Doctors split on gender surgery in Pullman

Physicians with privileges at Pullman Regional Hospital are divided about whether the medical institution should offer gender reassignment surgeries.

The opinions of four Pullman Regional Hospital doctors were among 240 comments obtained Monday through a Tribune records request. The comments were submitted June 8-20. They are among those the hospital will accept during a period that ends July 3 regarding whether it should routinely provide gender reassignment surgeries.

Dr. Kim Guida, who specializes in family medicine and obstetrics, Dr. Juan Parra, a general surgeon, and Dr. Steph Fosback, a hospitalist who specializes in internal medicine, were among those who favor offering the procedures.

One physician has tried to rally other doctors he considers likely to side with him against gender reassignment surgeries, wrote Fosback, who didn't name her colleague.

It is not the burden of the community to understand all the data surrounding gender dysphoria or if the hospital's medical staff has the capability to perform gender reassignment surgeries, Fosback wrote. "It is the decision of every individual with gender dysphoria as to how much transition they need to feel complete."

On the other side of the issue is Dr. Heidi Abraham, an emergency room physician, who wrote she is "deeply disturbed" about gender reassignment surgeries occurring at her hospital.

Doctors take an oath to abstain from intentional wrong-doing and harm, Abraham said. "In any other context, this would be considered genital mutilation and removal of healthy organs: gross malpractice, and utterly unacceptable behavior for a physician."

Pullman Regional Hospital is considering offering male-to-female, below-the-waist procedures because it is something one of its surgeons - Dr. Geoff Stiller - wants to do to expand his training.

Stiller, who has had privileges at the Pullman hospital for 10 years, performed two of the surgeries in recent weeks under the supervision of doctors with expertise in the specialty. He has declined to speak to the Tribune through a staff member at his office.

Overall the feedback in the comments was split. More than 180 of the comments supported gender reassignment surgery or questioned the hospital's choice to open the decision to public opinion. Many said they had friends or relatives who had benefited by making a transition from one gender to another.

At least 25 comments were against gender reassignment surgery. Those figures, however, shift dramatically with the inclusion of remarks gathered by Christ Church, a conservative, Moscow-based religious group.

Christ Church submitted a petition discouraging the surgeries that had received 225 signatures on the website change.org as of Wednesday morning.

Some of the comments were duplicates or difficult to classify as pro or con.

The supporters include Jeffrey Joswig-Jones of Pullman, who noted the issue doesn't appear to surround the legalities of the procedure or the hospital's capabilities to do it.

"I am amazed this is considered controversial in this day and age," Joswig-Jones wrote. "If PRH wants to be a (regional) hospital, they can't pick and choose what medical procedures they will perform based (on) whimsy and belief."

Ben Zornes of the Moscow-Pullman area disagrees. Gender reassignment surgery alters people's anatomy without changing their DNA, Zornes wrote. "If you proceed down this path, you are leaving the tradition of medical practice behind and have made yourselves servants to public opinion rather than the truth of science derived from the laws of nature and nature's God."

The time frame for what happens next has not been established. The hospital board is scheduled to discuss, but not decide on the matter at July 5 meeting.

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Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.