Would you see a male GP for a personal health issue?

[rhaenyraT]

Ive always asked for female doctors when being seen for this long standing issue before (to do with my arse basically - likely to need to get my pants off and possible have a digital exam). However this time I can only see a male GP or I have to wait ages. I’ve gone ahead and booked the appointment and keep telling myself that it’s just a body part to them but I still feel weird about seeing a male for a personal issue like this. Am I being ridiculous?

I think chaperones are totally standard now @moonraker0. There was a female nurse brought into the room when I had a breast examination by a male specialist. (There was no other role for the nurse at that point, she was just there as a chaperone).

My husband had a willy problem a while ago and the GP surgery said they would book him in with a male Dr (he didn’t specifically ask, they just offered). But when he got to the surgery there had obviously been a mixup as the GP he saw was female. Before she examined him she offered to bring in a chaperone. DH wasn’t bothered and the appointment went ahead but I think they are supposed to offer chaperones now for examinations for intimate body parts.

I've always just accepted the first available appointment that was convenient to me - my schedule can be quite awkward so I wouldn't want the extra hassle of limiting which GP I could see, it often takes weeks of flipping through the diary to find a slot that works for me. I don't recall ever having a chaperone for initimate examinations but probably did as I've had fibroids and 3 dcs so I must have done.

I can't say I would be happy about it but I would be embarrassed to show my genitals to a woman too. Actually, I've just remembered I had a lovely male GP many years ago who I went to when I had an anal fissure. He had to do an internal examination to diagnose me. It was all very discreet, as I recall. It's not like a smear test when you feel all is on display. I lay on my side with legs together and he just inserted one finger. I'd say the relief at getting a diagnosis and treatment outweighed the embarrassment.

what a weird post

there are ALWAYS women very keen to rush in to say how they don’t mind at all as long as the person is qualified/the whole world saw their fanny when they gave birth/the worst medical care they’ve had has been from female practitioners etc etc.

they are not RUSHING IN any more than you are?

And why do you think their experience is not true?

You are very fast to dismiss their experience. Don't you see the irony

My male GP is brilliant, bit anything involving intimate examinations I go to a woman.

Sure, saying those things in a neutral way is not belittling, but what I meant was that the tone is often belittling. I can’t demonstrate that without trawling back through historic MN threads to find evidence, but I have certainly seen it many times. It’s a particular tone where the questioner is made to feel silly or like they’re making a fuss, or that they’re being too precious about their body because the Dr sees lots of bodies and doesn’t care.

A GP in my town was struck off and prosecuted a while ago for making inappropriate comments to women during intimate examinations. He also carried out unnecessary vaginal examinations. Both of these crimes could have been thwarted if a chaperone had been present. I don’t believe it is particularly common for Drs to assault patients but I will say that every time it comes up in the news, it always seems to be a male Dr. Remember that mad surgeon removing women’s breasts for no reason? And the other guy who wrote his initials on someone’s liver? Sadly there are some very dodgy Drs and they are usually men.

Why? Women get sexual feelings from touching other women. Weird rationale.

Standard practice and guidance now. I had a young male GP working with me and he would always ask me to come and chaperone him when doing intimate examinations.
It's hard as we didn't have time set aside for this so if I was running late in my surgery it would make it worse but more important the patient gets examined than sent away to come back. We didn't always have a nurse late on
a Fri afternoon.
When I was nearing retirement I used to ask the male patients if they wanted a chaperone for the more intimate examinations but they rarely did. Usually saying they'd known me for 25 years and that I'd probably seen it all before!
Nowadays the royal college of GP s advised we should insist on chaperones and it should be someone medically trained as a receptionist won't know what's appropriate in an examination.

In the few years before I retired

I didn’t say their experience isn’t true. I’m talking about the tone some posters use when they reply to question like this. I’ve been on MN about 18 years and seen it plenty of times. Women being made to feel silly about their feelings.

