During the last decade, I think that many doctors would prefer for the patient to be as fully clothed, as possible. I’ve been given shorts to wear, for lower body X-rays and other exams. Years ago, I was always asked to strip down to my underwear, or even to remove the underwear. It seems that modesty and patient comfort is stressed more.
(You were formerly naked on the x-ray table?)
Well, this current trend is right when it's not medically necessary -- with no pressing need for clothing removal. This goes to show the extent to which medicine has arbitrarily forced clothing removal as a part of its endemic power trip, & the new trend towards modesty accommodation contradicts, & even self-incriminates past policies & practices.
It's not going far enough to accommodate patient modesty, as it was a two year ordeal for me to get my knee scoped without removing underwear -- & the meniscus tear got much worse in that span. When I've called surgical centers to inquire, I usually got belligerence & pushback, arguments that range from "sterilization" (neither the gown, or the surgical team is sterile) quick catheterization & tourniquet application impediment. All arguments are "dog whistle" language for "don't try to take my medical power away!" (Though some facilities want underwear for men to help with tourniquet application )
My sympathetic PCP & most of my orthopedists assert that underwear removal for a scope is bullshit, & they don't want it, but some defer to the surgical facility. Other facilities reluctantly defer to the Orthapedist (the head nurse at the hospital where I'm getting my knee scoped in 48 hours told me that she'd personally remove my underwear herself if she could!) Fortunately my orthopedist is going to let me arrive in brand new 3" hemmed bodybuilding shorts that will stay on throughout my spinal anesthesia,, scope & discharge
Two facilities covertly tried to keep me overnight because I live alone-- one forces underwear removal the other doesn't. I'm now banned from them for being so vociferous, as well as all the teaching hospitals in SoCal.
If my endorsement of patient modesty seems incongruous on this site, please keep in mind that I suffered 1994-2014 with undiagnosed autoimmune issues & spinal degenerate fatigue symptoms, & my disabilities remained hidden because I couldn't afford healthcare, & after Obama care kicked, some doctors STILL called me a hypochondriac & malingerer to my face (as usual) because I looked so robust. I also have catalogued about a dozen doctor & nurse "improprieties" over the last 50 years, ranging in various degrees of sexual misconduct from subtle to blatant. I'm also a surgical malpractice victim with incision scars I didn't consent to under anesthesia
When I walk into a facility it's adversarial from the start. These aren't my friends, allies, or consensual play partners, but individuals drawn to the profession for the job security. Not only are they there to financially exploit my medical misfortunes, they also thrive subjugating. humiliating & having control of patients. I look at them contemptuously as I would correctional officers -- only with higher test scores. I really don't know how medical consumers allowed things it get to the point where providers so routinely bully them in the first place
As for me, I only expose my intimate areas on rare occasions when I find something I want treated -- and then I don't want it all to devolve into a spectators sport for passive third parties. .
JJM, if you're longing for the good old days when patients were arbitrarily exposed for no good reason, there's always teaching institutions. Hell, there if you need a hand operation, not only do you have to remove your underwear, but the gown comes off in front of many students, & possibly a theatre of visitors that may include HS kids on a field trip (it happened to a friend of Misty Roberts, the founder of www.patientmodesty.org, when she found days after her surgery that out her 14 year old male neighbor witnessed it & saw her prepped totally naked!)
Not only that, but in 29 states it's still legal for group of med students to sneak into the OR recovery, & practice there pelvic & rectal exams on unconsenting, unwitting, helplessly anesthetized patients.
In the other 31 states where UIEs are banned (only by state legislators protecting us, otherwise no operative internal medical moral compass) now they are getting around it by refusing surgery to those not willing to consent to a being finger-fucked by a gang-banging group medical students.