I saw an Oprah show where a gynocologist had raped and molested over 500 women over a span of years. He ended up in jail, but one of the women said she was still afraid to go to a doctor.
In the 70's, when I was eighteen, newly married and extremely naive, I got a UTI and called the local hospital where we lived then (Florence, AL) and got a recommendation for a doctor to see. He was a urologist, and I can't remember his name. I tried looking it up on Google, but he's likely dead or retired by now.
To make a long story shorter, after seeing this man for "treatment" over several months time, I was on the examining room table one day when the nurse left the room. The doctor was talking to me and came up beside me on the table, and leaned onto the table with one elbow talking, very close, and it invaded "my space" and made me very uncomfortable. Then he reached over and fondled my breasts while still talking like nothing was going on. At the time, I thought maybe he was just checking me, but later I realized that I had on my clothes, at least on the top part of my body, so why would he check me through my clothes? And he was a urologist, so that would be totally out of his speciality, right? I was eighteen. I never told anyone about it. I stopped going to him and started seeing my family doctor. I didn't even tell my husband.
All these years later, I realize he was an old pervert, and I should have said something at the time, but I was too passive and naive to have said anything.
The reason I put this post on here, is I sort of have a theory that this is not that rare of an occurence among women. In my life, I've shared this with a few friends, and among them had two experiences recounted to me of doctors that, at minimum, made them uncomfortable and have that uh-oh feeling.
Doctor-patient relationships are based on total trust by the patient, and being very vulnerable to a person of the opposite sex, usually, whom you don't know very well. You assume they have your best interest at heart. And thank God most of the time they do. But I'm sure there are weirdos out there getting away with it.
3 comments:
Another thing that comes into play is the fact that we all, in some way or another think of doctors as authority figures.
That is a dangerous frame of mind to be in, especially for women who have to visit a gyno so often.
I had to see a new gyno once when I was still a military dependent. I had, had some surgery and the doctor how did the surgery had moved on and when I went back for my final check there was the new guy.
He did the strangest pelvic exam I've ever had. No gloves, he took his fingers and felt all around, "down there," as Amy says. I had never had a doctor do such a thing to me and I had never had a pelvic exam that there wasn't a nurse in the room.
I asked him what he was doing and he told me he was checking for lumps and lesions and such. I told him he was done checking, to take his hands off of me and to get a nurse in the room.
I got my clothes on and got my butt out of there. I said nothing to no one. Doctors afterall are authority figures and who am I to make a fuss over my discomfort. I look back now and wish I had made more noise about it.
Like you, I think we would be surprised at how often something unseemly happens to a woman in a doctor's office.
I see a female doctor. She's been doing my exams for the least 10 years. I still get anxious about having them done, but not *as* anxious as if it were a man. There's just something not right about a man gyno.
Knock on wood, I haven't had any bad experiences with a doctor.
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