I went to the ER for abdominal pain and they had me completely undress?

Question

Was this necessary?I was only getting checked for abdominal pains

Answer 1

Yes. Not only did they need you to undress to examine you, but if you were sent for any x-rays or a CT scan they needed you to have your clothes off so that there was no metal on your body. If they did an ultrasound, you needed to be undressed because otherwise the gel would get all over your clothes. Seems to me that if I was in pain, I wouldn't care what they asked me to do as long as they helped me get out of pain. Why are you uncomofrtable with taking off your clothes?

Answer 2

ideally, every medical examination requires the patient to be fully undressed. that's what they teach in med skool. but this isn't always practiced because its time consuming and perhaps uncomfortable for the patient. when a doctor asks you to undress, he/she must respect your privacy as much as possible. that's important.

1. you must be told to undress behind a curtain or a room, not in front of the doctor or nurse (unless it's a simple take off your shirt i need to see if your chest is ok or you're familiar with the doctor in which case your comfortable to take off your clothes in front of him/her)

2. the doctor/nurse should only expose the part being examined. for example, if they're looking at your abdomen, only your abdomen should be exposed and they should cover your chest and waist down (but there are exceptions to this).

3. some countries require a female nurse or doctor or family member/friend to be present in the room when a male doctor is examining a female patient.

i hope the er respected your privacy as much as they could under the circumstances.

they could have asked you to remove your shirt to see your abdomen and chest. its easier to auscultate on a bare chest than with clothes on. and they might have had to put on EKG strips. perhaps they asked you to expose your genitals so they could see their development and rule out hormonal causes. your legs for varicose veins perhaps (which are a predisposing factor for deep vein thrombosis otherwise called "economy class syndrome" where a clot could travel up your veins to some other part of the body, perhaps (rarely) an abdominal organ). i'm giving them the benifit of the doubt here.

if you still have questions, talk to you lawyer. good luck :)

Answer 3

Are you shy? the doctor has about fifteen minutes to examine you, he's on a schedule too. Your not the only one in that hospital so,you may have to be sent for X-Rays or examined by another doctor. It saves them time waiting for you to undress, that's all. There's no big deal about it, calm down.

Answer 4

It's just easier for the doctor to examine you. When he's busy and seeing a bunch of other patients at the same time they just want you to be totally ready to be seen. If there is a problem or emergency and you need to have other tests you don't have to waste time changing.

Answer 5

You can not get examined with your clothes on. I do not understand the question.