Ellen Cahill, MD, on chaperone use for genitourinary exams

Author(s):

Key Takeaways

Standardized guidelines for chaperone use are crucial to ensure consistency and enhance the patient-physician experience in genitourinary exams.
Institutions vary in who can serve as a chaperone, with some allowing only nurses and techs, excluding physicians, medical students, and scribes.
Consideration of exam types requiring chaperones and whether patients have a choice is important for policy development.
Effective implementation involves integrating chaperone policies into clinical workflows and securing staff buy-in for smooth operation.

"I think it would be really nice if we did have standardized guidelines on who could serve as a chaperone," says Ellen Cahill, MD.

In this video, Ellen Cahill, MD, discusses what to consider when incorporating chaperones for genitourinary exams. She presented the study “The Use of Chaperones for Genitourinary Exams: A Survey of Society for the Study of Male Reproduction (SSMR) Members,” at the 2024 Sexual Medicine Society of North American Fall Scientific Meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona. Cahill is a urology resident at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.

Transcription:

What factors should be considered when developing standardized guidelines for chaperone use in sexual medicine? How can these guidelines be implemented effectively to ensure consistency and improve the patient-physician experience?

I think it would be really nice if we did have standardized guidelines on who could serve as a chaperone. Like I said, our study showed that there are wide variations. At Yale, we only allow for nurses and techs to be chaperones. We don't allow another physician to be a chaperone, a medical student, a scribe, anything like that. But it really varied in our survey. You also want to consider what exam needs a chaperone. At Yale, we use them for any rectal exam, genitourinary exam, breast exam, any really sensitive exam. And we don't give patients a choice. It's just a policy that we have. Sometimes patients do say, "Do we really need this? Do I have to have this done?" And typically, by just saying, "This is our policy," we don't have issues with that, but it's something that should be considered. Are you going to give the patients a choice, or are you going to have that be your standardized policy, and then just making sure to work it into the workflow, talk to the clinic staff, and figure out how this is going to be implemented by who, and just making sure there's buy-in from everybody.

This transcript was AI generated and edited by human editors for clarity.