MGR

On Tuesday, I was (in a way) fully initiated into the profession of medicine.

I performed my first rectal exam.

Granted, it was done on a standardized patient--an actor who is trained to teach us how to do these things, in exchange for a hefty paycheck (after all--would you expose all your naughty parts to random kids to poke around on for free?). The good news: my SP was the veritable definition of professionalism and kept things quick and to the point--and, best of all, he lowered his gown when he was talking, rather than just letting it all hang out for us to stare at as he explained. Much less awkward than I thought it would be. The bad news: No matter what you do, however, there is still a very surreal element when you're sitting there with gloved hands, face to face with a stranger's nether regions, and being told that "you can press harder--it really doesn't hurt." Oh, the fun times.

The rectal part of the exam was actually the easiest part. The hardest was not laughing when we very suddenly switched from small talk to the SP just up and raising his gown to expose himself to us like nothing else was going on and this wasn't weird at all. The very worst part was that my partner (they send us in to learn the exam in twos) had to do this exam on her birthday. Happy birthday! Now stick your finger up this guy's ass.

All in all though, it's kind of nice to have the whole thing over with--I have to do the pelvic exam sometime second semester, but I'm not too worried about that because I've at least seen them done before. Unfortunately, it is now block week (tests on Friday), and so I will probably disappear for at least a while--but you never know. Maybe I'll get bored enough with studying to use blogging as an out.