What does a male exam consist of?

Can anybody explain to me what happends during a male exam please.

my partner has never had a full check up all the time we been together .

thus why its an interesting subject to me

Well, the first part of the exam, HEENT, abdominal exam, etc. is probably exactly the same (or very similar) for males and females. The male genital exam can be done in a couple of ways. You might be lying on your back on the table, and the doctor/nurse will put on gloves and lift and palpate your penis. They might squeeze the tip of it a bit and look in the hole. They might even palpate the entire length of the shaft. Next they turn their attention to your testicles, gently squeezing them between their fingers.

The same type of exam can also be done standing in front of the doctor/nurse. You stand up in front of them while they put on gloves and usually sit down in front of you on a small chair or stool. So you're standing there with your privates right at eye level to them, and they're only a foot or two away from you. The same type of exam with palpation and gentle squeezing is done.

The hernia exam can also be done in either position (lying or standing) but I've only ever had it done standing. They insert their finger into a canal right above your testicles, where they descended from I think. They push really really hard and then ask you to turn your head and cough. They repeat the procedure on the other side. Sometimes it feels like they're trying to actually lift you up with that one finger.

The rectal exam is then done, and it can be done in any of the standard positions: Bent over the exam table, back on the table on your side with a knee pulled up to your chest, or on the table on your hands and knees (my personal favorite).

I guess every doctor does things a little different from office to office. Throughout my life, I've had many physicals from different doctors (one physical in particular I had in my teens was detailed elsewhere on this web site) and each doctor did the physical slightly different. Most of them would start with the head and neck area, then heart and lungs, maybe tap the knee, then I would lie down on the table for the belly exam. Not all of them did genital exams but most did. If there was a genital exam, this was usually followed by a rectal exam. This is the usual order for a male physical, although I once had a physical by one doctor who listened to my heart and lungs while I was lying down, then did a genital and rectal exam, then after I pulled my pants back up, he did the head area and finally the abdomen.

Judging by my experiences with various physicians, most male genital exams are done with the man standing; only once have I had an exam of my genitalia lying down.

Rectal exams are more variable: some doctors do it with the man bent over the exam table with legs spread apart, others with him lying down on one side with the knees up to his chest, still others with the man on the table on his knees and elbows with his butt sticking up into the air (for me, that's actually the least uncomfortable position).

Even how the man is dressed (or undressed as the case may be) for his physical varies from office to office. Most doctors had me strip to my shorts, others were content just to have me take my shirt off. One had me in my shorts and a gown (this was the one doctor that examined my genitals while I was lying down), and I've never had a doctor want me completely naked for the entire physical. I did voluntarily strip completely nude for the entire last real physical I had before one particular doctor retired. He always had me in just my shorts to start, then had me take them all the way off for the genital and rectal exam. So for my last physical with him, I decided to just take everything off, including my briefs, and get it over with.

He was the only doctor that ever examined my private areas while I was completely naked; all my other doctors just had me pull my shorts (and perhaps trousers) down without taking them off completely.

Any other men want to chime in on this subject?

I have had 3 full exams by female doctors. I have never had any from a man doctor. About 10 years ago I had a really hot Asian doc when she told me she had to check my testicles because I was in my early 30's which was the time when men get testicular cancer. She said to just drop my shorts while I stand she squated down like she was going to suck me off. She ran her fingers between my balls and then my shaft. I looked down and saw which caused me to start getting hard. She noticed what was happening and looked up I had a kind of smile on my face and she jumped up and said okay everything looks okay. She then had me bend over and she checked anus for blood. I have always had hemorrhoids and I put that on my sheet. The 2nd woman doc I found was a all woman doctor clinic she didn't even check anything down there. The 3rd woman doc I just saw last year I told her prostate cancer is in my family I wanted to get it checeked anyway so she had her nurse who was a hot blond give me a banket and said take everything off except for your shirt. I did and got up on the table which had stirrups but didn't put my feet in them. The doc came in and all she did was feel around under the blanket she poked in my anus and pulled it out really fast. She called it a DRE but it was over in about 3 seconds. She did ask me to cough while she poked under my balls. I'm planning on finding another doctor who will do a better exam.

Satirpha, please don't take this wrong, and it may be unnecessary, but what I have learned is that if I establish a warm, friendly, personal relationship with a woman doctor early on (that is, by talking and and asking questions, smiling, being sincere and respectful, etc at the start of the exam), I usually will get a much more thorough exam from her. As professional as they may be, women just appreciate men more if they relate as people in addition to being "good" patients. It makes them more confident, too. Hope this helps.

Al C: I think you've given Satirpha very good advice. Years ago I had a conversation with my female doctor in which we estblished a great doctor-patient relationship. Over the years we have continued to build a sincere mutual respect for each other. I am very comfortable being her patient and I can talk with her about anything.

