• NOT without my consent

    Date: 2010.01.28 | Category: Canada, Things I Don't Understand | Tags:

    I was going peacefully about my day when a tweet crossed my path. It was a link to this Globe and Mail article (which will probably go behind a pay wall because that’s how the Globe rolls): Time To End Pelvic Exams Without Consent.

    Medical students routinely practice doing internal pelvic examinations while surgery patients are unconscious, and without getting specific consent, at least in Canada.

    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.

    Implicit? IMPLICIT?

    No, I really don’t think it is. I think it’s called violating women while they are unconscious. And because it’s the way I roll I retwittered the link and asked women if they had undergone surgery in Canada. If they were unconscious. And if they weren’t sure they hadn’t gotten a bonus pelvis exam.

    The responses I got, from both women and men, were immediate. They were horrified.

    One woman had surgery two years ago at a teaching hospital.

    One just had surgery.

    Two women I know are scheduled for surgery later this year.

    One woman wrote the CMA, her MPP and her MP.

    The rest expressed their incredulity and outrage.

    Look, I know medial students need to practice procedures. I’m not against that and if I was asked if a student could perform the exam I’d let them. If fact, I have.

    I am, however,  against someone inserting a speculum into my body without my consent while I’m unconscious for practice.

    To be perfectly honest, I don’t understand how it’s not assault.

    It takes a lot to get me riled up to the point where I write letters to my MP or my MPP. Nothing has ever pushed me to that point before.

    This has. So as soon as I calm down enough to figure out what to say I’ll be writing them. And the CMA. And anyone else I can think of.