"The Healing Vagina" - What REALLY Happens at the Gyno?

Yep, the "v-word" is officially on my blog! If that offends you, by all means, don't read this blog post. No hard feelings!

For Women's Studies, we have an assignment to read an article in the book We Don't Need Another Wave. The article is about a woman who is a gynocological teaching associate, that is, someone who educates aspiring doctors to give gynecological exams in a sensitive, professional manner through actual hands-on experience.

Without going into TMI details of my own life (this is, of course, the WORLD WIDE Web and God-forbid some tight laced potential job employer stumbles upon this blog) this article really spoke to me. The gynocologist's office has been a source of extreme anxiety to me for the past 5 years. My experience up until a few years ago has always been associated with some high level of anxiety (to the point of having to take valium each time I go, yup, that's right) and always somewhere on the I-hate-my-life scale of "embarrassing and painful" and "humiliating and excruciating".

I have no problem with doctors or gynocologists as a whole. However, even some of the nice ones don't want to talk about your fears and worries, don't want to teach you about your body and don't care if you're absolutely terrified at the thought of inserting what looks like a medieval torture device into the most private part of your body.

*sigh* Alright, off my soap box.

I thought that the career of a gynecological teaching associate (GTA) was absolutely amazing. Someone is sitting there teaching doctors how to give an exam without giving me a full scale panic attack? HALLELUJAH!!

I wanted to learn more about these people, so I did another lovely Google search! I came across this great website called Project Prepare. If you don't want to browse the website like I did, you can get a great overview about this organization by going to their youtube video. I was interested to learn that this has been going on since the 1970's, since I've never heard of it before! There is also a male component that helps doctors perform urology exams. I learned and read about the people that work in this organization, who train doctors to perform everything from routine gynecological exams to male breast and rectal exams.

I feel like I've spent a great deal of time this semester railing against "the man," both in and out of the classroom. Seeing that there are still really positive things going on in women's issues  really gives me hope for the future of medical care for women. In my own life I've recently found a doctor who is starting to help me heal as well, and that gives me even more hope!