Most of my physicals have been done by Male Doctors. I've never had a doctor sit on a stoll while I was standing to examine my penis and testies. I had a physical last year done by a female PA I was in a gown w/ no undies and she examined me on the table, no rectal. My NP did my physical this year and when she got to the hernia and prostate check she had me wait a minute and called the Male MD and then told me I'd need to come back because he was unavailible at the time and that she doesn't do hernia checks or prostate exams. She then said I needed a blood test and told me they were going to do a PSA. The only real DRE - Prostate check I had was 4 years ago by a urologist after I called my primary care physician and told him I had found a lump on my left testie and that it hurt. The urologist was very thorough but the DRE was a bit rough and to be totaly honest I am actually a little afraid of a real doctor doing a DRE again. As for playing and enema sessions... I love a nice gentle DRE from my female nurse friend 😁

Back to the problem with my nut: I had some tests, a cath, and eventual surgery. Too bad I can't put the testicle back in and have it removed again 😃

I have been examined by both male and female physicians, in various states of undress, in a gown, a paper sheet, in underpants, and totally nude.

I've had genital exams both lying on my back with my underpants around my thighs and standing naked from the waist down. In either case the physician visually examines my penis (sometimes spreading the urinary meatus) and palpates my testicles.

My rectum has been examined while lying on my side with one leg drawn up, while lying on my back with my knees up and legs spread, and bent over the exam table. In all cases a gloved and lubricated finger is inserted into the anus and rotated to feel for abnormalities. Then my prostate is palpated. I am asked to tell the physician if there is any pain. Some doctors have asked me to bear down (like having a bowel movement) during the insertion. The tip of the withdrawn finger is wiped on a test sheet for occult blood detection.

The woman who examined me while I was lying on my back also pressed down on my lower belly while palpating my prostate. At a selective service physical, I also had to bend over and spread my buttocks while totally nude in front of the Army doctor and whatever nurses were around.

My current physician is a female. For the genital and rectal exams I strip from the waist down and sit on the exam table with a paper sheet over my lap. The doctor knocks and enters with a female chaperone, usually a nurse but sometimes with the receptionist who is also a medical assistant. I hand the sheet to the chaperone and stand in front of the doctor for the genital exam. Then I turn and bend over the table for the rectal. She does not ask me to bear down.

Is there anything else you wish to know?

Desert rat, that bit about your female doctor doing your genital exam and DRE with a female chaperone strikes me as unusual. I have almost all female doctors and only one ever uses a female (or any) chaperone, and she does not do it consistently. May I ask you two questions then: 1) how old is your doctor and what part of the country does she practice in?; and, 2), has she ever explained why she requires a chaperone?

The chaperone holds the paper sheet so as to not see below my waist. She says it is the policy of the medical organization. She is a young woman.

My female doctor never offers a sheet or a gown. After we chat, she always says, OK, take everything off except your underwear while looking me in the eye (and I detect a slight smile a bit of excessive eye contact when she says that). Then she comes in, does the usual exam and the last part is asking me to stand and pull down my briefs. She sits on a stool, feels my testicles and then asks me to turn around. This time, my briefs fell down to my feet as I turned around. Then she did the DRE. She is very gentle and very friendly. I have someone with whom to play doctor but the real thing turns me on even more.

Coming from someone in Med school, most of my teachers tell us when it comes to male genitals we should be quick. Ask a lot of questions before they pull down their undies, then give it a quick look see. Obviously one is more thorough with Pediatric cases. In the case with many adult men, they hate being at the doctor anyway, so when it comes to another man checking out his junk it should be a miniscule part of the exam. Adult men are one of the forgotten groups of medicine, since they never go to the doctor they are at great risks for heart disease and diabetes as well as cancer and these go undetected more in men because of the lack of checkups. An American point of view, Im not sure how things are in the UK on that subject.

These are just the answer's im looking for and it has really opened my eyes .

thank you .all of you xx

I've had several well man examinations in the UK. They tend to focus on the general medical side followed by a check of the testicles. And depending on the particular clinic, when you have reached age 40 - 50, they also do a DRE to check the prostate for size.

Dr Philip.

What I have come to wonder is not whether or not the chaperone likes her role -- I am pretty sure the ones I have had usually do -- but the degree to which the doctor knows that and the degree to which the doctor knows the patient likes it. I suspect in some cases they know both are true.

