no choice of gender in hospitals

Submitted by Rebecca Moulds (United States), Jul 4, 2007 at 23:43

While living in Egypt, I was scheduled to have a mammogram at a Cairo clinic. After checking in for my appointment, I was told to go into a room to change into a gown. That was normal, but what wasn't normal was that the person doing the mammogram was a male radiologist! This was the first time in thirty years of mammograms that I didn't receive this service from a female, and although I was a little embarrassed at first, decided that we were in a medical center and it really didn't matter what gender was doing this test, but it did surprise me that this was being done in a Muslim country such as Egypt .

In France, I was in a hospital for a while and one evening, a male nurse attended to me. However, this time I was very upset, and told the nurses the next morning. They simply laughed when I told them how embarrassed I felt, and then I realised how silly I must have sounded. After all, I was simply a patient and he was a nurse, doing his job. In hospitals and similar places, there shouldn't be any problems with which sex is attending to the patient, especially in matters of life and death.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".