BMJ  2003;326:1326 (14 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7402.1326-b

Letter

Please don't touch me there: the ethics of intimate examinations

What examination is not intimate?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The education and debate article by Coldicott et al is another attempt to justify the obsession with political correctness.1 It presupposes that patients will be quite relaxed after having signed a form agreeing to be examined by medical students while under anaesthesia or in a clinic.

Patients are anxious when visiting doctors, whatever their ailment. This paper presupposes that examination by medical students is some kind of an assault and that by signing an informed consent form the patients are protected.

As medical students we are upset when we first witness any clinical situation, be it an infant crying in the arms of a paediatrician, a young patient being intubated by an anaesthetist, or a grand old lady being persuaded to walk by a physiotherapist.

This article is dangerous in that it isolates vaginal or rectal examinations as being intimate examinations. Every medical examination is intimate, which medical . . . [Full text of this article]

Nikhil C Kaushik, consultant ophthalmic surgeon

North East Wales Trust Hospital, Wrexham LL13 7TD Nikhil.Kaushik@new-tr.wales.nhs.uk


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Relevant Article

The ethics of intimate examinations---teaching tomorrow's doctors • Commentary: Respecting the patient's integrity is the key • Commentary: Teaching pelvic examination---putting the patient first
Yvette Coldicott, Catherine Pope, Clive Roberts, Britt-Ingjerd Nesheim, and Jane MacDougall
BMJ 2003 326: 97-101. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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