Day: November 7, 2017

When I worked in a local inner city emergency room, I specifically recall our male physican residents occasionally stepping out from a patient’s room and calling out, “I need a chaperone for a pelvic exam!” This would clear the nurses station pretty quickly as we all would suddenly recall we just forgot one more thing we had to do at that exact moment. Chaperoning a male doctor for a pelvic exam was a mixed bag. We knew it was a part of “the rules” but it was still rather awkward. For many women, pelvic exams may trigger anxiety and trauma if they are a rape survivior. For others, it’s a fear of being judged by the exam attendees if they are found to have an STD or some other issue “down there”, or because their bodies don’t look like the supermodel’s on TV. I became a registered nurse at 21…