BY ELI Y. ADASHI, MD, MS 

For many years, medical students working to master the art of the pelvic examination practiced the procedure on women under anesthesia. All too frequently, however, the right of the patient to decline participation in this educational endeavor was sidestepped; patient permission was rarely sought and explicit informed consent was similarly absent.

The topic periodically resurfaces in the media, online publications, and in journal articles, and though it is likely that the prevalence of unauthorized pelvic examinations by medical students has declined in recent years, the extent to which the practice still persists is unclear.

A lingering stain on the history of medical education, the age-old practice of unsanctioned pelvic examinations was hardly without consequences. Although rationalized as necessary for medical training, the practice all but suspended the ethical precept of respect for persons, upending expectations of patient privacy and autonomy and undermining presumptions of professionalism, leaving notions of trust in tatters.

…continue reading ‘Teaching Pelvic Examination Under Anesthesia Without Patient Consent’

Image: By John Crawford (Photographer) – This image was released by the National Cancer Institute, an agency part of the National Institutes of Health, with the ID 2296 (image) (next)., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24049748

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