do you have to have a pelvic exam,is it required by law?...

You should get your first pelvic exam when you turn 21 or become sexually active (…which ever comes first). I don’t know about any law on having to get one… however, it is necessary to make sure you are healthy. & About the male doctor… they do pelvic exams every day! Sooo there isn’t a lot to worry about there - but you can always ask or go to a different doctor.

ill probaly change opinion when im older. i said when i was five i would never listen to rock. i listen to it all the time now. so what if the doctor rapes you? i read about it once. idk im not even close to 18. if my cousin went to one i recommend a female doctor

its not a law if you dont want it dont get it! its very scary i was scared when i got mines the first time and it was a guy but its not as bad as you think… they been doing this like this for a while they don’t think of you the way you think they do.. I found out I had a sis so its really good to get it…. go luck sweety

They are not required by law and more than that, they are totally unnecessary in a symptom-free woman and even risk your health. Our doctors do not recommend them at all, at any age. I’m middle-aged and have never had one. There have been some very honest articles in your newspapers recently…sadly, your doctors have convinced most women that they’ll drop dead without a routine pelvic exam every year - this is nonsense and they know it….I suspect many of your doctors have come to rely on the income from the exam and all the unnecessary and harmful things that flow from it - ultrasounds, biopsies, surgery etc…

Google, “Questioning the value of the routine pelvic exam” and “Is the pelvic exam obsolete?” - see comments by Dr Carolyn Westhoff. (you DO have some ethical and honest doctors!) Also, “Women after birth control get unneeded pelvic exams” in the WSJ and comments by Dr Robert Hatcher from the “Managing contraception” site - google his name plus pelvic exams and birth control and it should appear…

The only thing clinically required for the Pill is your medical history and a blood pressure test. The well-woman exam is more likely to harm you - routine breast exams have not been recommended for many years - they don’t help at all, but lead to biopsies. See: Nordic Cochrane Institute website and “Hands off my chest Dr”. The only thing recommended in the UK and Australia are pap tests - they are an optional cancer screening test like colonoscopies, mammograms and PSA testing - entirely up to you. ALL cancer screening has risks and benefits and we all have different risk profiles - do your reading and make informed decisions about cancer screening - never let a Dr or anyone else push you into screening.

The lifetime risk of cervical cancer is 0.65% and 0.45% (at most) are helped by pap tests, this cancer is rare, always was and was in decline before screening started AND there were no random controlled trials for this test. As a low risk woman, my risk of cc is near zero, but the lifetime risk of referral for colposcopy and usually some sort of biopsy is a massive 77% here in Australia and 95% in the States - this is a very unreliable test. Almost all referrals are caused by false positives. You can be harmed by over-treatment especially LEEP and cone biopsies. Cervical damage can lead to infertility, cervical stenosis (endometriosis, surgery to open a cervix scarred shut, infections) cervical incompetence - miscarriages, high risk pregnancy, premature babies, more c-sections and psych issues. Less is more with pap tests. Finland has the lowest rates of cc in the world and just as importantly, send the fewest women for colposcopy/biopsies - still high at 35%-55% lifetime risk of referral, but the best you’ll do with this test.

I made an informed decision over 25 years ago not to have cervical screening, the risks were just too high given my personal level of risk. I can see why a high risk woman might choose to have a pap test 5 yearly from age 30 - she at least has a remote chance of benefiting. Finland screens 5 yearly from age 30… I have also declined mammograms due to concerns about risk - false positives, over-diagnosis and the risk of the test - radiation and compression of delicate breast tissue. We have an unbiased summary available FINALLY - Nordic Cochrane Institute were so concerned at the misleading and incomplete information being given to women, they produced, “The risks and benefits of mammograms” - at their website. Dr Alex Barrett has produced a decision-making aid for those women aged 40 to 49 thinking of having a mammogram (on line) NOTE: Women under 30 don’t benefit from pap tests, but produce high numbers of false positives - the cancer is VERY rare in women under 30 (and rare in all age groups), but over-detection is high…1 in 3 in young women, 1 in 14 in older women. (almost all are false positives) The tiny death rate in women under 30 does not change with screening….see, “Cervical Cancer Screening” in “Australian Doctor” 2006 by Assoc Prof Margaret Davy, Director, Gyn-oncology, Royal Adelaide Hospital and Dr Shorne, GP. (online)

Anyone wishing to read up: go to Dr Joel Sherman’s medical privacy forum and under womens’ privacy concerns, you’ll find medical journal references in the side bar - you’ll see doctors have not been honest with us (most of them anyway) I’d highly recommend research by Dr Angela Raffle, UK screening expert, Richard DeMay, American pathologist and others. So, no…you don’t need routine pelvic exams - in fact, they’re a bad idea and are more likely to harm you. Preventative medicine and cancer screening can never be a law - they are personal decisions that involve weighing up benefit and risk and examining your personal level of risk - also, cancer screening can never be “required” for anything - I know your doctors try that one….don’t let them get away with disregarding your legal right to make an informed decision and don’t allow them to risk your health. It’s shameful the vast numbers of American women who’ve been harmed by aggressive over-treatment and 1 in 3 will have a hysterectomy by age 60 - a very high number. Good luck everyone…..do your reading!