Fascinating, floridaguy, because almost exactly the same has happened to me several times. I wrote about it elsewhere on this board a while ago when my female dermatologist suspected I had symptoms of Reiter's Syndrome (a rash on the genitals and a redness of the eye, at the same time) and demanded I go see my PCP right away. I did, but it was late and I wound up with the after hours MD, an Asian woman, and a female NP. They looked me over carefully, and as they did so, I was completely nude because they had to check for other instances of the rash. And of course they both inspected my penis carefully and at length because the rash was on my glans, under my foreskin. So the two of them are looking me over -- it is a busy night and each of them came and went from the exam room several times, taking up where they left off when they returned, first one, then the other, then both, then one again, etc. I was nude the whole time and developed a hell of an erection. I was nonplussed at first (and worried about Reiter's) but soon decided to go with the flow. At the end I was standing there fully nude and with an erection -- I am not making this up -- and the two to them and I chatted for about five minutes after the Asian doctor took off her gloves and very gingerly touched the surface of the rash to see if it was smooth or not. That of course made me harder still. They were extremely nonchalant about my nudity and no one ever mentioned my erection. But their examination and the flow of our discussion required them to refer to and thus look at my penis while I was standing there. Talk to me looking at my face, then gesture or touch my penis and look at it, then back to my face, then to my penis, etc. This of course made me harder still, at one point my penis actually jerked upwards noticeably. They both smiled a hell of a lot while this was going on and were just about laughing as they left and told me I could get dressed. And by then I was enjoying it too, though somewhat secretly, so I also smiled at them as my penis bobbed in front of them. True story -- completely. And I have had a few other experiences similar but not as good as that. I have to laugh out loud sometimes when I read about some poor fellow worried that a female doctor or nurse will think less of him because he is exposed or, God forbid, erect. Not a doubt in my mind that my case that evening made the day for those two ladies. And it turned out I did not have Reiter's Syndrome.

I actually have discussed with her about the exam and other things. I think she just does the exam like that. I don't think any real MD is going to do much except the min. She stated the PSA test is what she goes by anyway. I have other reasons to find a new doctor also. She is far from my work and many times she has had me come all the way down there to tell me a blood test turned out okay. She could have given the results on the phone unless there was a problem. It's not easy to find a woman doctor. Most places have men and women doctors, and the front desk always try's to give me a man doctor. I have even been asked 2 times if it was okay the doctor was a women. One place I felt like the Doctor was un comfortable with the whole exam. She never even had me remove my shorts. The place was mostly woman going there the waiting room was full of woman and I was the only man most of the time. Sometimes there was a man that was old 80 or older using a walker.

Where do you live? More than half of all new doctors graduating med school in the US are women, and they comprise an even greater percentage of those doctors who remain PCPs rather than go on to become a specialist. In the northeast US, most new doctors are female.

Rectal exams done by male doc's usually are done bending over with elbows on the table. Female docs usually prefer to give the rectal exam while lying down on your side (bent knees), and top leg

stretched over the bottom.

Male exam instructions: http://meded.ucsd.edu/clinicalmed/genital.htm

I have had physicals from quite a few doctors. I only do physicals that are required for employers or insurance companies (life or disability), so every exam I have is with a new doctor since I have to go to the doctor to whom I am sent. This means I have experienced a lot of different physicians both in family practice and internal medicine. They vary a bit, but most are fairly similar. The most common way I have been prepared for the exams is stripped to underpants, briefs in my case. I had one for which I was instructed just to take off my shirt to begin. I have had one for which I was told to strip down completely and wear an exam gown and another in which I was told to go down to shorts and put on a gown. But at least 75% were in briefs only. Most of the time the exam begins with me sitting on the edge of the exam table with my feet dangling. The doctor usually examines eyes, ears, throat and neck at first. Next is usually neurological, reflexes, heart,lungs and axillae not always in the same order. Then I am usually told to lie on my back and the abdominal exam is done. This is usually auscultation and palpation. Some doctors have then checked peripheral pulses in feet, ankles, behind the knees, inguinal and wrists. Then come the embarrassing parts. Most often the doctor will sit on a stool and have my stand and face him or her and slip down my briefs. Each doctor has his own little phrase to instruct me for that and I enjoy recalling the exact words later on. He takes each one of the testes between his fingers and feels for any abnormal mass or discomfort. Then he uses his index finger to push up from each side of the scrotum into the inguinal canal on that side and feels for a hernia. He usually says "turn your head away from me and cough." Then comes the digital rectal exam. I have usually had this done as I bent over the table, but I have had it done up on the table on my side with knees pulled up toward my chest. A lubricated finger is inserted into the anus and the anal canal examined 360 degrees for abnormal masses and the prostate is palpated for abnormalities. This is usually about a 30 second process. He will wipe his gloved finger on a little card and drop a developing solution on it to check for blood on the glove. I then get to pull my briefs back up leaving a lot of my dignity behind.

I'd like to remind Gynoslave to retract the foreskin, if the patient is uncircumcised. This is an important part of the examination.

