AIBU to expect a gown and privacy during an early mammogram?

[Cranberry2020]

Today I attended for my first mammogram under the screening age due to family history.
i was called and the radiographer didn’t introduce herself. Inside the room she just asked me to undress to waist and started asking me questions. I wasn’t offered a gown etc and I got down to bra and felt cold. I requested a gown for dignity and she said they don’t have them here. That’s the machine is only over there. I felt uncomfortable and tried to ask again. She denied one. She then said she needed to get someone else in and went and got the receptionist who was an older lady. The radiographer then gaslit me by telling the receptionist how unreasonable I was asking for a gown etc. that the receptionist had to hear two sides but then didn’t let me speak. I was still in my bra and now the door to the corridor was open. The receptionist told me if I’d wanted a gown I should have mentioned it earlier. I left the wrong way and came back and heard they were still talking about me negatively. I then found a nurse and explained by now generally upset. The consultant appeared and said that it’s down to perceived communication which I couldn’t accept completely as I really asked nicely for a gown and explained why. She also said that if I left now I’d have to ‘wait a long time for another one’. I’ve been left reeling. I have other long term conditions and do have some medical PTSD. I’ve had lots of healthcare interactions including a recent internal gynae scan yet I felt fully cared for and treated with dignity and respect. AIBU? Thanks

I understand no gown during the actual clinical procedure. I am not fine with waiting topless, answering questions topless and walking around topless. These are not clinical procedures.
@sittingonabeach @TheAutumnCrow what I am hoping my feedback to the hospital will achieve is a change in protocol to allow
women to bring a shirt/shawl and keep it on until the the actual mammogram is going on. Also a change in information to women attending letting them know there is no gown and to bring a shirt/shawl that can be worn until the point of the actual scan and put back on immediately after.

It was not good for them to be openly criticising you like that. They have to know the first mammogram is a bit nerve wracking and should have treated you more kindly.

I have had several mammograms and there is no need for a gown. I usually wear a sports bra that I can slide my arms out and push down to my tummy and then easily shrug it back on. You can’t hold a bra in your hand because they place your arms in certain positions on the machine to get the mammogram just right.

Too, they always have to ask the identity questions and for informed consent so there is no point getting undressed from waist up until that is done. I like having a sports bra I can just shrug back on right away so I’m only topless when in front of the machine.

I’m a retired mammographer and the main reason we never had gowns is because they make getting a good picture more difficult.

The gowns I have been given (for more than thirty years of mammograms) have velcro closures at the shoulders, which are opened for the procedure, one side at a time. As I mentioned above, a gown is standard in the US.

Completely agree with you. It's called dignity a d all women are entitled to optimal dignity. I find it extraordinary that health professionals do not understand.

Not everywhere in the US.
In a couple of States, it was very much an outer waiting room and then batches of us (they’d call say 3 at once) would do the initial questions with a nurse, and then handed a gown and told your in #3 (cubicle #). There would cubicles with lockers, undressed, put on gowns, and then to an inner waiting room where we would be called individually. (One place I went the gowns were in the cubicles in a stack and you just grabbed one)

In other States, it has been straight from outer waiting room to a room with the mammogram right there. There is usually small area that’s like a big shower room with a curtain and inside a bench or chair and hooks on the walls. You do the indentity and consent questions as soon as you get in the room while fully dressed, sometimes they ask are you wearing deodorant or lotions? If you forgot and have it on or came straight from work, they hand you a baby wipe and you’re then asked to go behind the curtain to undress & if needed wipe your underarms and breasts. Then you come out topless and it’s literally steps to the machine. It’s all done, you go back get your clothes back on and if they have anything else, usually it’s do you have any questions? Or your results should be available in x days. And off you go.

One state I was in, they actually had you wait after the mammogram in a row and after an hour or do, you’d go into the radiographer’s office and be shown your mammogram and told of the results same day. I have only had that once.

One state I was in, they actually had you wait after the mammogram in a row and after an hour or do, you’d go into the radiographer’s office and be shown your mammogram and told of the results same day. I have only had that once.

I have had this several times, including one where I had a call back for a second look. I really appreciated knowing the same day. The provider I go to now usually has the results the same or next day on my patient portal.

I’ll bet they don’t have six minutes to do a mammogram in the US.

I had radiotherapy during the pandemic and the staff were super apologetic about the lack of gowns. Apparently it was an infection control issue. There was a change to disposable gowns to protect staff handling dirty gowns and there was a global shortage so they decided to go without. I would have been somewhat put out if my appointments had been cancelled over the lack of gowns.

Since the rooms used for mammograms and radiotherapy are private and often have curtains around the door for further privacy they have reduced the need for gowns. The staff in screening units are specialist radiographers who only carry out mammograms.

It is also a massive cost cutting exercise.