s main hospital performed surgery on Lynch to repair a fractured femur and said he found no signs that she was raped or sodomized.

Khafazji, speaking at his private clinic in Nasiriyah, said he examined her extensively and would have detected signs of sexual assault. He said the examination turned up no trace of semen.

Why is nobody picking up on the fact that these doctors are ORTHOPODS? I can see them saying “she had no pelvic fractures.” I can even see them noting that “she had a pulse.” But “she wasn’t raped”?? Come on! Don’t try to tell me that these orthopedic surgeons stopped on their way to the O.R. so that they could perform a careful pelvic examination, including a wet mount of a vaginal swab to check under the microscope for sperm.

Give me a break.

There’s no way any orthopod is going to have a clue whether his patient has been raped, unless she tells him “I was raped” (and even then, odds are about 50/50 that won’t end up in the chart. Have you ever SEEN orthopedic admission notes? “Comminuted fracture R mid-shaft femur. No known drug allergies. To OR for internal fixation.” Next note is 2 weeks later: “Patient d/c home, for f/u in 1 wk @ clinic.”)

Frankly even a gynecologist (or forensic pathologist, for that matter) is going to have a hard time being definitive about rape. There may be introital or vaginal abrasions, and there may be semen… but then again there may not. And the absence of evidence, as the saying goes, is not evidence of absence: just because there is no medical evidence of rape does not begin to suggest that no rape took place. PARTICULARLY when the medical “evidence” is a report by an orthopedic surgeon.

Nothing against orthopods, mind you. But, really, a pelvic exam? I don’t think so.