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?

Yes, this is how I feel. I don't think this is as difficult to understand as others are making out.

Think thats a rather nasty post.
what about women who specialise in male anatomy?

you can always ask, you just may not get, or may to wait ( but again, that’s up too the person, i can understand some woman not wanting a man).
it’s never bothered me having a bloke. Ive had some better ( rather embarrassing for me!) apps with men.
I've had this procedure with a man, and a breast appt with a man, all ok.
i would rather have them and get them out the way ( but that’s just me).

Yanbu to care but I think if you care then you should have tried to sort it out beforehand. It seems unfair for you to be put out that the hospital didn’t anticipate that a male staff member would be a problem when you didn’t yourself. Assuming the staff would be female was a little unreasonable.
Having said that women should always be able to book women only appointments. That should be a given.
I can see that it would make it a lot more difficult to organize appointments if the hospital had to factor in the sex of the staff especially as I understand there is a big shortage of sonographers at the moment.

I would have been surprised to have a man doing this type of examination.

My psychiatrist wrote to my GP and asked them to add it to my notes that I only see female GPs. This is due to past trauma (domestic abuse). Although the psychiatrist did say that it is normal to have this request and you don’t have to give a reason. I’m not sure how or if this would work in a hospital but I think it is reassuring that the female nurse was there too.

I think it's perfectly acceptable for a woman to not want a man to do this. I also think it's wrong for some of you to be shaming the OP for wanting this. We should be supporting other women's choices not making them out to be unreasonable or stupid. There are many women who would not allow this for say religious reasons. Would you shame them too ?

I've had a lot of fairly intimate procedures done (cytoscopy, operation to remove pilonidal sinus, breast cancer, the start of IVF, two kids, cervical smears etc) and many of the providers were men. At this point what feels like hundreds of healthcare professionals have seen my boobs. I've always been fine with it, I don't carry any trauma from sexual assault or anything, but it is still somewhat of an uncomfortable and vulnerable experience to have a man you do not know examine your breasts, arse crack, vagina etc.

That said, I do think if you have an issue with it then the onus is on you to request a female member of staff. There are some incredibly talented men out there, performing life saving and life-improving healthcare every day. They should not be tarred with the 'all men' brush, but service providers should be understanding of people who do not feel comfortable with them.

Also the only person that made me cry during my cancer treatment was the woman surgeon who was extremely dismissive of my post-op pain. So for me it's much more about the individual than their sex.

Anyone has the right to refuse treatment from a health professional and request someone else, you do need to ask for this though, they aren’t mind readers. I have had this procedure and I wouldn’t have any issues with a male staff member doing it. But it is entirely understandable that other people wouldn’t be comfortable, just request a female staff member. You may have to wait a bit longer but it wouldn’t be a problem and they will be very used to the request.

The comment about tarring men is ridiculous. No one is tarring anyone with anything. It is normal for women who've experienced trauma to struggle with certain situations and a situation in which you're naked from the waist down while a man inserts something into your vagina is about as difficult as it gets.

My trauma is such that I would just about cope with a woman, but a man would be beyond what I could tolerate.

When the letter/email/whatever comes through with the appointment details you ring/email them and say you would like a female member of staff. It’s easy.

He was the Dr, he behaved like a Dr and he had a chaperone.

You have no issue with his professionalism and didnt ask for a female Dr.

I think youre being unreasobable. Men get treated by female Drs and nurses all the time.

YABU

The poster should have been told beforehand ! The person today is male. This would have allowed her to make a choice ! I'm sure there are many women who once put in that situation would feel too embarrassed to say no and so would have gone ahead to avoid a fuss.

I've only had it done once, the sonographer was a woman and I found it very embarrassing. I'm not sure if a man would have made it any worse. Maybe having four children and all male obstetricians has desensitised me.

Thinking about it I actually found a colonoscopy much more embarrassing.

wow are you for real? You would refuse a world class oncologist about breast cancer if he happened to be male?

