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Subject: Standing up for your rights


Author:
Leroy
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Date Posted: 09:21:36 10/03/09 Sat
 Has anyone here ever had an experience you believe was unfair but you stood up for yourself? As a longtime lurker I remember reading a few experiences where a patient was being treated unfairly, usually having something to do with wanting a doctor, nurse or tech of a particular gender to do "intimate" exams or procedures.

On other blogs, literally hundreds of patients, mostly men, who comment about how they have stood up for themselves or later realized they should have. Common topics are unwanted chaperones, male sonography techs, unwanted nurses or assistants during intimate exams, unethical triage nurses and other similar things.

I would like to avoid seeing insults from those that may disagree with what some people believe. If you must state your opinion please try to refrain from throwing insults at others because they may think differently than you. Mostly I would just like to hear some experiences. I don't care to hear if someone believes somebody else is a homosexual. Please try to keep this thread clean.

One of my own experiences has to do with my female dermatologist wanting a male assistant present for a full body mole check. As a retired Federal Government worker I have very good insurance that gives me a large amount of freedom as to who my doctors can be. Knowing that I can easily switch doctors I began to get dressed to leave after my dermatologist insisted the assistant be present for the entire exam and she gave in and dismissed the assistant.

I've had many more similar experiences but I would like to hear if anyone else has had the guts to stand up for themselves. I think I remember James describing a similar experience he had. Other guys like Ray, Jimmy and Mike describe similiar experiences.

Again I ask that there please be no insults or silly unfounded accusations of anyone who might like to share their experience.
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Replies:
[> Subject: What's Wrong With Having A Male Sonography Tech?


Author:
Leah
[Edit]
Date Posted: 06:37:10 10/06/09 Tue
I read your post over a couple of times trying to figure out what you are trying to say. You complained about nurses, about chaperones, assistants during intimate exams, etc.
I can see your point about these issues.

But then you included male sonograpy technicians on your list and I lost you there. What is wrong with male sonography technicians? Am I missing something here? Please explain.
[> [> Subject: Leroy Made A Typo, That's All It Was


Author:
Barry
[Edit]
Date Posted: 06:26:08 10/07/09 Wed
After looking over Leroy's post I have to think that he made a type. All the others he listed seemed to be females, but the lone male mentioned was the sonography technician. This leads me to believe the he meant to say "female" sonography technician. Doesn't it seem that way to others?
[> [> [> Subject: Re: Leroy Made A Typo, That's All It Was


Author:
Leroy
[Edit]
Date Posted: 16:42:54 10/07/09 Wed
I know this isn't politically correct, but I would not feel comfortable with a male health care worker, particularly a sonographer, who would be in close proximity to my penis.
[> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Leroy Made A Typo, That's All It Was


Author:
lacidem
[Edit]
Date Posted: 19:40:09 10/27/09 Tue
Leroy, don't be such a homophobe.Most homophobes tend to be insecure about their own sexuality, which is why they're homophobic.I, as a male, prefer a male doctor since it's less sexual.With a woman doctor, there's a bit of sexual aspect to it.Besides that, a male doctor knows the male anatomy better than a women.If you need to describe a problem to a female doctor, she simply will not understand as much as a male doctor would, since he himself has a penis.I remember when i was talking to a urologist, before I even finished telling him the situation, he already knew what I was talking about.

[> Subject: No Exposure Necessary For My Ultrasounds


Author:
Frank
[Edit]
Date Posted: 09:56:39 10/14/09 Wed
I've had two kidney ultrasounds and one bladder ultrasound.
A gown tied in the back was used, along with a large towel
covering me from the waist down in all three procedures.

The sonographers were female in all three cases. She slid the gown up, then slid the towel down, but I was not exposed at all while she applied the gel and then used the "wand" as I call it, to get the ultrasound pictures.

It doesn't make any difference what the gender of the sonographer was. No exposure was necessary, at least for the studies I had done. Maybe other ultrasounds require more exposure, but I wouldn't know. Does anyone else know of an ultrasound in which gender would make a difference?
[> [> Subject: There Is One That Requires Exposure For Sure


Author:
Carol
[Edit]
Date Posted: 19:31:15 10/14/09 Wed
There may be some ultrasound examinations, as you said, that require exposure. The one that comes to mind is a testicular
ultrasound to detect cancer in those organs.

I don't see any way for exposure to be avoided, but of course I've never had one and never will. Can any of the males here describe how that test is done?
[> [> [> Subject: Re: There Is One That Requires Exposure For Sure


Author:
IMT
[Edit]
Date Posted: 21:31:01 10/14/09 Wed
Gender issues and ultrasound can work for both sexes- a pelvic ultrasound done via the vaginal approach and a prostate ultrasound done via the rectal approach. Both are fairly common.
[> [> [> [> Subject: I Hadn't Thought Of Those Ultrasounds


Author:
Frank
[Edit]
Date Posted: 14:16:10 10/15/09 Thu
Those two ultrasounds, and there are probably more, did not occur to me. Yes, those would also require exposure. But so what? If a person needs those tests, then they must be done.

