Speculum gyno tool gyno chair

She ended up standing in the corner facing the wall as I flipped it around. I'm so awkward. Once I got my robe on right, it was time. Jessie started the exam, which began with harmless tests I was used to from my regular physicals, like a thyroid examination and pressing on my stomach.

Then came the breast exam, where the doctor or nurse looks at and feels your breasts and under your arms for lumps or anything unusual. This part was was a little more embarrassing, but I'd gotten breast exams before so I was used to it. The only difference that surprised me was she actually, like, squeezed my nipple.

I can't remember a doctor ever doing that before, but there was a good reason for it. She was checking for discharge and lumps in the nipple. After that, it was time to start the part of the exam I was dreading most. Before starting the vaginal exam, Jessie asked if I wanted to get a Pap smear, which is a screening meant to test for the presence of precancerous or cancerous cells on the cervix.

It's a test you should get done whether you're sexually active or not and you should get tested every 3 years. Since I'd never been to the gyno before, I thought it best to get one, so I said yes. She also asked at this point if I wanted to get tested for STDs. Even if you're not sexually active and are pretty positive you're STD free, you should think about saying yes to the STD screening just in case.

STDs, like herpes, can be passed from person-to-person through skin-to-skin contact as simple as kissing. Jessie pulled these footrests out from the front of the examination table and asked me to place my feet in them and scoot my body forward until my butt was at the edge of the table and my legs were wide open.

It's really hard to scoot anywhere in one of those loose paper gowns, so I ended up having to kind of bounce like five times until my legs were spread wide open in front of Jessie. It was, perhaps, the most ungraceful thing I've ever done. But Jessie didn't seem to feel awkward and she didn't run away when I opened my legs, so I guess I don't have a mutant vagina.

First she used what's called a speculum to open up my vagina and look inside and get easy access to the cervix.

It looks like this:. I'd spoken to my roommate about this part beforehand and she said that when her doctor did it, it didn't hurt at all.

Plus, Jessie assured me that she was using a ton of lubrication so all I would feel is a little bit of pressure. She walked me through the entire process, telling me exactly what she was doing as she did it and noting that if I did feel any pain, I should let her know.

I'm going to start opening it. It felt a little uncomfortable. And right when I thought I was going to have to tell her it was too much, she stopped opening it. I'm not going to lie: it was kind of painful. Not unbearable, but I did feel a kind of throbbing pressure that was not pleasant. I'm guessing it's because I was nervous and didn't relax my muscles enough. But I didn't find the pain extreme or unbearable, so I didn't say anything.

Once she had the speculum in place, she took a long little brush and swiped the inside of my vagina with it. It just felt like a little poke, poke , but wasn't painful not any more than the throbbing feeling of the speculum, at least.

She removed the speculum then, letting me know that if I had some spotting after, it was completely normal. The last part of the exam was the most excruciatingly awkward part. Jessie manually examined my reproductive organs, which required her to insert two fingers into my vagina while pressing down on my abdomen. It didn't hurt whatsoever, but it was a little odd to have a stranger putting their actual fingers inside of me.

She felt around in there for about 5 seconds and then it was over. Like really over. She told me I could sit up and close my legs and cover up thank God. Once I was modest again, Jessie took my blood pressure, just like any other physical.

However, these advances came at a horrific price, as his research methods can only be described as monstrous. Sims would buy or borrow injured slave women whose masters were happy to help, since they wanted fertile slaves , bring them to his backyard hospital, and use them as test subjects for his surgeries. He invited other doctors to watch him work—as well as anyone who wanted to pay for standing room. Another woman nearly died after a sponge Sims left inside of her caused an infection.

Ultimately, though, Sims was able to heal these women, and claimed that some of them were so eager to be cured that they had assisted him with their surgeries. His ability to repair fistulas catapulted both the doctor and his speculum to fame, and he would go on to become the consulting surgeon for the French Empress Eugenie, head of the American Medical Association, and founder of the very first hospital exclusively for women. Midwives treated vaginal problems through natural means, and until the s, birth was not considered an occurrence that required medical intervention.

The medical establishment was very keen to change this perception. After the Sims speculum boomed in popularity, doctors were able to promote the fact that they now had special tools designed specifically for women. Great, right? Except that the male-dominated medical establishment had no intention of letting women take a look for themselves. The belief that women simply had no business down there persisted for decades.

In s America, free clinics for women began to sprout up across the states. But these clinics, for the most part, still used male doctors, and women were still shamed and treated with condescension. The woeful ignorance of the female biological experience sparked a campaign to train more women doctors, to re-educate male physicians, and to create a women-oriented health movement.

The book was groundbreaking, offering the means for women to truly gain control and ownership over their bodies by learning how they worked. Another truly great moment in speculum history came in , when feminist lawyer and author Carol Downer walked into a Los Angeles bookstore, dropped her drawers, and inserted a speculum. She then invited the ladies in attendance to come and take a gander. These demos soon caught on, and thousands of women began to attend similar workshops.

Then, in , Downer was arrested for the truly heinous crime of showing another woman how to use a speculum. Clearly a menace to society, Downer was hauled to jail and charged with practicing medicine without a license she had also recommended using yogurt for a yeast infection.

Downer was acquitted, and her arrest only helped to spread the message that women must fight to gain control over their own bodies and health. Stewart and Kumar strongly felt that empathy should be a key aspect of their design. So they conducted an exercise in which male designers personally read through firsthand accounts from women who have undergone a pelvic exam. The process of redesigning the vaginal speculum brought together both industrial designers and mechanical engineers, but as the team began branding their project, they made a key realization — not everyone with a vagina identifies as a woman.

And some of these people had even worse experiences than the team had imagined. Because testosterone therapy causes vaginal atrophy and dryness, pelvic exams can be even more painful for transgender patients.

These vital insights urged the team to research the experiences of other populations that are outside the gender binary. During their next phase of development, Yona Care will continue to prototype the newest version of the pelvic exam tool. They also have plans to tackle other painful pelvic exam causes, such as the stirrups and exam room itself. For more interesting news about the people and ideas that are changing our world, subscribe to Freethink.

Skip to content All Videos Series Playlists. Female Leaders. This team is redesigning the vaginal speculum to improve the experience for everyone with a vagina. Watch on YouTube. Up Next. Now Playing.