Chaperone use by residents during pelvic, breast, testicular, and rectal exams

We designed a questionnaire survey to study internal medicine residents' pl ans to use a chaperone during the pelvic, breast, rectal, and testicular ex aminations. We found chaperone use by male and female residents differed ma rkedly, and neither group planned to use chaperones universally. When exami ning female patients, male residents overall were very likely to use a chap erone during a pelvic exam, but less likely for the breast exam and rectal exam. For the female resident, there was a significantly lower likelihood o f using chaperones during the pelvic, breast, or rectal exams. There was a much lower rate of chaperone use during the sensitive portions of the male physical examination compared with the female examination, with somewhat hi gher use by female residents. We concluded that male and female residents d iffer significantly in their patterns of chaperone use. It would be valuabl e to develop guidelines for chaperone use to help residents understand the issues involved in the choices, and to protect the residents from the possi ble medico-legal consequences of forgoing chaperones.