The funny thing is that every experience I had with male medical staff was a lot more gentle and more careful than with a woman. I have seen too many women dismissing other women's pain, when I have personally not seen men being doubly cautious and attentive.

I make judgements about people, not their gender!

The NHS simply does not have the resources to allow people to make a choice and decline a service because the clinician is the wrong sex. If you pass up a service slot on the day for whatever reason, that slot is gone forever and someone else suffers.

Same here!!

I’ve had loads of gynae stuff done, including scans during mcs - strangely enough I’m ok with men doing that, and with the camera up the bladder procedure a year ago. The female nurse was determined to protect my privacy, shielding me with a blanket while I dropped my jeans and knickers, although seconds later the bloke got a good look at everything as he put the camera in.

I won’t have a male nurse do a smear, on the basis of a male GP doing it really badly decades ago. I wont’t have a male person, however they identify, doing a mammogram, but the last leaflet I got said it would be done by a female member of staff (word was female, not woman) so I’m presuming that is that not an issue. Nor did I want a male midwife.

So my preferences aren’t very logical, I have to admit. I’ve had a breast ultrasound done by a man - not a problem for me. But I don’t want a man having his hands all over my boobs fitting them into the mammogram machine or trying to get DS to bf.

I do think a transvaginal ultrasound is particularly invasive . I’ve had loads of them cos of ivf. Nearly all were by women but once a male doctor had to do it cos of a procedure he was doing during it but there were 2 women with me. I can totally understand your discomfort. It’s a horrible procedure

That’s actually not true

My current hospital states that it's female staff - if they have needed to get a locum, you get told before the appointment starts and given the choice to either see them with another member of staff as chaperone or you see somebody else. At the previous one where they had a male, you could choose to go there or into the other room for a female - he didn't last very long because the majority of women chose to wait.

I’ve just finished radiotherapy for breast cancer and the hospital had several signs up stating that the department has both male and female staff. The appointment letter also stated this. It hadn’t crossed my mind that I might have a male staff member, especially when the breast clinic was staffed with females exclusively. They were professional and a female was also present so I didn’t mind. You are, however, entitled to request that you be seen by female staff only if you prefer.

A lot of people assume it’s more of an issue than it (usually) is to accommodate requests for same sex staff for something like this. I’m a HCP in an outpatient department and we have signs in our department and waiting room saying we have male and female staff members performing tests, that chaperones are provided and to let us know if you prefer someone of the same sex. I would say we go days between any requests for same sex staff, it’s not that frequent. We employ a good mix of male and female staff, so it’s usually fairly easy to accommodate any requests even if the patient has to wait a bit longer, the staff usually just swap patients.

All of our staff are very understanding when someone requests a female for an intimate test. Unfortunately, sexual assault and rape is very common, so I wish people would have a bit more empathy when a woman doesn’t want to intimately examined or touched by a man she doesn’t know. We also have had men requesting male staff for religious reasons, so it goes both ways.

I imagine it could be tricky in a very small department, if staffing is very short or if the test is quite specialised or niche, but for a transvaginal ultrasound (I’ve had many as I’ve had IVF) it shouldn’t usually be much of an issue as most gynae/obs sonographers should be able to do them from my experience. Worst case scenario you would come back on a different day, but there’s never been anywhere where I’ve worked that people have thought it was an unreasonable request.

So if people see threads like this are think it’s not possible or they’re going to be judged or told off and they need to either not have the test or put up and shut up that isn’t usually the case at all.

Ive had 3 hysteroscopys . First done by a man and hardly felt anything. Other 2 by women who really really hurt !

I went for a routine test for bowel cancer and one of the staff was a bloke. I've no idea who had the probe thing because they were behind me and I was trying to pretend I wasn't there, but to be honest, it makes no difference, it's not a fun experience and you're very glad when it's over.

You have to request ahead of time if you have a preference otherwise you get who you get its always been the same throughout all areas of the nhs.

This wouldn’t bother me at all.

I always assume they’re going to be male (usually are in my experience) and am pleasantly surprised when they’re not.