Dear medical providers and administrators, from a disabled person with severe medical and personal trauma—

If you know in advance that your initial appointment with a new patient will require them to be
-nude,
-touched in intimate areas, or
-stuck in an enclosed space,
you ABSOLUTELY need to give them written warning WELL before the appointment.
Ideally when they are making the appointment, but if not, as soon as you know it will be required.

If you as the medical provider don’t know in advance, and the need only becomes evident during the appointment, you NEED to give patients the options to:
-go “freshen up” and give them the supplies to do so (only works if they’re able-bodied enough to use the facilities to hand and not allergic to the supplies, the latter of which I ALWAYS AM,)
-ask for an additional staff member (of their requested gender) to be present as a witness during that part of the exam, or
-reschedule that part of the exam for when they have had time to physically prep/bring a support person/talk it through with their therapist/take anxiety meds in advance (but it has to be relatively soon, or it WILL come off like their inability/unwillingness to unexpectedly undergo something that feels violating to them is being punished by care being withheld.)

If you’re a doctor or other actual medical care provider, you should be aware that disabled, traumatized, and busy people exist, and you should care about the humanity of your patients enough to allow them the basic dignity of being able to prepare appropriately for appointments.

If you DON’T do those things, frankly, you are a jerk who shouldn’t be entrusted with caring for people’s wellbeing in any way, and you ABSOLUTELY DESERVE having to deal with all of the explosions of vomit, volcanoes of blood, hurricanes of weeping, torrents of snot, fetid swamps of unwashed genitals with sweat-matted bush, storms of scary PTSD episodes, floods of leavings from yesterday’s sexcapades, foul winds of post-gym or -physical therapy sweat, and whatever else you get. 😤🖕🏻✨ People have DISABILITIES, TRAUMA, OTHER ACTIVITIES IN THEIR LIVES, and BOUNDARIES. If YOU get to know in advance, your PATIENTS SHOULD, TOO.

[This message is brought to you by the fact that I woke up today feeling utterly, immobilizingly awful due to my extremely heavy period (made worse by it being late as well as me being on blood thinners), so I called to reschedule my urogynecologist appointment for this afternoon—and thank Godzilla I did, as APPARENTLY the very first “consult visit” includes a “very thorough pelvic exam” despite them in NO WAY warning me of this in advance or even asking what I was coming in for. 😑 Thoughtless, callous jerks would’ve COMPLETELY deserved the cartoonish, Pompeiian blood volcano to the face and subsequent blood lake of an exam room floor they’d have gotten if I’d gone in today. 💀🩸🌋]