Male hospital staff

[ToadRage]

I don't really know how i feel about this or if I'm just being a bit precious. I had an appointment for a transvaginal ultrasound a couple of weeks ago. I was a bit shocked to find the sonographer was a man. A female nurse was present and she did all the talking, he barely said a word to me. I have had ultrasounds before but they have always been done by women. He was professional and nothing out of the ordinary happened but I felt a bit awkward as I haven't had a man down there except my husband in 20+ years, not even a male doctor. Am I wrong in thinking I should have been told it was going to be done by a man, maybe given the option to request a woman or AIBU?

I think the point that InterestedDad was trying to make was that men can have intimate and potentially humiliating medical procedures too. There are lots of women on this thread that equally haven't found it a problem having intimate examinations done by male HCPs. Of course he will never know what it is like to have a transvaginal scan but is he not allowed to share his personal experiences of intimate and potentially uncomfortable procedures?

I have a female GP and I would always ask for a female practitioner for any intimate examination. Other examinations I don't care who does it.

Every person removing their clothes in a healthcare setting will feel awkward and embarrassed, every person having a rectal examination will feel awkward and embarrassed. Some men may feel embarrassed having a female examine them but as someone with previous healthcare experience I never encountered it. Tbh most seemed to love it but that's anecdotal obviously.

However most women will feel absolute discomfort and uneasy if a male hcp was doing vaginal scans or mammograms and would be entitled to refuse.

Every person removing their clothes…every person having a rectal exam..?

Most women will feel absolute discomfort….

But only some men may feel embarrassed…most seemed to love it - how do you know they weren’t covering up their embarrassment with bravado, much like a PP who wanted to say ‘You could have bought me dinner first’ to a male HCP during a TV scan?

An awful lot of generalisations and projections there!

Do you have endometriosis up your bumhole, around the uterine and sacral ligaments and the Pouch of Douglas? And a football sized uterus from adenomyosis that is almost constantly bleeding and due to the migrated endometrial cells in the scar site of a Caesarian section, you can't even tolerate the pressure of an abdominal ultrasound?

Tell me exactly how all that feels, add in a bit about historical trauma from the deliberate acts of males targeted specifically at the area, take into account the difference in nerve endings and blood supply to the female reproductive system compared to the male one and let me know why you think men experience exactly the same.

For a bonus point, you can explain to me what a speculum feels like in that situation as it's being used, exactly what having a paracervical block for Mirena insertion feels like especially when the final injection is done, how it feels to have to put your feet up, the back raised and tipped back and chuck in why some six foot two male doctor with hands like shovels is exactly the same as a female nurse practitioner who could say directly from experience 'You definitely need local anaesthetic for this, I did' and knew that it was important to wait longer than 'standard' to give it time to take effect whilst also knowing that it caused pain in itself that wouldn't go with time. And knew exactly what absorbency pads to provide for afterwards.

After all, it's not a million miles away.

I thought the Pouch of Douglas was in the Isle of Man. That's why I left nursing.

If that's your level of understanding of female anatomy (or your 'humour'), it's for the best that you stay out of the conversation as you're only proving why so many women don't want males around them.

Unless you think doctors should have personal experience of the disease they are treating, how is this relevant? My surgeon doesn’t have the same disease as I do, should I sack her off and find someone else?

And if you’re so adamant about keeping men out of women’s healthcare, why use the outmoded and non-anatomical term ‘pouch of Douglas’?

I don’t have endometriosis or adenomyosis, and haven’t had a caesarian so couldn’t tell you how treatment feels for any of those. Does that mean I need to be ridiculed and told I don't have any empathy?

I have had a mirena coil inserted and didn’t need anaesthetics or pain relief so a female nurse saying I definitely needed it would have been pointless and I don’t want treatment based on the personal experience of the practitioner. I have had numerous mammograms and smears and haven’t found them to be excruciatingly painful as some women do. Again, do those experiences mean I need to be ridiculed and told I have no empathy?

I turned up for a gynecology appointment, and it was a male consultant.
The female nurse, who was bringing me in, I paused before entering the room, and asked if I could speak to her privately.
I them explained to the nurse (while trying to be as brief as possible about why I wasn’t comfortable with a male gynecologist). She was incredibly understanding, and both her, and the male gynecologist could not have been kinder and more apologetic.
They said it was entirely their mistake, and would make sure it was clarified in all future arrangements.
I never had a problem again. I was actually really impressed by how sweet and genuine the staff were.

This is how it should be. It's what NHS policy states ie that you can request. I don't understand why so many people on here are against others exercising this right. Even with my GP practice I can choose.

If someone has had bad experiences with white people can they request a non-white medical practitioner?

