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The presence of a female chaperone during pelvic examinations or other intimate diagnostic procedures performed by male examiners is an accepted practice in the U.S. The rationale is protection against litigious action, although a chaperone ideally also provides succor. As part of a U.K. study on the efficacy of transvaginal ultrasound screening (TVS) in detecting pelvic pathology in postmenopausal women, the investigators mailed a psychosocial questionnaire to a random subset of 234 participants. A key question was whether patients would prefer to have a chaperone present during the procedure.
The median age of the respondents was 62 years. Of 208 women undergoing TVS, 98% were scanned by female ultrasonographers. A female chaperone was pre…