IS MELANIA TRUMP ENTITLED TO PATIENT PRIVACY?

It was depressing today to see the first lady’s surgery announced all over the media.  Okay,  it was some type of benign kidney problem.  But, what if she’d had a breast biopsy?  Or been treated with some potentially embarrassing surgical procedure?   I can’t imagine how the public is entitled to know about such personal things.   Such types of stories (often not true)  used to appear in the National Enquirer, not in the mainstream media.  But that’s all changed now.

Perhaps the White House chose to make this announcement, thinking it would put to rest any speculation by some nosy reporter.  But why is it the business of the general public to know about every medical condition of the POTUS family?   Isn’t there such a thing as patient privacy? Or is the first lady excluded from this policy?   Last time I worked in a hospital, you’d be in big trouble if you revealed anything about a patient –even the fact that they were there, at all. 

Just shows how much the honor of the media has deteriorated in the past few years.   The press kept FDR’s polio withered legs from the public for four terms.  JFK’s serious back problems were covered up, and lightly dismissed by showing him in a rocking chair.   I will admit Betty Ford went public with her breast cancer , but that was her very heroic choice, made to encourage other women to get mammograms.  Many people prefer to keep any medical condition to themselves.  I know a woman who didn’t even tell her best friend she was dying of cancer until the very end.   People handle bad news in their own way, which is their right.  I cringed today when I saw that information  about Melania Trump’s surgery  headlining  across  my phone and desktop.  And then, of course, it was on the evening news.  Way Too Much Information, no matter what the source.  And I would doubt it was the first lady’s idea to have her privacy invaded.

Enough already.