Am I the only one that hates a young medical student sitting in on my appointment at infertility clinic

[tevion]

Just wondering if its just me but every time I have attended an appointment at the infertility clinic with my gyno they have had a student sitting in and I hate it.
I just feel that with such a sensitive subject like infertility that its an invasion of privacy but I don,t have the guts to say I don,t want them there in case I am thought of as odd.
Does anyone feel the same or is it just me.

You can say that you do not want them there. It is the only way they learn though but if you do not want them with you during your appointment then you are within your rights to ask them to leave.

They should ask you in advance tbh, when the student is not present and you should have the opportunity to say no. Having said that, as a student midwife I do feel very strongly that this is how we learn and you wouldn't want a doctor who said 'oh sorry, I don't know how to save your life as I wasn't allowed in on that day.' would you?? What is the difference between a doctor and a student in privacy terms? They are both bound by confidentiality, whether the consultation is about ingrowing toenails or infertility. I don't mean to be blase but students do have to learn somehow.

I always get asked in advance and a student has sat in on all my mc consultations, taken bloods etc. We found them to be lovely caring young men who will go on to be fine Drs. We spend a fair amount of time moaning about the clinical and cold way we are treated as women on the infertility/mc boards and I hope that these students experiencing what we are going through at the coal face can begin to put a more human face on such private and painful experiences.

Depends on the student...

There was a trainee doctor who wanted to take my history for 'experience' and I said 'no.'

But DS was delivered by a student midwife and it was fine.

If you feel intimidated by saying no in front of the doc, could you mention it to the receptionist or nurse?

just say you don't want the student as you feel uncomfortable.

i am all for learning etc but after a few bad experiences with student doctors in sensitive situations i just think feck'em.

You can say no. I tend to allow medical students to sit in on all my doctors appointments because I feel it is a sort of public duty and it is nice for the student involved. I knew a lot of medics at University so I guess I feel comfortable with it.

That said, I once made the mistake of allowing a medical student to do lumber puncture on me (meningitis) and he got it wrong. He went through a nerve and it felt like my groin had been electrocuted. I did apologise afterwards to him because I had said the 'F' word as I screamed out.

Probably would not allow them to try that again.

As others have said you can ask for them not to be there if you are really not comfortable.
However, like Reikizen, I would just like to point out that the only way for medical students to really learn about their future career is to observe. How can our future fertility consultants (or any doctors for that matter) be expected to know what a normal pelvic examination feels like or the best way to handle the sensitive issue of discussing fertility if they have not seen it done before? A medical students training is very intense and they may not spend more than a few weeks observing in such a clinic. By allowing them to learn we help enable thorough training for the doctors that will be looking after us in future years.
As a former medical student I know how hard it is to try and gain enough experience in some areas. We were supposed to observe at least 10 normal deliveries on labour ward. The male medical students really struggled to acheive this, so they finished thier training without any confidence to help deliver a baby should they need to in an emergency.
I apprecaite these are sensitive issues but medical students are bound by the same confidentiality code as doctors. Sorry if I sound unsupportrive but observation is a hugely important part of training.

When I had an EP I was examined (with my consent) by a student doctor along with a 'real' doctor and the fact the the doctor was constantly asking the student what she thought and what she could see/feel made the whole thing more interesting for me because I knew what they were doing rather than when it's just noe doc and they don't say anything... mind you I was asking lots of questions too even in the midst of a EP I wanted to find out more about it!

Maybe this has changed in the last few years, but I think that the medical profession would do much better if medical students were much more tightly reined. I have worked in hospital environments in my time and heard medical students laughing about patients and saying some very inappropriate things. I wonder why some people go into the medical profession, when they have no respect at all for people - and I can only suppose that it's because they like the "doctor as God" thing.

Having said that, I personally have also known some very dedicated, wonderful doctors who have treated me very well, and Ithat am very grateful to (including my fertility specialist). If all doctors had it as a big part of their training to behave like that then I would be much less reluctant to have students sitting in.