Women-would you go to a male Gynaecologist?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rozellelily
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I was thinking about this thread at my wife’s appointment yesterday. As I stated before he is a man and we trust him and are incredibly impressed by him. About 2 months ago he made a rather large mistake with dosing that led to some pretty scary things. He discovered the error, he immediately notified us and worked to correct it. Afterward he personally admitted his fault and explained why it happened, bringing 3 other doctors on board to help. It was nice to see him humble himself rather than act prideful.
Lol that’s kind of off the subject.
We go in, the appointment was fine. His nurse is female, she does the preliminary stuff then leaves then he comes in. All normal. When we left, the nurse was calling out to another patient in the waiting room and as she went back the nurse remarked that she smelled incredible. My wife and I immediately laughed. It was a normal conversation between two ladies but imagine if a Male health care provider said that!
 
My wife had a wonderful male ObGyn for years who saved her life. He listened to her carefully. She was found to have ovarian cancer and uterine cancer at the same time. She’s still with me today because of the great care she got from her doctor and the rest of her care team.
 
I didn’t because unfortunately at the time I was so young and blinded (taught to believe how honourable and good doctors were) that I reasoned away the experiences and chalked them down to being my own misinterpretations.
 
Where I live I don’t know if you can by law technically disallow the students being there but patients are not told either way.
It is done with such an attitude of expectancy/entitlement by the doctors and the hospital culture is such a way that patients will often feel intimidated and uncomfortable to mention it and risk being labelled the “difficult patient” that you mentioned.

It’s awful to think that patients could even have their healthcare compromised negatively because doctors label them difficult but I know it does happen.
Imo there are still many engrained cultural problems within medicine,particularly in public system.
Even some junior doctors are speaking out about hierarchies and bullying by senior practitioners etc.
 
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Guessing you are not in the US. Here, when a medical person comes in they introduce themselves, we can tell by the color of their scrubs what department they are in. Students wear black, and they identify themselves as a student.
 
I think that’s how it is supposed to work here too, but in some teaching hospitals, a doctor can be surrounded by a half dozen students that change regularly. Once, when my daughter was having surgery in a “teaching hospital”, I was with her in the pre-surgery area and I was shocked when they began doing her anesthesia and intubation with me right there in the room! Apparently, they are so used to having extra people around, they didn’t even realize that I wasn’t supposed to be there. No one had told me to leave yet, so I was just hanging out. I think they thought I was there with the child life specialist because I was standing next to her and talking to her.
 
Yeah, that’s why I wasn’t supposed to be there. She’s had 15 surgeries and I’ve never been present during any of that before. They just sort of forgot to tell me when to leave.
 
If I had a serious health issue and time was of the essence, I would see the first available doctor. If not, I would wait for a female. Here in the US we have a ton of doctors to choose from (at least in large cities where I’ve always lived), so I don’t see why I couldn’t see a doctor of my preferred gender. That said, I never had any gynecological issues that required an above average quality doctor. If I had something serious, I probably would care more about their skills than their gender.
 
If you would feel safer or at least more comfortable with a female doctor, then request a female doctor. You do not need to justify your comfort. Most practices will be very willing to accommodate!
 
I know a number of men who have had their prostate examined by a female doctor. Not quite the same thing, but their isn’t much more humbling an experience than “turn your head and cough.” (something they never actually say…)

Also have had numerous checks for testicular cancer. Not a single one gave it any thought.

Of course, those visits are much less frequent.
 
As for women the same apply for men.

Everybody should have the right to choose by who they accept to be examined, when it is possible. Gender include.
 
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