Do gynecologists ever do Rectal exams anymore?

You can request one especially if there’s blood in your stool but mainly they do recto-vaginal exams as your standard baseline.

As one doc once told me, if there's a hole we have a tube for it.

My gyn always do rectal exam.

Following my wife's 4th degree (tear from the vagina to the rectum) they put a finger in her vagina and one in her rectum

The only time I’ve had a rectal exam was after childbirth. Even partially numb from my epidural, I could feel it and was really embarrassed.

In my friend group as they’ve approached 40 the doctor has surprised them with one. I absolutely love that they show up there having no idea this super invasive exam is about to get slightly more invasive.

An ex of mine somehow had never been to the gynecologist. She came home from her appointment and seemed disturbed, I of course asked for details and she said “I had no idea she was gonna stick a finger up my butt!”

I think in this day and age rectal exams are done at the GYN, unless they are necessary. I’ve never had one of my doctors appointment.

I have never gotten a rectal exam. Not when I was still a virgin and not nowadays, where I occasionally have anal intercourse.

My gyno does a rectal temp and rectal exam each visit.

I don’t see a gynecologist, but my GP does a rectovaginal exam when I get my pap test done. It started the year after I gave birth to my first child.

@at77 this logically makes sense to me for most modern gynos, either after birth checking for tears or over 40 checking for blood.

I do them as when ever I can and on attractive patients I take just a little mode time

It's a situation where two things can be true at the same time.

With the advances in imaging in particular the push has been, or at least was prior to my own retirement, that physical examination did not serve a preventive function at a high enough rate to warrant the level of intrusive examination that used to be standard. That is true in the sense that various forms of blood testing, imaging, and less physical exams found disease at a higher rate than from the exam table.

On the other side is the idea that you may only encounter a problem in one of out 250 women who receive a rectovaginal and rectal exam who are not having any symptoms. Insurance certainly likes that approach. The problem is that you really do not want to be the one person who has to wait until an actual problem is not diagnosed until it becomes noticeably symptomatic.

I would advise every patient of what I was going to do in advance, why I was doing it, and she could of course decline as she wished. Most did not decline though they were hesitant if they had never gone through a complete exam before. I can't recall anyone declining in subsequent exams after their first time.

It's just a matter of fact with the female anatomy that you can only feel certain areas through the rectum and of course a lot of the problems caught by a preventive exam are far more treatable early on than waiting for symptoms to get noticed. Seems rather ridiculous to me that a doctor would say oh well I don't want to put this woman through a more invasive exam since only one in 250 or whatever the number is makes the odds of finding an issue minimal. It's not that minimal if you are the one.

Im 41 with a spetate uterus and tilted cervix. Ive never had one.

Because of my issue with my hymen (hymen cribiformis) before the first surgery no vaginal exams were possible. So the doctors performed rectal exams. After the first surgery I developed some scar tissue on the posterior vaginal wall facing to the rectum, so they did a rectovaginal exam. But apart from these exams I only got a rectal exam once at a regular gyno exam.

Did anyone see the Irish stand up comedian, Katie Boyle, who recently said she has had the “finger up the arse” since she’s been in the states? Is that an American gyno thing?