Yep. That’s how I ended my workday today. Engraving a farewell message to a doctor on a speculum. A used speculum. Sterilized and sanitized, the customer assured me. I got that pinchy feeling the whole time, and now that I’ve had a opportunity to (ahem) examine one close up, I am less enamored of the device than I was before. It looks positively medieval.
So what surreal experience did you have today?
I guarantee that any surreal experience I have had in my life doesn’t top that, up to and including my very first trip to the gyno.
Oh, thank you so much.
This morning I had my annual GYN checkup and internal CRUNCH MUNCH PINCH OH GOD WHEN WILL YOU TAKE THIS THING OUT??? and I’d managed to forget the feeling.
Until I opened this thread.
:mad:
:eek: :eek: :eek:
Uhh, just how does one get their hands on a *used * speculum?
I assume its not something you can just get off eBay…
… hmm… I’ll go check now…
Not a used speculum exactly, but I bought a nurse friend an antique syringe set from an antique shop. She now has quite a collection of ancient medical equipment.
I am hoping to get rich with my invention to alleviate the nervousness associated with the use of the duckbill speculum. I am looking for financing to market the Daffy Duckbill speculum. Maybe soon.
Actually…Ummm.
I think I may have way too much free time on my hands
Just head down to SPECULUM CITY! Right now they’re have their clearance sale: buy 9 speculums and get the 10th one for just one penny!
Actually that would be really cool for female Dopers. Buy yourself a speculum and next time you go to the doctor whip it out and insist that she use your “personal” speculum. You get a laugh and she has something to talk about with other doctors…“Well one time I had this patient…”
Holy crap. Somehow in 29 years of living and about 10 years of going to the gyn I never looked at one closely either. That’s what they use?? It does look like some kind of torture instrument.
Eek.
Oh ye gods. :eek:
I had never actually SEEN what one looks like before. :eek:. Well, I wasn’t exactly in a position to see the damn thing.
Ack! I am not sure when I am next due for a routine gyno attack with mediaeval torture insturment, but I do know it is not too soon, so I hope I shall have forgotten this thread by then.
“Yes, doctor, I know I have never been scared of it before, but there is this mesage board, you see…” 
See the Daffy Duckbill Speculum does have a market.
Well, she did say it was a farewell message for a doctor. My guess would be that someone is leaving a practice, and they just scooted down and got one out of the supply cabinet.
Said it before, will say it again: my hat’s off to you, ladies, who bravely face(?) this thing. I have enough trouble with my MD’s plain old finger.
Thus, an example of the “ignorance is bliss” principle.
don’t ask: Brilliant idea. Maybe you can get in touch with the guys who did the Hello Kitty vibrator.
I’ve got an appointment for Monday, and now I’m feeling distinctly antsy about it. I just know I’ll be lying there, imagining that ten years down the road, someone is going to engrave that very speculum and give it to somebody else.
Relax, my ass. sigh
Well, they do say “ytry to relax” but not your ass. 
So, my dad’s a doctor in a small rural town in western Wisconsin. His former partner’s a sort of missionary - there’s a hospital he goes to in the Dominican Republic every once in a while (maybe two, three times a year) to take them supplies, see the people, and spread the Word, as it were.
D. cannibalizes all sorts of things from the clinic to take down to the DR, which is fine with my dad. Dad did, however, have to draw the line - D. wanted to take their used speculums down there to give to the hospital. However, the speculums they use are plastic, which they normally throw away after one use, and there’s really no way to sterilize them properly for use by someone else. I joked with dad that sure there was - just stick 'em in the autoclave and let D. take the hunks of melted plastic with him next time he went.
Well, D’s heart’s in the right place, anyway.
I’m sorry to say that I have seen one up close before - and not in the doctor’s office. It was in the porn store - right next to the sex toys :eek:
Gah! They put…that…there?
shudders and makes a mental note to never, every, go to a gynecologist
But first, they put it in the refrigerator overnight! (or so my sister tells me; or rather, they used to, before they went to the single-use plastic/composite ones) And do some searching to find pictures of Roman ones… it’ll take you a while to uncross your legs
And don’t be so squicked about gifting or reusing: you put stainless steel in the autoclave it comes out sterile. What I’m more concerned about is, the doc who is going to be presented with the engraved one, will s/he be expected to exhibit it proudly in the curio cabinet, or mounted on a wall-plaque?
Well, unless they’re using one of * these* Kitten's Toy Room - Funny Toys For Adults .
(no, not really work safe)