It is a public discovery that is likely to cause a stir, and for good reason!
An investigation unveiled by the daily Metronews reveals that medical students gynecologist would practice vaginal examination in the operating room, on sleeping patients, without their prior consent.
This is in any case what the clerkship internship forms on the University of Lyon-Sud website, quickly posted on Twitter, can be seen. They have since been removed from the site by the establishment. On one of the texts, he clearly writes that the learning of vaginal examinations will be carried out “in the operating room, on a sleeping patient”. Another internship sheet specifies that the student must be “perfectly present at 8:30 am every day in the operating room” to report on a certain number of medical procedures, such as vaginal examination, abbreviated as “TV”, under general anesthesia, abbreviated as “AG”.
Very quickly, the web is set ablaze, Internet users are stepping up to the plate and raising the issue of the patient’s consent. Some even speak of “rape”, in the legal sense of the term (any act of sexual penetration, whether vaginal, anal or oral, “committed on the person of another by violence, constraint, threat or surprise”, as well using a penis or a finger than an object).
“Doctors don’t abuse the person who is asleep. We work together and on the occasion of the surgery, theinternal and the external will learn “, explains the dean of the UFR of medicine of Lyon-Sud, Carone Burillon, who recognizes however that this system” of learning “is not perfect. “We could actually ask each person for the agreement to have one more vaginal examination, but I’m afraid that at that point, the patients will refuse,” adds the Dean. However, and according to the law, the patient must be informed in advance and give his ” consent enlightened ”in view of the medical procedures he will undergo and the possible presence of a medical student. For Emmanuel Hirsch, director of the Ile-de-France ethical space at the Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Paris, if this practice is not consented to, it is quite simply an “act of mistreatment”. “A patient could initiate a procedure against the teams for medical act not consented”, he warns. “We cannot, in the name of training, destroy this principle”, relating to the Kouchner law of 2002.
Potentially common practices that some defend
Since the controversy, a large number of student testimonials have flourished on the web, highlighting a practice that seems far from being reserved for the University of Lyon-Sud.
But if some are offended by these unethical methods, others defend them, out of educational necessity. “You shouldn’t be hypocritical, everyone does it,” says the head of the urology department of a Paris hospital, who himself trains his externs in this way. “I don’t want my patients to have two rectal exams in a row while they are awake. There is absolutely no question of a chain drive! The externs perform a touch only if there is a therapeutic and pedagogical interest (a ovarian cancer, a prostate swollen …) ”, tries all the same to reassure the urologist.
For its part, the National Council of the Order of Physicians condemns a practice which it swears never to have heard of. “Training must be carried out with transparency and respect for dignity. There is here a very clear breach of medical ethics ”, assures Jean-Marie Faroudja, president of the ethics and professional conduct section of the Order.
Note that in France, some medical schools offer training on mannequins faithfully reproducing the physiology of man, woman, infant or child, enough to avoid this kind of problem. In addition, this training makes it possible to respond to the recommendations of the High Authority for Health (HAS) which clearly states: “Never the first time on the patient! “
And what do you think of these “vaginal examinations performed without consent “? Talk about it on the forum.
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