That is correct. Retraction of the foreskin is very important. The examiner can either do it himself or instruct the patient to do it. Also, regardless of the patient's circumcision status, the meatus should be spread apart to ascertain that it is of adequate calibre.

[quote author=exam doc link=topic=28103.msg295353#msg295353 date=1274743374]

That is correct. Retraction of the foreskin is very important. The examiner can either do it himself or instruct the patient to do it. Also, regardless of the patient's circumcision status, the meatus should be spread apart to ascertain that it is of adequate calibre.

[/quote]

If urine and semen come out unimpeded, and there is no infectious discharge, it is perfectly fine. Plus, viewing the urethral orifice/meatus, you can only look inside a few millimeters, and any constriction in the urethra would be invisible to the eye anyway.

Actually urinary constrictions in the urethra are in fact common and often mis-diagnosed as benign prostatic hypertrophy, according to my urologist. So it is common practice to examine the urethra as part of a urologic evaluation, and simple visual examination of the meatus is the simple, inexpensive thing to do.

So, yes, I think examination of the meatus is proper.

I have had a yearly physical exam for the past fifteen years. I would say that I have seen eight different doctors during this time. All of my doctors have been male and ranged from age 32-78. Ninety percent of the time I have been asked to strip to my underwear from the start. My current doctor has his son as his nurse. This guy is about 30 years old and he always has me to remove my shirt, socks, and shoes for the preliminaries including the EKG. Like clockwork, after the EKG, he pulls out a folded sheet from a cabinet and instructs me to remove all clothing including my underwear. While I am removing my pants and boxers he begins to place the contents of the EKG machine away. Therefore, he is always in the exam room as I become completely nude. After stripping down I usually walk over and place my clothes in the chair then return to the exam table. Once seated, I place the sheet across my lap. For the past four years both he and his father have seen me completely naked. I wonder if he (the nurse) sticks around in order to see all male patients naked.

Gynoslave, I have had a bunch of exams for different reasons and it seems that there is little or no similarity among them. If you check my other posts, you can read about my pediatric exams as a kid and my track participation exam on entering high school, but I don't expect that they are what you're interested in. Once, for a pre-employment physical (when I think I was about 35), the doctor interviewed me in his office about my health and never touched me or asked me to remove any clothing, and signed off on my form. At another pre-employment physical (I think around age 2😎, I was shuttled through about ten exam rooms in a hospital, told to strip to my underpants in each one, and different parts of my body were examined in each one. In one of the rooms, only my eyesight and hearing were checked, and I still don't know why I had to strip to underpants for that. In only one room, I was told to drop my underpants and a hernia check was done. Only since I turned 50, at my regular physical exams, a digital rectal exam is done. This has been done with my back to the doctor and he never sees my front (unless, perhaps, he looks between my legs).

I want to schedule a physical examination, but haven't been examined by a real doctor for over 10 years. What do they do in a yearly physical?

Dissect you bit by bit. No! Just kidding.

First, you'll be asked to fill out forms that detail your medical history and then a multitude of federally required administrative forms regarding patients' rights, consent to treat, and privacy rules.

Someone will assess your vital signs, most likely a nurse. They will check your temp (orally, so don't get your hopes up), take your BP and your pulse. Height and weight will also be measured. Then you'll be shown to the exam room where you will most likely be asked to disrobe and put on a gown or a drape.

The doctor will have had an opportunity to review your chart and will ask you questions about your past medical history and any problems/symptoms you're having now. Then the doctor will perform a head to toe assessment, what we call the physical exam. It will include a check of all your organ systems, auscultation of your heart and lungs, palpation and percussion. Your reflexes will be checked, and your doctor will most likely also do an examination of your genitalia. According to your profile, you're a little young for a prostate exam but I wouldn't rule it out from a very thorough physician.

During most of this your doctor will be asking if you have questions so if you have any, feel free to ask. Anything you say to your doctor is confidential, and he or she has probably heard/seen it all before anyway so if you have concerns about ANYTHING, now's the time to bring them up.

Your doctor will probably order some blood tests, a CBC, WBC, differential, HDL, LDL, BG etc. and possibly a urinalysis. If you have a family history of heart disease he or she may perform or order a baseline EKG. None of these are terribly scary and they're not painful. I'm sure I've left out a multitude of things, but those are the basics.

With any luck at all, you'll get a clean bill of health and you'll have a baseline medical record that your doctor can refer to in the future.

Good luck!

LadyDoc

One thing to add, if you are taking any medications, write down the name, strength and how often you take it (whether prescibed or over the counter). Also write down the name of any hospital where you have had surgery and / or the doctor and the same for major tests. In the hurried state of medical practice these days, you may forget this information id you haven't written it down.