What’s Next? Over my Dead Body!

I should read my daily emails of care2care more often. Once in awhile, it can present something interesting.

What’s next? Little by little! Our bodies are no longer private or our’s to do what we want with.

First, we hear the idiotic arguing of financing abortions during the now (well pretty much, anyway) defunct health care reform debates in the U.S. We even heard of this draconian law in Oklahoma, making women have an ultrasound and viewing it before having an abortion.

In the name of having all feel safe on airplanes, they  (the government’s in this case), Americans and Canadian travellers must subject themselves to gawking rent-a-cops and allowing our children to be frisked by these same rent-a-cops.

This next story, however, pisses me off and frightens me at least as much as the above incidents.

Ladies, buckle your seatbelts: you may want to rethink any procedure your doctor suggests to you that requires putting you to sleep.   Sara Wainberg, a former McMaster University med student, has been exposing the practise of students giving pelvic exams to unwitting women under anesthesia without their consent.

Apparently, according to Andre Picard’s article in the Grope & Fail, these non-consensual pelvice exams performed by med students have become common practice in Canadian teaching hospitals. According to Picard, guidelines in the United States and Britain say specific consent is required but, by contrast, Canadian guidelines state that pelvic examination by trainees is “implicit.”

Isn’t that, in some way, legalized rape? Even if it isn’t forced intercourse like the traditional meaning of the word rape, can we consider it that? I would.

There is also an assumption that women would never accept pelvic exams by students while conscious so sneaking them in, while not ideal, is acceptable.

Really? Ok, to be fair, many women would probably refuse to allow students to come and observe their pelvic exams. However, I don’ t think this is true of everyone. Personally, I have consented to students staying in the room to observe and yes, even perform the exam under my doctor’s close watch. I’m realistic; how else are these students supposed to learn if they don’t practise.

I don’t, however, think they should be learning on patients who haven’t or aren’t conscious to give consent.  Surgical students will be in the operating theatre learning surgery. That’s it; nothing more. No unrelated exams like a pelvic or any other invasive exam for that matter.

According to Picard, 62% of women polled would consent to being examined by med students and an additional 5% would agree to it if it were a female student performing the exam.  So much for assuming all or most women wouldn’t consent to med students in the exam room.

Despite the fact that the U.S. now has guidelines pertaining to Med students examining patients as mentioned earlier in this post, according to ABC News, Med students have been performing these gynecological exams, as well as non-consensual prostate exams on men. Now consent forms indicate that med students can perform pelvic exams as well as the prostate exams on men.

ABC’s Dr Timothy Johnson advises patients who are about to under go surgery should sit with their doctors and ask how many people and who will be in the operating room; more specifically, whether or not there will be med students in the operating room. According to Johnson (in the U.S. anyway, let’s hope it can apply to Canada and elsewhere), he also says that if you tell your doctor you would prefer not to have med students in the room, the doctor will respect the patient’s wishes.

While I think this is sound advice, I also have to wonder if they (med students) are performing non-consensual exams under the orders of their superior, what makes us think  we can trust our surgeon to respect our wishes if we specifically refuse Med students in the operating room, or at the very least, don’t want them performing unnecessary, invasive exams?

As for me, who is already skeptical of all things traditional medicine and big pharmaceuticals and prefer alternative medicine as much as possible, I will not consent to any surgery or procedure where I cannot have full control of my faculties; physical or mental.

So, what is next I ask? What will they (doctors or government) think of next to violate our privacy, our rights to control what happens to our bodies and who sees what and when?