It’s that time again – that time you’ve been putting off for tomorrow. Or the day after. It’s time to book your next appointment at the GP for a pap smear.
Am I the only one who massively procrastinates? Despite the knowledge that the benefits of getting a check up outweigh the relatively brief discomfort, I always find a reason to put it off for one more week. Or one more month. I’m too busy, I’ll say to myself. It’s almost next week anyway, I’ll shrug. It’s not like it’s a strict deadline, I’ll reason.
Then when it’s time to bite the bullet, I always hear myself enquire, “Is there is a female doctor available?” If there is not, I find myself feeling uneasy. Perhaps because in my mid 20s, I’m fairly new to the good old “down there” doctor visit. Perhaps because the idea of a man, potentially double my age, seeing me in all my glory is just too weird, no matter what credentials hang on his wall. I know there’s nothing new to see here, folks. These physicians see this every day – day in, day out.
So why do I still feel uneasy, even when prior experiences have proven to be nothing like my nightmarish expectations? Does this get easier with time? Do insecurities eventually fly out the window and in a few years time I’ll be having a good old chin wag about footy tipping while straddled into the dreaded plastic chair?
According to the Royal Women’s Hospital, in Australia, less than one in five doctors that specialise in women’s health are women. Interestingly, a 2007 survey by a doctor at Sydney’s North Shore Hospital found that 64 percent of women needing a genital health check up asked for a female doctor. With such disparate supply and demand figures, chances that you’ll secure an appointment with a female doctor are slim.
The North Shore Hospital survey also found that 70 percent of men did not have a preference of who examined them, exposing an interesting difference of mentality. Are men inherently more comfortable with their own bodies? Are men more equally at ease with both sexes? Are men simply more capable of separating the clinical from the personal? Or are women being too dramatic and fussy in their preference of female doctors?
Other factors can affect a patient’s comfort level with a female versus male doctor. Many different religious and cultural beliefs exist in Australia that restrict women from being alone in a room with a non-related male. How do clinics that largely service patients of this demographic cope not only with the high demand for female doctors but also with the ethics of respecting patients’ religious beliefs?
The gravitas toward female doctors is perhaps not only the sense of physical ease but the need for an emotional connection. Despite how healthy we feel, a check up always comes with that sense of dread – what if they find something? Female doctors tend to be more personable, more chatty, more motherly. I certainly remember a painful procedure I endured when I had a benign tumour removed from behind my ear. Despite being a young female, alone and clearly in pain as tears streamed down my eyes, my male doctor offered no encouraging words, there was no gentleness in his touch and once the procedure was done I was ushered out so fast I can’t remember if I paid the bill.
Ultimately, aside from religious restrictions, gender is not really the issue. We are all looking for a doctor who shows genuine care, expertise and a light heartedness to put us worry warts at ease. Perhaps we too quick to assume those characteristics belong to women, but I’m sure once my next check up is over, I’ll say farewell to my male doctor and wonder why I made all that fuss.
Matylda Buczko studied Journalism, Literature and Creative Writing at both RMIT and Monash Universities before undertaking a Master’s Degree in Media & Communications at Swinburne University. Currently, she is the Communication Coordinator in the Melbourne office of Marie Stopes International, a global health care organisation.
Do you put off visits to the doctor? Do you prefer a male or a female doctor?
Top Comments
Interesting article. I recently went to the doctors for a general check up after being overseas. I also had a sexual health check up and a Pap smear. I requested a female doctor. I definitely feel more comfortable seeing a female for both sexual health check ups as for a Pap smear. Will always request them! For everything else health related I never request a specific gender.
No Matylda, there's nothing wrong with you - you're a normal female who doesn't like strange men looking at or touching your half-naked body and genitals. And sorry Matylda, but it doesn't get better as you get older. I'm a 58 year old woman who has just been diagnosed with breast cancer - tumour removed and now facing about 2 months of radiation therapy which involves lying bare breasted on a narrow bench with arms stretched up behind my head holding onto two metal bars with three radiologists - 2 inside the room and 1 outside at the controls watching everything through a viewing hatch - where each session each day you have to be measured up and positioned, taped, felt-tip marked all of which takes about 20 minutes. When I arrived for my first session there were 3 male radiologists - I hadn't been asked what my preference would be - male or female - so I assumed that's all they had.
I felt embarrassed, humiliated and somewhat violated by the whole experience. That night I sobbed to my husband that I wasn't going to go back - he was supportive and encouraged me to asked for female radiologists. He also rang the corporate headquarters and voiced his concern on my behalf. That particular suburban branch of the clinic however doesn't have enough female radiologists to guarantee my getting all-female treatment - so now I have to travel to the other side of town to another branch attached to the Wesley Hospital where there are more female radiologistsl. The thing is, when I raised the issue I was made to feel that what I was asking for was a bit odd and that I was in some way putting them out - just little comments like - But you were treated by a male surgeon and there are lots of male nurses now - which really annoyed me.
Yes, I did have a male surgeon because my female doctor referred me to him because she said he was the best, and, anyway I was unconscious when he operated on me !!
I have never sunbaked topless on a beach nor have I worked as a topless waitress - the only people who have seen me bare breasted are my husband, my female doctor, a couple of bra-fitting consultants and some female friends in pool changing rooms. I'm not a prude - I just don't like strange male eyes looking at my private parts.
Men don't care whether it's a male or female treating them because men actually enjoy being looked at and touched by females !! Whereas women don't - there have been heaps of feminist papers written on The Male Gaze.
By the way, historically women were usually stripped or half stripped and paraded through the town before being executed for being witches or whatever other crime they had committed, so it is a well-known form of punishment and humiliation.
So Matylda, yes, we need a lot more women in all fields of medicine so women don't have to endure being treated by males if they don't wish to be.