Many medical schools now use Standardized Patients (SPs) for the first "hands on" practice for medical students. Some advanced SPs are trained to teach medical students how to conduct the male genital and rectal exam for men and breast and vaginal exam for women. Known as GenitoUrinary Teaching Associates or GUTAs, teach first and second year medical students these exams by explaining and demonstrating the exam on themselves and then letting the students take turns performing the exam on the GUTA. The GUTA gives real time feedback to the students telling them to "use more pressure" or by guiding their hand into the correct position / location.
I teach the male genitourinary exam to second year medical students twice each year in April and in September. I will be teaching my next group in about 2 weeks. I have been reviewing my presentation and walking through how I will demonstrate the exam to the students, perfecting my delivery of the material while demonstrating on myself. The exercise is as much about getting the students to be comfortable performing an intimate exam as it is about learning technique. For the majority of these students, this will be the first time they have performed a genital exam.
As nervous as I feel when the time comes to open my gown, the students are 10x more nervous than I. I do what I can to make them feel at ease before I begin the exam by telling them why I volunteer to do this and try to add a little humor by telling the students: "Just to make sure you are in the right place, the blood pressure training is down the hall in room 203. This is the male genital exam training. If any of you are in the wrong room please say so now, and if you are, when you get to room 203 please send the students who should be in the male genital exam training down here because I don't think the instructor for the blood pressure training is prepared to cover this material today."
There are usually 3-4 students per session and usually evenly split between male and female students. The students reactions when it comes time for their turn to perform the exam on me has ranged from no reaction at all, to profuse sweating, to nervous giggles and smiles, to the extreme case of a young lady passing out and almost falling headfirst into my genitals. Now I will admit that us guys who perform this training demand that the room temperature be turned up so that we don't suffer from shrinkage, and I am wearing only a gown and the medical students are wearing lab coats over their business casual attire. The girl who fainted gave a brief warning of what was going to happen when I saw her eyes roll back in her head. That gave me about 1 second to get my hands in front of me to catch her head from crashing into my balls.
It's all good though. I love teaching those kids.