Sunday, November 11, 2018

Pelvic adventures

I had the most adorable new resident corner me in the supply room the other day to ask me the most humiliating of questions - could I chaperone a pelvic exam for him, and also by the way could I walk him through how to do a pelvic exam while we're at it?

Apparently the ER doc sent him out into the wild, and the resident admitted that he's only ever done the exam on two real people before, but "it's been a while." I have to say, this is legitimately the first time I've ever had a doctor flat out admit that they don't know how to doctor yet. While I did enjoy giving him a bit of a hard time it was actually super encouraging to see a resident admit they don't know something, seek out a nurse who does know, and ask for their instructions and recommendations. I showed him all the supplies we would need, the order of swabs for STD testing, how to use our particular speculums, and what to tell the patient during the exam. He followed instructions perfectly and did a great job.

Too often we'll see a resident who has literally just graduated speak down to a nurse with 5, 10, 30 years of experience and dismiss anything we say or do because "you're just a nurse." Not this dude. He swallowed his pride, and came out as a better practitioner because of it.

He doesn't really need to know that I've actually never done a pelvic exam....watching hundreds of them is totally the same the real thing, right?

2 comments:

  1. « I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV ». 😉

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, having a whole bunch of them also helps!

    ReplyDelete