Campaign to rename hysterectomy to uterectomy

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I've just noticed a campaign along with open letter to Wes Streeting to rename hysterectomy to uterectomy.

The letter points out the historical misogyny in the naming of this procedure and goes on to state

"This matters for reasons beyond symbolism, though the symbolism matters too. Research shows that ambiguous terminology like hysterectomy is associated with low patient understanding of the procedure. Women frequently do not know whether their cervix will be removed. They do not know whether their ovaries will be retained. They do not understand the hormonal consequences of different types of surgery. The language itself - rooted not in anatomy but in the idea that women's emotions come from their wombs - actively contributes to the confusion and disempowerment that your strategy rightly seeks to address."

This makes a very good point about not being clear about whether ovaries, or indeed cervix will be retained and the hormonal consequences. However, this is a separate issues to renaming the procedure as the name alone makes none of this clear.

I agree that clear language is important, though in this case hysterectomy has been in use forever so it's meaning is understood whereas introducing 'uterectomy' is likely to bring initial confusion.

I note that some of the women who are sharing this campaign are happy to refer to 'top' and 'bottom' surgery. I hope they would be equally as in favour of clear naming and clear descriptions and an eradication of friendly little euphemisms that minimise those types of surgery as for this name change. That would do a lot of good.

Have they asked for a similar name change for Hysteroscopy, and a retreat from the gaslighting going on there? Slight discomfort my arse.

But we are deemed "hysterical" for asking for sedation/anaesthesia/pain relief for the hopefully newly named uteroscopy. It's even easier to say than hysteroscopy!

I’m neutral on this. I think the point about anatomy is fair but words change meanings and most people aren’t thinking or aware of its history. I think it will just cause confusion as people get used to it.

Hystero is the Greek word for uterus. Like many medical terms they are derived from Greek or Latin. Hysterectomy literally means uterectomy.

The word hysteria is derived from hystero and not the other way round. Since hysteria is no longer used in relation to gynaecological complaints is it worth the hassle.

This is the daftest bit of language policing I've ever heard. As the previous poster says, hystero literally means the same as uterus. Do these campaigners not know that? Do they think the name of the procedure is something to do with some earlier medical fantasy about curing 'hysteria'?

Shall we rename the appendix, in case people think that appendectomy is something to do with book editing? Or perhaps we should rename the spleen in case people think that spleen removal is something to do with curing ill-temper.

Not a fan. Anatomical terms are derived from the Greek and Latin, as a PP says. It just doesn't make a difference and confuses terminology for English speakers, having the knock-on effect of then confusing the non-native English speakers; not to mention across the globe. Now that really isn't inclusive, and adversely affects the more vulnerable. It's a no from me.

It would just cause further confusion.

Why can’t it be a wombectomy?

Tbh, I'd rather the NHS devoted more of its grudging efforts to stop harming mothers and babies in its appalling maternity units than get them involved in yet more irrelevant discussions about language.. Let them go back to using all the accurate words related to women, mothers etc in health care, gynae care and stop using offensive language (uterus havers etc) that exclude women from medical care.
Once they're offering safe medical care and scientifically accurate language in relation to women, then we could discuss this,

Oh - and if they could stop pretending that people can change sex that would be awesome as well.

PC gone wild, it must be on speed.

"Women frequently do not know whether their cervix will be removed. They do not know whether their ovaries will be retained. They do not understand the hormonal consequences of different types of surgery."

My faith in the medical profession has taken a bit of a nose dive recently but surely a women who has been advised to have a hysterectomy is made aware of all of these things beforehand so they can give informed consent for the surgery.

If women don't know if their ovaries or cervix will be retained or not, renaming of the op won't help that in the least. They need proper information which will vary case by case anyway, depending on the reasons for the operation.

Exactly, the word ‘hysteria’ came about because the Greeks thought women’s wombs floated around their bodies and made them act crazy, and they needed a man to have sex with them and impregnate them to keep it stable.

A bit annoying to try to censure medical language which has been in use in medicine globally for centuries.

when I first read your post, I read it as ureterectomy which is removal of the ureter
hysterectomy is a widely understood term based on the Greek.
in veterinary medicine a full spay including ovaries is referred to as an ovariohysterectomy.

Yes, this is totally arse-about-tit as others have pointed out. The problem is the misogyny invoked by the terms hysteria/hysterical. Anecdotally, everyone I’ve talked to who has had a hysterectomy has been able to tell me if their op included the cervix/ovaries as it’s an important part of follow-up care. Of all the problems facing women’s health care, I wouldn’t put this at the top of the list myself.

