# Male Students & Ladies Observing at Gynecologist **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 28, 2017, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496 "2017-09-28T08:20:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tensorr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6de8d8/32.png) [@tensorr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tensorr)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/1 "2017-09-28T08:20:53Z")
Question for the ladies here. When going seeing a gynecologist for a pap smear or pelvic exam, have you ever had a male student or intern present? How did it happen? How did you feel during the process. Did the student had a full view of the examination? Did you regret it? Please share stories. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/2 "2017-09-28T08:45:43Z")
What a fascinating question. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/3 "2017-09-28T10:05:40Z")
> [@tensorr](#): > > Please share stories. You first. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/4 "2017-09-28T11:33:57Z")
I’m not going to speak for women, but when a medical professional performs an examination on me, the thought of “this is a woman/man/child” doesn’t occur to me, I trust their skills, their objectivity, their medical knowledge, and that’s all that matters. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/5 "2017-09-28T11:41:58Z")
Yes, but do you prefer an audience ? ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/6 "2017-09-28T11:46:21Z")
I have been sent to a male gynaecologist/specialist, but that’s not what you’re asking about. I find I would have a strict ‘no spectator’ policy, regarding the gynaecologist. At the dentist, in the hospital, the Dr’s office, sure. But the gynaecologist? Sorry, but just no! ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/7 "2017-09-28T11:59:25Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > Yes, but do you prefer an audience ? Prefer? No. But I’d be okay with it, assuming they aren’t being weird about it somehow. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/8 "2017-09-28T12:03:27Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > Yes, but do you prefer an audience ? I’d say yes but its always embarrassing when they point and laugh. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/9 "2017-09-28T12:59:10Z")
It wasn’t at the gynecologist, but one time my GP happened to have one of my former classmates as the assisting student. He was a lot more nervous about performing the examination than I was: to me being examined medically by someone I also knew socially was normal. The GP pointed out that since anybody other than lab doctors will eventually have to treat a neighbor, the sooner the assisting started getting used to it the better. ---
**Author:** ![mistymage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mistymage/32/459_2.png) [@mistymage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mistymage)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/10 "2017-09-28T13:23:20Z")
I had a male Ob/Gyn for 20 years (he got promoted to head of the hospital and stopped seeing patients). I gave birth to 3 boys. I had 5 different kidney surgeries. Who looks at my hoohah during medical procedures was always the last thing I thought about. The many times there were students watching my only thought was “I hope they learned something that will help another patient some day.” ---
**Author:** ![slalexan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@slalexan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slalexan)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/11 "2017-09-28T14:17:26Z")
I’ve never had a student or any other unrelated party observe a pap smear but I did have a male medical student on rotation at the labor and delivery unit at the hospital attend the birth of my child. I honestly didn’t care. It was hard to care about anything other than getting my baby out. The next day, when a nurse came in to check on me and the baby, she asked how I was and I responded that I had just had a baby. She said that she knows because she was there. I didn’t even recognize her. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/12 "2017-09-28T14:22:12Z")
> [@tensorr](#): > > Did the student had a full view of the examination? Did you regret it? What’s the point of having the student there if he doesn’t get a full view? Isn’t that the point of him observing, that he gets to see how it’s all done? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/13 "2017-09-28T14:24:03Z")
Yup. My original OB/GYN worked with a teaching hospital, and would occasionally have a student working with him for practical experience, and then when I was a military dependent, the base hospital also trained independent duty corpsmen, and they did an OB/GYN rotation because they might end up treating either female military or locals as good publicity. When I was having pain issues in 1994 I went to see the GYN to discover one of my ovarian cysts had gone from pea sized to ping pong ball sized in 30 days [I had my annual poke n prod the month previous so there was an actual baseline for me thye were following - had PCOS all my adult life] so they called in several more docs including a couple oncologists, and by the end of the afternoon I had been ‘spelunked’ by about a dozen assorted people [I commented that it was the most action I had gotten since my husband deployed. GOt snickers from some of the low on the totem pole nurses but the big cheese docs didn’t seem amused.] Post op would care took about 3 months thanks to also having lymph glands removed from my left groin pit leafing a 4 inch by half an inch by an inch and some deep wound site healing so I was having weekly appointments. I had a bunch of corpsmen in training every visit for various crotch type inspections [internal and external wound care] and I got asked if I would volunteer to be given pelvic and rectal exams by the trainees because it pretty much didn’t bother me. I have gotten a number of compliments by the techs in imaging - I do what they ask, when they ask with no complaining because I discovered long ago that getting it over fast was _good_ and the more you complain and screw around, the longer whatever obnoxious procedure will take. I think the funnest thing was actually watching my first lap tubal ligation, though being awake for the parathyroid section was sort of cool too. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/14 "2017-09-28T14:25:45Z")
It’s happened to me, for a routine pap smear. I couldn’t have cared less. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/15 "2017-09-28T14:36:40Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > What a fascinating question. If by fascinating you mean skeevy I agree. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/16 "2017-09-28T14:38:58Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > If by fascinating you mean skeevy I agree. Pretty sure he did. Though it didn’t read as skeevy to me until “please share stories.” ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/17 "2017-09-28T14:39:56Z")
There really isn’t a male equivalent so it’s hard for me to relate. But I’ve had female doctors in urology so one more probably wouldn’t make a difference. I’d probably draw the line if they wanted to take a selfie with me. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/18 "2017-09-28T14:40:36Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/19 "2017-09-28T15:45:48Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > There really isn’t a male equivalent so it’s hard for me to relate. I’ve had a medical student present when the doctor checked my prostate, and he took a turn. Male vs. female wouldn’t have bothered me. It’s when they start asking, “Is it supposed to be like that?” that things get a little awkward. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496/20 "2017-09-28T16:24:43Z")
Dude registers specifically to ask women to share stories of strange men looking at their vaginas. Yeah, that’s not weird. Points, I suppose, for not posting it in ATMB or Cafe Society. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/male-students-ladies-observing-at-gynecologist/797496.md?page=2)