If you had a strong preference for a clinician of a certain gender then that is on the patient to raise. The NHS can't read your mind.

You have a right to ask, the NHS has no obligation to fulfil your request as it may not be able to depending on staffing. But you can ask.

Can't say it would bother me but I can understand why it would others, hence why it's important to speak up if you're someone it would bother.

NHS policy is that patients have a right to ask. There is no policy stating the NHS has an obligation to fulfil that request. How could they have that obligation? It would be chaos ensuring every role had a male and female at all times to ensure everyone gets their preference.

Common myth I see on here, that you have a right to a clinician of your preferred gender. You very much don't.

I haven't had a transvag scan but i have had a man perform a breast ultrasound, it felt quite rough, but then i remembered that they have to push pretty hard for a baby scan too. It didn't make any difference to me that it was a bloke.

If you had read my post properly then I said it was a request . I didn't say a guarantee. More to the point - It's also not about GENDER it's SEX . Using the wrong term doesn't give your post any credibility .

My first Mirena aged 25 was like that. This one, however, definitely wasn't (which was a surprise to me - had I not gone with the nurse's 'no, you will need it', I dread to think how painful it would have been).

You would deserve ridicule if you used your unproblematic insertion as grounds to dismiss women for finding it, even with anaesthesia, incredibly painful, though - or to refuse access to local anaesthesia at all/not mention that it was even an option in the first place because 'it's not painful'.

Fact is that a significant proportion of the female population does not want a male involved in those situations as not only is there the issue of medical misogyny, not only is there the issue of male sexual violence and not only is there the issue of the sheer impossibility of comprehending the experience from a female point of view, there is the issue of them thinking that they couldn't possibly be less suitable than a female professional and it's just women being illogical and ridiculous to not want a male there from the outset.

I’d assumed you meant female health care from this comment I have no idea why any man would seek to train in this job and think it’s shocking that the NHS would allow it.**

That doesn’t add any useful meaning to your statement below:

Sonography is not gynaecology.

Funnily enough - I know that sonography isn’t gynaecology - how mad is that? While you were accusing me of being ‘woefully misinformed’ you might have missed the fact that sonographers specialise in different areas. These men choose to specialise in women’s health areas.

but unfortunately it’s not only female healthcare where women have been harmed by male physicians.

I’m not suggesting it’s the only area or that the majority of abuse cases are by a man in the home but that doesn’t mean we should make it easier for men to target women in specific scenarios. Most stranger assaults are by opportunists. They also look for situations that give them plausible deniability.

Hyperbole isn’t going to achieve that.

Nothing I said was ‘hyperbole’ but real cases, At least you’re consistent in doubling down on your dismissal of the risks to women and their experiences. Just wave those away.

Everything has a risk, it’s not whether any rapes or sexual assaults are acceptable, it’s about balancing those risks.

Exactly what ‘balance’ are you hoping to be achieved? There are no measurable benefits to women to have male medical staff trained in female healthcare instead of females.

Are you thinking about the benefits to men? More jobs available to them, maybe a nicer working environment, and for the small number, a ready stream of victims to sexually assault while claiming plausible deniability as it is literally his job. And some women are arguing for that to be enabled. 🤯

Where are the facts that a significant proportion of women don’t want men in these situations?

It’s everything to do with biological sex if you are one of the many women who do not want men involved in your intimate care. I’m happy for you that you got your procedure completed, but there are many of us who do care what sex the sonographer is. We care very much.

I don’t have the energy, but please tell us your solution, since we should all be afraid of all men. What should we do?

Oh dear.

You’re not actually trying to equate women having boundaries around men carrying out intimate procedures with racists are you??

Give yourself a very stern talking to please.

Ok, at least you’ve stopped minimising or dismissing the issues around male medical staff and intimate procedures.

I’m not sure why you think we should be ‘afraid of all men’ - that’s a very sweeping statement. I am definitely not afraid of all men.

I recognise, like many other realistic people, (men included) that some men present a risk to women. We need to ensure that we take appropriate steps to minimise those risks.

Just waving them away with glib observations about being more likely be attacked by a man you know and over-generalisations about risk does not help.

There is no actual need for men to be trained in intimate procedures for women. There is also not a huge amount of enthusiasm for it among men in general, possibly because many decent men recognise how uncomfortable it would be for women.

So with misguided organisations trying to encourage more men into such disciplines for opaque reasons, you are already getting a self selecting group that may be more likely to be in it for bad reasons.

Why anyone would argue for that I don’t know.

So no solutions then, just more sweeping generalisations and opinion. Got it 👍

I agree. A few years ago,I was made to feel I was being unreasonable when I requested that I have a female member of staff to remove my IUS. Yet on the website,it stated that you may request a female member of staff!