Doctors Refuse To Examine Man's Cervix

Telegraph
By Celia Hall, Medical Editor

A family doctor has been summoned to a formal hearing over his refusal to put a 34-year-old male patient on the list for screening for cervical cancer. The man, who has fathered a child, believes he is a hermaphrodite although his doctors have examined him and can find no evidence for this. However, they did agree to his request to be re-registered with a female name.

He first wanted a cervical examination and was refused because he did not have a cervix. He then asked to be put on the list for regular screening. One doctor in the practice said: "We are worried that the PCT is so falling over backwards to be patient-friendly, that it has gone too far the other way. Silly things are starting to happen."

The wife of one of the GPs, told The Telegraph she had every sympathy for people who believe they had the body of the wrong gender but the decision to investigate the refusal was political correctness taken to extremes. She said her husband, who has been a GP for 30 years and who trains young doctors would be "pleased to hear from anyone, medical or otherwise, who could teach him the correct way to carry out a cervical smear on a 34-year-old male".