Disclaimer: This article is not meant to be a criticism of every male gynecologist. This is me discussing my personal experience with one doctor.
Let's set the scene, a couple of months ago I needed to see a gynecologist but they had no appointments for months unless I saw a male doctor. Now I didn't really want to see a male gyno because the idea made me slightly uncomfortable but I also didn't want to wait so I agreed. In the past, I've only had female doctors because there seem to be more of them in this field and also because I like that if I have a question, they might have an answer based on their personal experience in addition to their medical knowledge.
But hey, it's just a routine appointment, maybe seeing a male gyno won't be that bad. I actually have a friend that prefers to see male gynecologists so I went into my appointment trying to be optimistic about the whole thing.
Boy, was I wrong. First off, he was not friendly. Very standard doctor questions, no interest in chit-chat. Okay well, he has a job to do and maybe it's a busy day. But you really can't ask how I'm doing today?
Second, he didn't bother to explain/warn me about anything he was doing. Pap smears are not the most comfortable things in the world so usually, a doctor will say "hey I'm going to do your pap smear now, try to relax" or something. Nope, not this guy. Just straight up shoved that thing in there. So of course, I moved because ya know....there was something IN me that I wasn't expecting. He did not like that. So now I'm being almost scolded for moving which just made me even more uncomfortable.
With the pap smear over with, he asked about birth control which I have. As soon as I started to tell him what kind of birth control I use, he cut me off and just said, "Good you have some". So now, I'm annoyed because I don't feel like a doctor should just interrupt a patient like that and he doesn't actually seem to care about what I was saying in the first place.
The final thing that really cemented this whole negative experience was that he just left the room. He didn't ask me if I had any questions, I did. If there was anything else he could do for me, there was. So I had to quickly throw on my clothes and chase him down to ask my questions....in the middle of a hallway in a doctors office. Which means anyone around could hear me which was not cool.
So to summarize, he was not friendly, was very dismissive, made me feel uncomfortable, scolded me when I reacted negatively to a procedure he didn't warn me he was about to do, didn't seem interested in my health, I had to go find him to ask him a question and in the process was not given privacy as a patient.
The whole thing was just bad. And yes, I do think that him being a male had something to do with it. Which is why I will never go to a male gynecologist again.
