I’ve watched virtually all of the British “Carry On” movies, and it likely was one of them, but I’m not certain.
I don’t think you understand it, then.
It would certainly be stupid to say “male medical people can never examine female genitals under any circumstances”. That’s not what’s being discussed here.
In some entirely different society in which everybody routinely went around naked in mixed-gender and mixed-age groups I don’t suppose it would happen. Most human societies don’t seem to work that way, though. This society most definitely doesn’t work that way. Some people are more affected by this than others.
I will gently echo @wolfpup’s point however indelicately stated.
There is a lot of tendency to indulge (if not outright celebrate) weakness and childishness these days
Kids ought to be eagerly seeking the rights and responsibilities of adulthood; metaphorically grabbing those adult underoos and pulling them on triumphantly almost no matter how too comically oversized they are.
Instead we seem to see lots of e.g 10yos trying hard to behave like 5yos while their parents are cheerleading for them to try for age 3. Nope.
10 yos ought to be trying to be e.g. 12yos with all their might. And be supported in that effort at growth.
Grow up buttercup!
Frankly, I think that the people who refuse to get vaccinated against various illnesses such as Covid-19, the flu, pneumonia, measles, polio, and other serious illnesses are not only putting themselves in danger of being hospitalized, put on a ventilator, and/or dying, or becoming permanently incapacitated as a result, but are putting others, including those close to them in danger, as well. Moreover, the anti-vaxxers who’ve manipulated others into anti-vaccine attitudes or hesitation are preventing us from reaching herd immunity. Thanks a lot, anti-vaxxers! You’ve screwed everybody else out of a normal life in this country.
I don’t think a 14 year old not wanting to see a male doctor for treatment that might include exams of “private parts” is childish. If it is, there are an awful lot of adults who are childish. In fact, I think a 14 year old who wants to decide which doctor she sees is grabbing those Underoos - it’s not something a 3 year old is even going to imagine is a choice.
You may have a point. I was inclined to assume it was real, but some of the phraseology in the letter is suspiciously coy:
a [relatively rare] condition that is not life-threatening but that does need to be managed by a specialist…her condition may require occasional physical examinations on a private area.
FFS, just spit it out. What’s the medical name of the condition? Is it her breasts, genitals, or anal area that will need examination? What “specialist” is needed (some are far more common than others.) Being purely clinical will help to obtain a good answer, and no pearls need to be clutched in the making of that advice column.
So it seems your cynicism is contagious.
I’d like to point out that most male exams are nowhere near as invasive as GYN is.
I have dealt with pelvic exams by a male doctor, but do very much prefer a female examiner if practical (if not, I just brace myself and deal, since these days even female examiners make a point of having a chaperone in the room regardless of the patient’s age). I’m less uncomfortable with the exposure of personal body parts with a female, they have smaller hands so it’s less uncomfortable, and a woman’s been on a similar table herself, so knows what it’s like for the patient and tends to be gentler about matters as a result. I do have a history of being sexually abused as a child, BTW.
Having a daughter who went through a somewhat rocky puberty, I feel like I can offer an opinion here.
Split the problem into two components. 1) Is she afraid to have a male doctor because she’s been sexually abused? Have a trusted third party (not her mother) talk with her to establish if that happened. 2) Is she just shy, or worse, just being a 14-year old? Then she’s old enough to be told, “We can pay for option A, but if you really want option B, we’ll have to skip your flute lessons to pay for it.” She’s old enough to understand the choice.
Maybe but it is still a virtually daily occurrence when dealing with teens. Heck even having a GU exam by a same gender provider freaks some teens out. And I don’t know any pediatrician whose mind would go to abuse because of a kid doing that. It really is pretty common. Not a crazy story.
There are things kids sometimes don’t want to do. Get throat cultures. Get shots. Get blood tests. Have to have “their privates” looked at (and there would be no indication for anything more than an external exam for boys or girls barring a very rare circumstance).
Sometimes they just have little choice. And usually they end up cooperating. Even if there is drama first.
I’ve tried to sit on(in a manner of speaking) a kid who didn’t want his braces tightened, in a severe aberration from his previous behaviors in the orthodontist office.
The Dentist pulled me out. He said “your face is way too red, Mrs.Wrek. Let us try another way”
I left the treatment area.
