Is Performing Pelvic Exams on Unconscious Women Without Informed Consent Legal?

[Quackers]

Just to clarify, I am a guy and this doesn’t affect me personally. I just wanted to bring awareness to this issue because I do not believe this is common knowledge to that many people.


I was doing some research this morning on the primaries of all things, when I stumbled across a statement that didn’t sound believable.

An unconscious woman may be given multiple vaginal exams by multiple people without ever knowing it happened.

After looking into this, I landed on a Snopes page that does in fact confirm it to be true. In 45 states, it is legal. Most of the time it is done by medical students or groups of medical students, even though there’s no medical reason for the exam. They can take turns inserting their fingers all while you’re unconscious.

Now I know some will say it’s to help teach the next generation of doctors, but then why no consent? Also, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Medical Association, and the Association of American Medical Colleges has each condemned the practice, yet it’s still legal.

If you’d like to read more, here’s the link to snopes.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pelvic-exams-informed-consent/

[dewsgirl]

1. As a woman this sounds horrifying, if I was in a coma and

found out random doctors had examined me down there, for whatever reason, it would feel like a violation.

[tblue37]

2. These are anesthetized patients undergoing surgery, which means

they were conscious before surgery, so they could have been given the option to consent or refuse. But of course most would probably refuse, so they weren't given a choice.

[Ohiogal]

3. I appreciate your post

And please know ... I’m not trying to jump on you or anything.... but when men say these kinds of things “do not affect me personally “ it gets under my skin. If a man has a wife, daughter, or a mother who is put in this dreadful situation, how can he possibly say that it does not affect him personally? Men, would you be unaffected if some hospital was doing this to your wife?

That said, as a woman, I find this egregiously violating and horrifying. Just another one of those “women’s issues” like a thousand others that gets dismissed every day....

[marble falls]

4. I'm a male with bladder cancer. The examinations I have had are very personal ...

and so many I cannot count them. The BCG treatments are very personal. I've been touched and probed by a lot of students or techs new to the process and I was told about this every time before the procedures, which also included six surgeries where I was told when there were students involved before anesthesia.

I have a small experience of what a woman might go through in a gyno exam/treatment.

It is an outrage what Snopes describes. It is treatment of women as meat.

[packman]

5. Sadly, there comes times when a woman or a man is "meat"

I've gone through that experience too many times lately. I used to have, what I thought , was a dignity and a choice of what I did with my body. But, as the saying goes, "You know there's a point where your private parts become public parts". That being said, I agree with you that such violations of a person borders on criminal. If there is an absolute medical need, so be it. However having your body being used in such a manner for training purposes should not be allowed.

[Ohiogal]

7. Oh yeah tell me about it!

When I was in the hospital laboring with my first child (36 hours) it felt like everyone in the hospital except the cleaning crew came in and had a look and felt around. BUT I was conscious when they did so.

I had reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy 12 years ago, same thing. I even had to sit there while the medical students stared at me and took before and after pictures. But I had given my consent.

I find it extremely inappropriate for any medical personnel to be violating an unconscious woman in the manner of the snopes article without prior consent unless there is a specific medical reason to do so. It should be illegal, IMO.

[marble falls]

8. I used to joke with one surgeon, "Am I a patient or a training aid?" ...

I had to give up my Lutheran modesty pretty darn quick in this process, as when I was told with just me and a young woman (who looked like she was on my daughter's HS volley ball team), to strip to just my shirt and socks and get on the table and it's just the two of us in the room. Men who are not in the know joke about this sort of circumstance but there's nothing funny or "sexy" about it. Or to have catheters inserted with just me and the female nurse in the room.

Or the time after a surgery the folley wasn't coming out easy and I was led pantless by the tube to the next room by a female nurse, I told her we might have a hard time explaining this to an outsider.

Women as a group have this kind of thing happen to them regularly and we two males are exceptions to men's general experience of not knowing of this sort of thing.

And to make that treatment for women unknown and uniformed - well it makes what happened to me a nothing burger because I was always informed and always had the option of someone else in the room or to have a male perform the procedure.

[Ohiogal]

9. Oh, man, that had to be embarrassing!

I swear, the concept of patient dignity is totally lost on some of these people.

[marble falls]

11. I felt sorry for her. She was working to help me. I appreciated her being there to help me ...

these things do happen and she was much more embarrassed than I. With cancer if the the choice is between treatment and not exposing my shockingly white butt .... I will do whats necessary to help me and give him/her that little bit more experience to get it down pat. She forgot to release the air in the balloon that kept the bag and tube in place. She'll never do that again and it was just just one less brick in my modest Lutheran wall.

A lot of those bricks have fallen since; at least in hospitals, clinics and doctor's offices.

[Ohiogal]

12. Yes, when you know it's unfortunately medically necessary ...

And give consent ...See my post #7

On an unconscious or mentally ill person, not medically necessary .... unconscionable.

[marble falls]

13. TOTALY UNCONSCIONABE!!!!

[Ilsa]

6. I hope you can decline it next time.

Tell them it is affecting you emotionally, and you still have rights.

[marble falls]

10. I realized pretty quick my life or at least its length is on the line and they were here ...

to help me and they kept me informed of what, how and why everything they did was for my good. This has been going on since 2012. It's been an evolution. The first time (and only) a female PA asked me to drop trou and bend over the examining table for a prostrate exam, I hesitated long enough for her to ask me if there was something wrong. I told her this was new for me and I was a Lutheran, I just needed a moment to collect and steel myself.

My rights have been patiently and repeated recounted for me and I am comfortable about everything that's happened in my treatment even if I was embarrassed in the moment.

All this was done in a veterans hospital except the last biggest surgery which was done at a hospital that has a relationship with VA. My VA surgeon didn't have the experience the civilian surgeon had ad there were complications for this from the effects of an earlier surgery.

Scott and White was good, but I honestly think the Temple VA is just a tinge better especially about the information being given to me before doing a procedure.

If I were a woman in a civilian hospital I don't know that I would be so sure about my experience from what I've learned over the years.

[Takket]

14. why? what exactly are they teaching?

I don't understand this at all. i'm a man as well. I've never heard of a man having his rectum penetrated when he is unconscious so they students can "learn" something. What exactly are they learning?

"Hey, this woman was just in a car accident and has a massive head injury, but before we deal with that, I want to teach you kids something about the vagina, so put your gloves on." Is that's what going on here???????? Unless you are a gynecologist what reason does a doctor have to be going anywhere near ANY body part, regardless of what it is, that isn't related to whatever caused a person to become unconscious?

Is it legal to handle a man's penis when he is unconscious?