I imagine a patient could ask for a sonographer of the
sex they feel most comfortable with, but in some cases this may not be possible to arrange.

Some small offices have only one employee who does them all, so he or she is the only one there to do ultrasounds. Maybe if a person felt very strongly about it, they could try calling another office to try for a technician of the sex they prefer.
[> [> [> Subject: Re: There Is One That Requires Exposure For Sure


Author:
Bob R.
[Edit]
Date Posted: 14:34:34 10/15/09 Thu
I've had two testicular ultrasounds. Both were pretty much the same. In the first one a young technician ushered me into a fairly small exam room and told me to take off my pants and underpants. I did so with barely enough room to store them on a small table beside the exam chair (really almost a couch). As I did this, she got her machine set up correctly, and began testing it. Then she told me to lie down, which I did, on the exam chair. She sat on a little stool and slid in beside me. She picked up my penis and moved it away at an angle up on my belly. She took a small towel, rolled it up into a wand, and put it over my penis to keep it in place. Then she took another towel, bunched it up and put it between my legs, under my testicles so as to elevate them. She did this very deliberately and very carefully. She then put a cold gel on my scrotum and moved a wand up and down it, at times pressing hard. It hurt just a bit now and again, though she was obviously trying to be gentle. (I think my testicles are more sensitive than most, because I have felt pain in the past when my PCP does the genital exam even though she is quite gentle too.) She moved the wand about for maybe 10 minutes, recording bits here and there on the machine as she did so. At first it felt strange, and the gel cold, but as it got warmer it started to feel good. She adjusted the towel under my balls a few times, and the towel over my penis once (it had slipped). I did get what I feared I would, a half erection, but not a standing one. If she noticed it, she did not indicate she had. She was all business. I looked at her as she worked. She was a cute brunette, face concentrated on her computer screen. I talked with her a bit, trying to find out what she was discovering, but to no avail. Just as she got done I started to get harder, as I feared I would. She pulled a disk from the computer and got up, looking at me briefly. She told me I could get up and get dressed. As she left the little room I got up. I now had a standing erection, which she may have seen out of the corner of her eye, but if so said nothing. That was it.

The second ultrasound was at a different place. This time the tech was a fat, older woman in her late 30s, a blond who was grouchy throughout. She was not as gentle and hurt me a couple of times jabbing the wand into my balls. I went "ouch" or something like that and she said, "sorry"...and did it again a bit later! Overall the procedure was the same except she never touched my penis. Instead she had me hold it in place, on my lower abdomen. Interestingly she ran the wand up the base of my penis, something the first tech had not done. I don't know why. I did not get even a suggestion of an erection from this episode. In fact I wondered afterward if I had caught her on a bad day or if she was always so unpleasant. When she was done, and she had told me to get dressed, she mentioned on the way out that they were short handed today and that was why there was no chaperone, as there usually was (!). First I had heard of a chaperone. The exam room was not much bigger than the one in the other place and I wondered where on earth the chaperone would fit, if there had been one. Both rooms were remarkably intimate. I have never understood why these places have large lobbies and hallways and tiny exam rooms.

As it turned out both tests proved negative. They happened about a year apart and were "commissioned" by the same doctor, a female urologist that I still go to. She did however tell me that my left testicle was slightly smaller than average and my right one slightly larger, a piece of information that means absolutely nothing to me, or to her.

Overall they were not bad experiences, though they did in the end provide no significant information. And they were interesting. Little pain, and only on the second exam, and a curious sense of sterile intimacy from both. Under different circumstances I might have been interested in asking the first tech out. I did and do wonder how she feels about scoping testicles all day. She did tell me she did two or three testicle ultrasounds each day, on guys of all ages.
[> [> [> [> Subject: Same With Me, But Slightly Different Details


Author:
Seth
[Edit]
Date Posted: 17:48:49 10/15/09 Thu
I had two testicular ultrasounds a few years ago, three years apart from one another. Both were done by females, one in her forties, I'd guess, and somewhat attractive in a soccer-mom kind of way. The other was in her twenties, slim, long blond hair, but with a plain face.

My first ultrasound was done by the soccer-mom woman.
After I undressed from the waist down and was on the table, she shoved my shirt up to my rib-cage, then took a bath-sized white towel, rolled it into a long tube shape, then slid it up starting at mid-thigh. Naturally, it caught my penis on its way up, positioning it on my lower belly. Then she tucked each end of the towel-tube under my butt. This was tight enough to hold my penis out of her way.

The younger girl held my penis up onto my belly, off to the side to avoid where most of the hair in the middle, she said. She used two strips of tape, one was lengthwise along the penis, and the other crosswise. She assured me that the tape was the hypo-allergenic kind, so I wouldn't get a rash.

The rest of the procedure was the same as the poster above described. When it was finished, the older woman just told me I could get dressed and she left. The younger girl very gently removed the tape, hurting me a bit because it was
stuck to a few hairs on my belly, apologizing for that.