When he came out my son had his braces tightened. The Dentist told him it would set him back two months. Tacked on to the end of his treatment.
He gave in.
Now why didn’t I think of that?
Did not read all the replies, but…
I would acquiesce without a question. I don’t need to know more. Then I’d deliver, as per her request.
I would gladly take any extra steps it might require. If you’re not comfortable with your doctor your care can suffer.
That’s an adult choice to make, and voice. It would be impossible for me NOT to respect that.
I can’t understand why you don’t seem to understand that there is a huge difference of invasiveness between a doctor looking at your penis and an internal pelvic exam. They are not even really comparable.
Yes. The adult needs to make the decisions, all decisions for their childs health care.
Not the kid.
You do your due diligence, talk reassuringly. Explain the importance of womens life long need to see to their healthcare.
Only the parent and the doctor can determine the severity of the disorder.
And decisions will have to be made.
I have had 100s if not 1000s of things done at clinics and hospitals. I’ve disliked most of them. I do them because I don’t have that adolescent belief I’ll live forever, and for some dumb reason I wanna live.
Again, there is a very low probability of any pediatric specialist, including a pediatric gynecologist, needing to do an internal pelvic exam. Okay a sexually active teenaged girl with lower abdominal pain may get such an exam evaluating for pelvic inflammatory disease. And a pregnant teen in labor. But nothing I can think of that fits this story.
My experience is that doctors are very circumspect about examining my private parts these days. I had a rash and needed to see a dermatologist. (not in the vagina, but in my crotch, so the doctor would have to look at my external genitalia) The office asked if I wanted to see a woman, or if a man would be okay. I said I was fine with a man. When I actually got there, the female doctor-in-training did the actual exam. (I get most of my care at a teaching hospital) and the old male doctor literally never looked at it. He did look at some other parts of my body, but not at the crotch.
When I needed my last pap smear and an exam, my male PCP said he could do it, or offered to have one of the female nurse practitioners who work in his group do it. I went with NP, who did a great job.
I had another thing where I had to wait an extra couple of months to see a woman, and my gynecologist assured me that the guy who had much more availability was excellent. But I decided to see the woman. This was a thing that would involved a vaginal exam, which is, as @Eyebrows_0f_Doom points out, a lot more invasive than just poking at the external parts.
Really, all my gyn care has had a female-only option for years now.
Anyway, if this were my daughter, I would call the practices in my coverage, and ask the receptionist what exams are required and how they handle it. I’d honeslty be surprised if there wasn’t a woman available to do the most sensitive parts of the exam.
Oh, and a teen is old enough to choose between music lessons and a female doctor. Although I would encourage her to pick the music lessons.
I agree with elbows. At 14, having a gyn. exam forced on you by circumstance then not allowed to choose who is doing it is unesscessary. If you have to give up some things, I think giving them up for the teen’s peace of mind is the right thing to do.
Seriously, if you couldn’t afford to eat that would be one thing, but flute lessons? The kid may not even like the flute, and mom wants her to keep playing.
Oh, and I would like to take another well deserved jab at the US “health care” system, where choice and convenience are forever beyond our grasp.
Sure. I’ve never been as embarassed in my life as the time it took 10 minutes for my then 10 year old son let a nurse prick his finger. And helping kids negotiate these things is a fine topic for discussion.
And maybe it doesn’t matter here, because we are far enough removed from the original source. But when someone on the internet is asking for advice in a way that encourages people to talk about a child’s body in a sexual context, or tell their own intimate stories from when they were kids, I think its good to stop and realize when you are participating in someone else’s kink, and to decide if you are okay with that. This story has all the alarm bells.
If my kid had this problem, down to the “intimate exam”, this is not how I would tell the story. The story is told in a way inviting people to linger on the prurient details (how intimate? Can you describe what the man will do to her? Let me tell you about what a doctor did to me when I was 12.).
Is there any post in this thread that does anything close to what you’re describing? Or are you positing that Reddit is a lot less safe a space than the SDMB?
No, i mean the original post.
On the one hand, i see your point. But on the other, i think this is a pretty common issue, and one that people wrestle with in real life often enough that i don’t find it implausible to be a real question.