I spent no time at all thinking about choosing the word ‘rushing’. Maybe I picked the wrong word. Nevermind; I don’t think it makes any difference to the meaning of my post.

To add- I don’t dismiss their experience at all. I fully believe them; I know plenty of women who feel the same way. I’m just pointing out that the way comments on these threads are worded can sometimes feel belittling.

It’s your body and if you’re not comfortable, you’re not comfortable, however if you really cannot wait you’ll have to bite the bullet and see a male gp with have a chaperone. Probably don’t want to chance it getting worse.

My first gyno was male and he had a nurse in and he was absolutely lovely. Would have loved to be under his care when I had had children. Mixed bag for two of my pregnancies, the female ones were the worse during my first pregnancy, second pregnancy, bad male consultant that I called immediately after and said I didn’t want to be under his care, third was better but one female midwife annoyed me by telling me something didn’t exist when it did and she just hadn’t heard of it, and that tells me all I need to know about how recent her knowledge was.

A woman another time who told me a painful lump in my belly was fat (which a simple google search says that isn’t normal) and me calling 111 months later and being seen by a male gp who sent me straight to the hospital for a strangulated hernia, emergency surgery needed.

It really depends on the person.

You don’t get to pick your GP… you’re just given one

Less than 2% of women are lesbians. And women are also less likely to comitt sexual crimes even if they are a lesbian.

I’ve seen male doctors for these things and had the appointments go as well as anyone would hope. I’ve also had a range of female doctors and had some of the appointments go well and then also had some absolutely traumatic experiences. The only time I felt mildly weird was when I chatted to a mum every week at my child’s dance class and one week her husband turned up and it turned out to be a doctor who’d done a very personal examination on me. Obviously I didn’t say anything to anyone and he probably didn’t even recognise me. But it definitely felt slightly awkward on my side, not sure why.

You can certainly ask to see someone else. I have done.

Yes you can but when there are 5-10 GPs and you don’t know them how can you know who to choose? You’re randomly assigned them to begin with

Rarely see the same GP twice at our place, it’s like a conveyor belt of randoms.

I have said Yanbu but would add that it depends how urgently you feel you need to be seen.

You really can't see the need for a 2nd person to be there?

Have a wee think about that!

I find the chaperone idea worse, it's bad enough without the receptionist having a look too

If I was in that much pain I wouldn’t careless of if it was male

I think it's because if you can be fussy about who you want to be seen by, it can't be that serious.

We are not in an ideal world and everyone knows the state the NHS is in, and how hard it is to see a GP, let alone a specialist. I have seen people cry, literally cry, being so frustrated and lost because they were unable to get care when they needed it.

So when someone is making a big thing about being fussy, having requirements and demands, fine. But that's why there's not much sympathy when everybody else would be grateful to be seen at all.

Again, not an ideal world, not an ideal medical environment, but we deal with what we have for now!

sorry, but not as a standard practice, no.

I get doctors nowadays HAVE to, because they're facing accusations right, left and centre, but apart from that, no.

See I think framing it as fussiness could be quite insulting to women who have had trauma from sexual abuse or assault. It feels
a bit like you’re saying it’s a privileged person’s problem and I don’t agree with that.

We all know the NHS isn’t fit for purpose anymore. (Re the tears- my DD has cried on me numerous times over the very long period that she has been waiting for a gynae appointment). But that doesn’t make it easier for women to ignore their feelings.

but when it's a scheduled medical appointments, people can make demands. It will take as long as it takes, but it's workable.

When it's an alleged emergency, it's ridiculous, sorry. A&E rota cannot be made based on sex and gender, that I would find insulting. Either it's urgent and you see anyone, or it's not. people are not trying to abuse you, they are trying to help you, Expecting other patients to get lower in priority because you have specific demands is unreasonable.

No one is waiting to be rescued from a car crash or house fire until a female member of staff can turn up.