Over the years (decades, actually), I've heard reports from med students who were disturbed by what they witnessed during their ob-gyn clinical rotation: pelvic exams performed on sedated women who had not consented to the exam. Following up, I've been told repeatedly that this doesn't happen, that consent was obtained from all women who experienced pelvic exams, but the med students didn't know about the consent. That sounds kind of sketchy. Why wouldn't the consent process be included as an essential part of the med students' training?
That's certainly not the story by way of NBC News (courtesy of the Hastings Center):
NBC TV Nightly News featured a Hastings Center Report study estimating that more than 3.5 million patients in the U.S. may have been given pelvic exams without consent, often while sedated for surgery. Doctors interviewed by NBC called the practice a “violation of medical ethics” and of “patient autonomy.” Watch the NBC segment.
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