Since the publication of a document from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lyon-Sud by the Metronews site, the controversy around vaginal examinations performed on sleeping patients does not weaken. In reaction to this practice, which would override the patient’s consent, some fifty doctors, researchers, journalists, feminists and bloggers published this Friday, February 6, a tribune to call on the public authorities to take action.
The text, signed by 43 women and 9 men, stipulates that if this practice is denied by many doctors, it is indeed “mentioned in several blogs, by testimonies of future doctors and even attested by documents. “And if some claim it, the forum recalls that vaginal or rectal examination without the informed consent of the patient remains” a denial of his rights “, and goes against current laws on this subject. Vaginal examination “carried out without prior consent could even be assimilated, in the criminal sense, to an act of sexual penetration committed on another person by constraint or surprise, that is to say rape », Can we read in the gallery.
Medical ethics too often neglected
To the practitioners who retort that one gives his consent from the moment one crosses the threshold of a University Hospital Center (CHU), the signatories of the forum also answer “that a simple information on the presence and the involvement of students in a hospital does not constitute free and informed consent to each of their acts ”, as the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. The signatories are also thinking ofmedecine studient “Forced by its trainers to carry out an act contrary to its values”, and consider that this constitutes “great violence” harmful to future doctors. They deplore that in France the person examined is “reduced to an organ” and that health professionals minimize this non-compliance with the law instead of rebelling. “For what reasons alone should the medical teacher determine what is acceptable and what is not? “, Chanted the text, which underlines that” such conceptions of medicine are likely to definitively break the trust between the medical world and the rest of society which no longer accepts them. “
“In view of the seriousness of the practices brought to light”, the authors of the forum therefore ask “Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the Minister of Higher Education and Research, to launch an inspection […] to shed light on this affair and the conditions for the practical learning of future doctors in our country. “They also ask” that the collection of consent on acts performed by students be systematized in all French hospitals “, and that future doctors “During their studies benefit from external contributions and support from professionals in the human sciences, philosophy, law and sociology. “The authors conclude that” ethics can definitely no longer be a simple option in the training of French doctors. “
And you what do you think ? Should the government respond to the controversy over vaginal touches ? Talk about it on the forum.
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