Both were professional and I have no complaints on that score. One beneficial feature of ultrasounds is that the room is dimly lighted. This is to make the screen easier for the technicians to see, but it also provides a tiny bit of privacy, rather than having to lie there under dazzling lights like you do for some procedures.

In case you are wondering, both were negative for cancer.
The lumps I had were spermatoceles, which are cysts, but are not a serious problem.
[> [> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Same With Me, But Slightly Different Details


Author:
Walt
[Edit]
Date Posted: 12:21:58 10/20/09 Tue
I have had both bladder ultrasound as well as prostate ultrasound/biopsy, actually two because the first didn't yield conclusive results according to my doc.

The bladder ultrasound exposed only my lower abdomen including the pubic area while the tech (a 20's woman - young enough to be my daughter) ran the probe over the skin area.

A prostate ultrasound involves insertion of the probe into the anus & rectum against the front wall because that's where your prostate is. The worst part for me was the taking of the biopsies which I found to be quite uncomfortable when they activated what sounded like trigger on a kid's toy gun with spring-loaded parts. Yes, my buttocks and surrounding area were uncovered during the procedure. That didn't bother me too much except when the room temp was cool so I asked them to cover what they could because my butt was 'freezing'.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Who Did The Prostate Ultrasound?


Author:
Seth
[Edit]
Date Posted: 12:42:01 10/20/09 Tue
Will you please tell us who did the prostate ultrasound?
If it was just the ultrasound, a sonographer can do it, but since you have a biopsy (at the same time?) I assume it would have to be a doctor. Is that it?
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Who Did The Prostate Ultrasound?


Author:
Walt
[Edit]
Date Posted: 12:31:48 10/22/09 Thu
As mentioned, I had two abo-ut six weeks apart both done by doctors who my urologist told me were resident docs. There was also a 40-something woman there who operated the machine. I remember the urologist was there for the second one but I don't recall about the first one. First exam was done by a man probably in his 30s. I wanted to do what he did - jam the probe in my rear end with no warning! The second time was a young (28-30) female resident. I asked her to lube my anus or the probe which she did. She was gentle & warned me before she put the probe in.

IMHO, women doctors tend to have a more gentle touch than men. When I have encountered a 'meat handler' I simply would not see that person again, even when it meant waiting longer in a military primary care clinic setting.
[> Subject: Re: Standing up for your rights


Author:
James
[Edit]
Date Posted: 03:02:49 10/27/09 Tue
Thanks for the fantasies guys. Very erotic.
[> Subject: What Fantasies?


Author:
Diana
[Edit]
Date Posted: 06:29:30 10/27/09 Tue
You said there were fantasies being described here, but you never said which of the posts were fantasies. Each of the experiences seemed reasonable and real to me. Nothing far-fetched was evident. Please tell us which were fantasies, and how your own experiences differed from the ones you think were untrue.
[> [> Subject: Re: What Fantasies?


Author:
Walt
[Edit]
Date Posted: 10:20:37 10/27/09 Tue
Thanks Diana. I am not even going to dignify James' post with a reply.
[> [> [> Subject: Re: What Fantasies?


Author:
jenna
[Edit]
Date Posted: 12:10:26 10/27/09 Tue
Ive only had a vaginal ultrasound about six months ago and the tech was a female and she actually handed me the wand to insert. There should be more out there like her. Also i was never exposed and she only looked at the screen.
[> [> [> [> Subject: Re: What Fantasies?


Author:
rk
[Edit]
Date Posted: 13:59:38 10/27/09 Tue
jenna -- please tell us how you would have felt if a male tech came in and just assumed that he was doing this procedure and that you had no choice. That's what happens to most men who have testicular ultrasounds. What would your reaction have been?
[> [> [> [> [> Subject: Re: What Fantasies?


Author:
Vera
[Edit]
Date Posted: 20:57:42 10/27/09 Tue
Describe what this male tech looks like and what sort of manner he has....
[> Subject: Re: Standing up for your rights


Author:
rk
[Edit]
Date Posted: 01:42:11 10/28/09 Wed
"Describe what this male tech looks like and what sort of manner he has....

Situation 1 -- He's tall, dark and handsome. He brings with him a chaperone, another male tech a little older than himself. They walk in like they own the place with an assumption that they do this all the time. He just gets to work with little talk. It's obvious that you're uncomfortable with this but he doesn't seem to care.

Situation 2 -- He's middle aged, a bit overweight. Amiable. Smiles kindly. Introduces himself and his male chaperone who is much like him. Explains everything he's going to do. Seems empathetic.

Situation 3 -- He''s like number 2, maybe a bit older. He says he understands that these kinds of exams are embarrassing and that, if you wish, he'll find you a female tech -- though he says he's willing to work with you to protect your modesty and feelings. He asks you if you'd feel more comfortable with a chaperone.

Situation 4 -- You create the ideal situation that would either allow the procedure, stop the procedure, or cause you to walk out. Create your own tech, any combination of the ones I've described with your own twist.
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