The students say they performed rectal examinations on anesthetized patients. What is necessary practice, and what is an ethical issue?
Several medical students in recent weeks have described cases in which teaching physicians allegedly encouraged them to practice rectal examinations on patients under general anesthesia. According to their accounts, this may have happened even in situations where the patient had not been informed in advance and had not given consent. There is no evidence; these are only testimonies from medical students. However, the issue opens up a broader discussion about what is acceptable and justifiable in medical training, and what crosses the line into reducing a patient to a mere teaching tool, as Valerie writes in a commentary..