Med Students Still Do Pelvic Exams on Women Under Anesthesia

Allele

Allele

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Hi. I'm Art Caplan. I'm at the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU School of Medicine. How many of you watching learned to do a pelvic exam in medical school or residency on an anesthetized woman, who was getting ready to undergo a surgical procedure for some sort of obstetrical/gynecologic condition? Many people did. I thought the practice was over. After all, many groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, have issued statements that that should not happen; no one should be using a woman to learn how to do a pelvic exam without consent before that teaching practice is undertaken.
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(Transcription available underneath video at the link, for those who don't do video.)

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/896847?src=soc_fb_180529_mscpedt_news_mdscp_pelvicexams&faf=1
 
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When I was in my twenties I was counting down from 100 right before a gyno operation.
The doctor and anesthesiologist (males) were cracking jokes about my pubic hair right as I went under....
I have long wondered with disgust what happened to me after that.
What a horrible world this can be sometimes :(
 
Allele said:
When I was in my twenties I was counting down from 100 right before a gyno operation.
The doctor and anesthesiologist (males) were cracking jokes about my pubic hair right as I went under....
I have long wondered with disgust what happened to me after that.
What a horrible world this can be sometimes :(
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That's awful @Allele . :hug:.

I had the heeby jeebies and everyone treated me with absolute respect.

How can they possibly expect you to have any trust of faith in them if they behave like that?
 
andypants said:
That is HORRIFYING.
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My feelings exactly. Doing this type of learning procedure on unconscious women without their consent is essentially treating them like test animals. It shows a complete lack of respect for their basic humanity.
Allele said:
When I was in my twenties I was counting down from 100 right before a gyno operation.
The doctor and anesthesiologist (males) were cracking jokes about my pubic hair right as I went under....
I have long wondered with disgust what happened to me after that.
What a horrible world this can be sometimes :(
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Dr. Jay Goldstein observed that gynecologists (and anesthesiologists) tend to place in the lowest 20% of their graduating class in medical school. That's something to keep in mind, especially as the #MeToo movement continues to reveal that sexual abuse is far more pervasive in our society than most people ever imagined.
 
Allele said:
When I was in my twenties I was counting down from 100 right before a gyno operation.
The doctor and anesthesiologist (males) were cracking jokes about my pubic hair right as I went under....
I have long wondered with disgust what happened to me after that.
What a horrible world this can be sometimes :(
Click to expand...

Grief that's really appalling, so sorry you had to endure that.
 
Sexual Assault. Plain and simple. They should all be in prison, every last one of them.

ETA There is no difference between this & a bunch of blokes deciding to do it to some woman passed out drunk. In fact it's worse because these woman have put their trust in these doctors.
 
I suppose the answer would be to develop a rigor mortis-free cadaver for students to do pelvic exams...
 
I remember this as an issue in the UK news quite some years ago, and googling turns up stuff from 2003, such as this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2642861.stm

...which indicates that the practice was against GMC guidelines even then but was still frequently being done, and yes, WTF? :nailbiting:

I don't know what the situation is in the UK currently but I hope that the media exposure had an effect because, again, WTF? :nailbiting:
 
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