I had a student attend the birth of my child. It doesn’t get more naked than that. I also didn’t really notice him, except when I was READY to push and he was like just strolling out of the room to get the doctor. I yelled at him to run. He did. It also took what felt like an absurd amount of time to put my stitches in, as my doctor was explaining to the student what she was doing. I wasn’t uncomfortable with the extra attention but I also wasn’t really all that there. I just wanted to sit up so I could hold my baby properly.
Anyways, back to naked exams, just as with any doctor stuff, you try not to be too awkward, fail miserably and take comfort in the fact that you probably aren’t the worst thing they’ve seen that day.
My last two medical encouters:
Appendix: Doc “That was about as inflamed as I’ve seen.” as he held up his thumb for comparison
Dislocated elbow: THE Hand & Elbow doc for Colorado when I asked if I would be back to normal in a month or two: “No. You DESTROYED your elbow.”
My track record suggests I’ll probably end up with photographers for the text book they’ll be writing about whatever condition they’ve found on me.
[mrAru says that at the time he went through boot camp, they just lined the guys up and did the butt spelunking …]
Back in 95 I had a long term tumor the size of a pea grow to the size of a ping pong ball in a month … I was seen by the OB/GYN at the Submarine base, who then called in his boss, who then called in more people, then they called in some oncologists, so after about 4 hours and about a dozen people doing pelvics and rectals I joked that I hadn’t had that much action since my husband deployed … the docs weren’t amused but I did get a couple giggles from the nurses. Post op, I had a couple months of wound care and follow up and they ran the trainee independent duty corpsmen through for wound care training and I used to volunteer for training dummy for pelvics and breast exams.
Are there any women in this thread? Have one pregnancy and you’ll accidentally disrobe when the orderly walks in, because you’re so used to folks looking at your girly bits.
Have one mammogram. One Pap smear. Simple nude-shame doesn’t even explain it.
Since I’ve been getting annual mammograms I’ve had half-naked exams on a yearly basis. Not entirely comfortable with being topless in front of a stranger, but they’re aware I’m uncomfortable. I remind myself that my tits are very uninteresting and boring, they no doubt have seen things interesting in all the wrong ways.
I think the small talk is to make me comfortable to a large extent.
It’s necessary and it doesn’t take that long and I’ve had to do much worse things in life so I just grin and bear it.
You won’t be naked. They will give you a gown and/or a sheet, and you can cover the areas that aren’t being examined.
My own family practice doctor once said, while doing a Pap smear on me, “The general public has no idea how many times a day we have to do this.” Whatever your doctor is going to do to you, s/he has done it many times, and there’s probably nothing s/he can see that will shock him or her.
I had a mammogram last Friday at a facility I hadn’t been to before. The nurse sent me into a little room and told me to take off my clothes and put on a gown. I complied, taking off my shirt, bra and pants (along with my shoes), but leaving on my underpants. When I went into the mammogram room, the nurse freaked out that I had taken off my pants and shoes, and asked me if I wanted to put them back on. I said, “No, I’m fine,” and she started setting me up for the exam. When she moved my gown for the exam and exposed my underpants, she again asked me if I was sure I didn’t want to put my pants back on. I was very surprised at how freaked out she seemed to be by a woman in her underpants, when her job involves handling breasts all day. I guess I go into these things expecting to be exposed, so it doesn’t bother me.
I was a bit freaked when my mammography person told me boob jokes. She said not everyone was amused by her string of jokes.
My favorite was: ‘My mammographer is my main squeeze’
My PCP has me wear a gown (also my husband, whose sessions I sit in on due to language issues) but I don’t know why he bothers. He doesn’t check for hernias or prostate issues any more at all (I presume if one of us complained about something relevant to one of those he would check). He always seemed uncomfortable doing the rectal exam, it was over almost before it started.
Contrast that with the time I had to go to a specialist for suspected prostate cancer (negative), a man who was both very thorough and very nonchalant about it. He described my prostate in detail to me (one lobe slightly larger than the other, nothing to worry about, no general enlargement) and I believed he could have drawn a picture.
Anyway, nudity in the doctor’s office does not bother me. If I can be naked, even briefly, in a locker room in front of random strangers, I can certainly be naked, without random conversation, in front of my doctor when necessary.
