A Pot Ignored Boils On: Sustained Calls for Explicit Consent of Intimate Medical Exams

HEC Forum : an Interdisciplinary Journal on Hospitals' Ethical and Legal Issues
Lori Bruce

Abstract

Unconsented intimate exams (UIEs) on men and women are known to occur for training purposes and diagnostic reasons, mostly during gynecological surgeries but also during prostate examinations and abdominal surgeries. UIEs most often occur on anesthetized patients but have also been reported on conscious patients. Over the last 30 years, several parties-both within and external to medicine-have increasingly voiced opposition to these exams. Arguments from medical associations, legal scholars, ethicists, nurses, and some physicians have not compelled meaningful institutional change. Opposition is escalating in the form of legislative bans and whistleblower reports. Aspiring to professional and scientific detachment, institutional consent policies make no distinction between intimate exams and exams on any other body part, but patients do not think of their intimate regions in a detached or neutral way and believe intimate exams call for special protections. UIEs are found to contribute to moral erosion and moral distress of medical students and compromise the sacred trust between the medical community and the general public. This paper refutes the main arguments in favor of the status quo, identifies a series of harms related to ...Continue Reading

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Citations

Sep 17, 2020·The New England Journal of Medicine·Michael F Greene
May 28, 2020·International Journal of Impotence Research·Brian D Earp, Sara Johnsdotter
Aug 2, 2020·HEC Forum : an Interdisciplinary Journal on Hospitals' Ethical and Legal Issues·Mark J Cherry
May 14, 2020·HEC Forum : an Interdisciplinary Journal on Hospitals' Ethical and Legal Issues·Brian H Childs, Nasser Rizvi
Mar 16, 2021·Women's Health Issues : Official Publication of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health·David AlfandreToby Schonfeld

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
medical procedure

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