I actually think it's a good idea and it's the first I've heard of it, but I do think that it would be a really good idea to have the name of the organ in the name of the procedure and for that to be the preferred term

Hystero = uterus = womb

As pps have pointed out, the words mean the same. Changing the name of the surgery wouldn't make those allegedly confused women less confused.

A strange campaign.

I agree with pp that the problem lies with the term hysteria rather than the other way round.
If you were having your tubes and ovaries out you’d have a salpingoophrectomy but who’d have known salpingo- would be for your fallopian tubes? There are loads of prefixes that sound unusual. Cyst- is for bladder, not an actual cyst.

Silly and ignorant idea in my view.

As pps have stated, “hysterical” derives from the greek word for uterus. Medicine is a mish mash of Greek and Latin.

Changing the word won’t have any impact on clarity around the procedure itself.

Changing it to a word that is two characters away from a very different procedure is just asking for trouble.

Thank you. This.

The idea that people may better understand what is meant by 'uterectomy' is absurd. It isn't even obvious that it refers to the uterus, since it only has two syllables of that word. As well as being possibly confused with ureterectomy, it also sounds like it has the word rectum in it.
Even the suffix 'ectomy' is challenging, if it occurs in a word you aren't already very familiar with.

Every time people perform a concern with one or another aspect of social justice by inventing problems with existing words I feel sickened by the fact that we have all colluded in pretending, in manipulating words and appearence instead of making real commitments to real efforts to make real changes.

I was at an NHS meeting the other day that was aimed at improving mental health care. It brought together healthcare professionals with service users and carers. One person began using the term 'unaliving' to refer to killing oneself. She kept on repeating it and as I gradually worked out what she meant I felt almost sick with horror. My own son killed himself, very violently, and this ridiculous airbrushing is meant to help? This disgusting euphemism for an act that people already find hard to talk about. Other people chipped in with righteous and utterly unreflective smuggery about avoiding the phrase committing suicide, because (for the purposes of performing righteousness) they had decided to believe the fiction that this formerly crime-related term is the source of stigma around suicide.

I felt so sick because it was obvious that the meeting wasn't actually going to achieve anything. The shortage of money and the massive bureaucratic inertia in the NHS stymies every effort at real change, and people use stupid word games to fool themselves that their activities nonetheless have value.

I'm sorry for your lost, it must be difficult for you to have to deal with people who think 'unaliving' is an acceptable alternative to committing suicide/killing themself.

My impression from the few meetings in the health service I was in, many moons ago, is the same as yours. As the admin, I was taking notes to produce the minutes, so I listen a lot more than anyone else in the room did. I can't recall any one of the meetings being worth it, they were full of people just pontificating and wasting time, they achieved nothing.

I couldn’t agree with you more and I’m very sorry for your loss. In my field there has been a huge swing towards including lived experience, but it’s only ever the type of lived experience that means tinkering around the edges. Silly language like unaliving or all that nonsense about ‘committing’. I’m sorry you had to even sit through that, I know you won’t have been alone in thinking it utter rubbish.

I’m about to have a hysterectomy so I’m fully up to speed on the meaning of the word, I’m not confused and I know exactly what is and is not going to be removed because otherwise I could not give consent. If the creators of the petition want to bother Wes Streeting about women’s health (once they’ve done some reading on the origin of the words that upset them) they’d be better off doing so on the issue of waiting lists, or variable GP training that blocks some women from even getting to a gynaecologist. Their kind of performative feminism gets on my tits.

The name of the organ is in the term. Maybe you mean it would be good for people to learn the names of their organs?

The only way I can imagine any genuine confusion is around whether a cervix is retained or not. And a ‘uterectomy’ would still need to be defined as ‘supracervical’ or total to describe that.

Campaign to teach people the names of their body parts? I’m right there.

When I see the word 'Uterectomy' for some reason I immediately think of the urinary system. Also not sure why using this word would make women more aware about whether the procedure also involved removal of ovaries and cervix.

I sense that it is part of a larger movement to un-sex the body and remove the distinctions between male and female. Transhumanist attempts to rise above or detach Self from body and the growing practice of surrogacy with terms such as 'gestational carrier' are also part of this.

I recall former MP Caroline Nokes attempts to replace 'Woman' as a protected category through separating a female person from her bodily functions - in law; so that 'pregnancy', 'menstruation' and 'menopause' would become the protected characteristics instead.

She was, of course, very keen on the idea that TWAW and TMAM.

MyThreeWords my sincere and deepest condolences.