Overall, I had wonderful experiences with both of my patients despite the fact that I’m male and I thought that this would put me at a disadvantage. At my clinical site, I have had little opportunity to work with women’s health patients; I’ve never even performed a basic pap smear. Typically when I walk into a patient’s room and introduce myself, the patient usually asks me to step aside because she is not comfortable with a man watching her exam. This has posed many problems to my education and left me wondering when and how will I obtain clinical experience as in OB/GYN before graduation.

As a result, I was very excited when I heard that Eastern Virginia Medical School would be coming to allow us to practice on them. I believe that I had a unique experience that will make me feel more confident about my OB/GYN examination ability. Before we were allowed to begin, my patient walked us through the procedure we would need to perform our task. Since I’ve have such little experience in the clinic, all the information that she was provided was new. During the speculum examination, my patient noticed how enthusiastic I was about performing the procedure and asked me if this was my first time.

I informed her that it was, and she helped me through the process. This was the very first time I had seen a cervical os in person; to do so, I opened the speculum slowly after inserting it fully into the cervix and was careful to not punch the skin. After the speculum was inserted, I was able to observe the wall of vagina. After performing my first speculum inserting, I became more comfortable with performing OB/GYN examinations; it made me feel as if I have done many of these before in my life, even though this was certainly not the case. I felt that my success was in part due to my patient who was very helpful in providing us with a feedback as we performed.

Next, we were asked to conduct a bimanual pelvic exam. I was able to palpate the uterus between my hands and was able to note the size, position, and irregularity. I was also able to palpate the ovaries; the minute that I had found the ovaries, I smiled and the patient knew that I was happy that I got this right. Throughout the examination, the patient kept asking me questions and helpfully walked me through the palpations of all the internal structures. She was very patient with me and fortunately my classmates were as well because they have done this procedure many times. My patient also reminded me that because I’m male, I have to be very careful with the kind of language I use, how I perform procedures, and make sure that there is someone in the room with me before I perform any sort of women’s health examination.

Ultimately, this women’s health examination is one of the best clinical experiences I’ve ever had because I’ve only had the chance to perform annual exams on males, which has occurred numerous times on my site. This was my first opportunity to complete a full health exam on a woman and the advice that my patients gave me was really helpful. I hope to one day get a chance to try this again at my clinical site. This experience also connected with me on a personal level because I was able to explain my experience to my wife who is expecting a baby early next year. I am really excited about the opportunity I had last week and hope that the NP program will allow the Eastern Virginia Medical School to visit once more.