BPH patients and male modesty during exams.
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I work in the medical training industry where we provide live simulated patients to train medical students and advanced nursing students on how to be respectful and courteous while performing sensitive personal exams on patients. I am also a BPH patient myself and have endured invasive physical exams myself
Unlike most women who seek medical preventive care every year, especially during their child bearing years, most men avoid going to a doctor until they exhibit serious symptoms so it is not unusual for a man of 50, 55, or even 60 to have not had a physical exam in decades. It seems that most of us do not want to admit that we are aging and our bodies are beginning to fail us.
Going to urologist for the first time can be stressful on a number of levels both physical and psychological. So I would like to ask the men in this group for what your medical providers said or did (or did not do) to make you feel comfortable and keep you keep your dignity. What did they get right and what they got wrong. What upset you most? How much privacy did you receive? Did the gender of the urologist or nurse practioner matter? Were other personnel present during your exams either to assist or act as a chaperone?
If you could give any advice to a future doctor or nurse practioner on how to make such exams more comfortable for the patient what would it be?
Thank you.
BobbyT
0 likes, 16 replies
Raberto BobbyT
Posted
I was sent to a male urologist about 6,7 years ago. He did not make a very good impression on me because of the way he spoke to me. When he did the digital I was very sore after and bled for about a week. He was very rough on me and I've never had a digital done before. I was scheduled to see him in a year and I was contemplating on not going back because of the experience.i had a gotten a letter from the facility saying I need to schedule with a new provider as he did not work there any more. I talked to my primary provider about what happened and she suggested a female provider she attended seminars for. well long story short I got a NP instead of the one she recommended. Very nice woman and did excellent job. But when it came to doing procedures she couldn't do them so I got referred to other male providers. I had found out that the other male who I started with had gotten fired. All the other doctors thot I turned him in for being rude. I did not turn him in. So all the males I seen there were rude to me in same manner and made my experience horrible. I talked with the NP and she said when would send me to her supervisor to be seen. I was in for a cystoscopy with him. A nurse came in to prepare me for the procedure. We talked sports the whole time and made me comfortable. So he of comes in does procedure while she was there. He sends her out and proceeds to do a digital in which I was in an awkward position while he was doing it. It hurt badly and nurse comes in while he is doing it and asked him what he was doing. She knew he was hurting me by the positioning of the digital. He stopped what he was doing and left the room. He told her to get me dressed and put in another room. She helped me get comfortable and dressed because I was in pain. She told me that wasnt ethical on what he did. She also told me they also thot I turned in other doc. I told her what had happened then the first time. She saved me from getting badly injured and recommended a different facility that she use to work at. She got me into other room and that doc really scolded me out. Told me there wasn't anything wrong with me and escorted me out. I then called the facility that the nurse recommend and got a female doc. I hope I never go to another male doc again. The new facility did find things wrong with me that wasn't told to me. I am glad that nurse was there to protect me and my rights as a patient for better care.