Women's attitudes to the sex of medical students in a gynaecology clinic: cross sectional survey.

Abstract

# Women's attitudes to the sex of medical students in a gynaecology clinic: cross sectional survey {#article-title-2} In Tomorrow's Doctors the General Medical Council recommended that medical schools construct a list of procedures in which students should show competence by the time they qualify.1 There is general acceptance that such core skills include passing a speculum, taking a smear, and performing a competent pelvic examination. Anecdotal evidence from medical students, particularly male students, is that experience in this area is difficult to obtain. This is not a problem confined to the United Kingdom. In response to a similar perception among their male students, staff at the University of California studied patients' views on the involvement of medical students in the women's visits in an outpatient gynaecological and obstetric setting.2 They found that 81% of patients accepted the involvement of students during a gynaecological visit, with no preference for a particular sex. However, the study did not directly address the issue of intimate examinations. We surveyed women attending a gynaecology clinic in an inner London teaching hospital to examine women's experience of and attitudes to the sex of medical students. View this table: Numbers (percentages) of women responding to the question “Would you allow a student to do an intimate examination?” We surveyed women attending a gynaecology clinic in the academic year 1999-2000. Women were approached only when a student was working with the doctor they had seen. Questionnaires were given out by nursing staff after the consultation. Two hundred questionnaires were distributed and 181 were returned. The age range of respondents was 17-79 years (mean 40 (SD 13) years). Just under a quarter …