Breasts!

Knew that would get your attention. Anyway, it always gets mine.
But no, this is not about mammary glands, not really. Instead it's about the respiratory exam, which we learned to do today, and the delicate art of intergender examinations.
When we finally got up to our practice rooms to attempt the arts of "inspection, palpation, and auscultation" on one another (that sequence has been effectively drilled into my head now--thanks, Dr. R!) the question arose: same gender dyads to practice, or opposite, or both? As the preceptor said, "I know that for practice's sake it might be better to pair off male/female...but for comfort's sake, you'd probably rather do same-gender exams, right? Well, you've got five more years of practice ahead of you, so for now let's stick with comfort and do same-gender pairs." It's odd; everyone in the class knows what my orientation is (I think) but to date this hasn't caused any awkwardness, for which I am profoundly thankful. It's hard enough trying to learn how to percuss and listen for inspiratory splitting without worrying that your exam partner thinks you're surreptitiously trying to cop a feel. Which, it goes without saying (and for once I'm not being sarcastic) I would neeeeeever do, for approximately 573 reasons, among them professionalism, integrity, the fact that a lot of the women in my class could kick my ass if I tried such a thing, and the fact that I'm really not into the whole sexual assault business.

I was surprised, but the guys actually seemed more uptight about the idea of examining women than we did about the prospect of being palpated by gentlemen (and in fact all the men in my practice group are what I would call gentlemen). "I mean, how do you do the exam...with women?" one of the guys asked. To which our preceptor--a funny guy who I am 99.9% positive is gay, and whom I thus had no qualms about allowing to demonstrate part of the exam on me--said, "Well, the breasts are always going to be there." We all laughed at that, but it's true; I've never really been conscious of it, because I'd only ever been on the receiving end of physical exams before, and with my 32AAs there isn't much concern about impeding the progress of a physical (though there was the nurse who took an EKG and left my gown wide open until I yanked it closed...I was not pleased), but breasts can be cumbersome when you're trying to do a cardiac or respiratory exam. You may have to ask a woman to lift or move her breast, or if she can't, gently do it yourself. We're just learning about all this, so we still get awkward and blushy and worry that someone's going to be pissed at us. By third year, apparently, mammaries will be mammaries will be mammaries. It's all in the approach, I guess, in how the body is constructed and understood from a cultural perspective (and medicine--medical school especially--is definitely its own culture).