Gown-Less in France

I had been living in Paris for about 6 months when I had to make an appointment with a French doctor to get a prescription for my allergy medicine. My husband came with me as a translator. I can get by in a grocery store buying tomatoes, or a pharmacy buying aspirin, but I wasn’t sure I could get medical terms across using hand signals, bad French and a hope that the doctor would understand some English.
The doctor’s office, strangely, turned out to be above a store selling fish. After a trip up a tiny elevator, we walked into a door and saw a sign directing us to a sitting room. There was no receptionist handing out forms to fill, just a small hot sitting room filled with bored patients and French magazines. The doctor himself came and got each patient as it was their turn. As in the States, he was thirty minutes behind, but it wasn’t too long before we sat across from him at his desk. He was a handsome looking man with gray hair and scholarly looking glasses giving him a distinguished air. He said he spoke English but, if he did, I never heard it. He asked questions in French, Maurice translated back and forth between us and the doctor put the information directly into a computer at his desk.
It didn’t start off too badly. He understood that I was allergic to everything green that made pollen and wrote out a prescription on his computer for my medication.
Then he asked about other medications I might want. When I mentioned Premarin he brightened up and pointed out the sign behind his desk. It turned out he was a Gynecologist. He insisted we walk right over to his examination table so he could check me out. It was directly behind us partially hidden by a wall. My husband was left sitting at the desk and the doctor took me over to the table. He told me to take off my jeans and underwear, and had me lie down on the table to which he attached some stirrups in which to place my feet. He did the exam with no nurse, no sheet to cover up top or bottom, no breast exam and he just mashed around on my stomach, did a quick look with a speculum with no gloves. When he went back to the desk, where he had left Maurice, he didn’t wash his hands. Oh my God! No nurse, no hand washing, no privacy. This was medicine in France?
Well, I didn’t die and I did get the prescriptions for the medications I needed. At least I didn’t have to mail my own pap smear test as some of my friends have had to that live here in Paris.
A few weeks later I was due for an x-ray of my back. My trusty translator was supposed to meet me there. I got there first and when they called my name to go back, Maurice hadn’t shown up. I thought I could handle it. What could go wrong?
So, the lady got me back to a little room and said, “Blah, blah, blah, Madam.” Somehow I knew that she wanted me to take my clothes off. I saw what looked like the belt to a terry cloth robe hanging on a hook on the wall. “Is there a robe for me to wear?” “Pardon?” I started doing pantomimes showing me trying to cover my body with my hands and then pulling on a robe.
“Blah, blah, blah, non,” she said.
” What?”, I thought, ” but, I’m an American. I must have something to cover myself with.” I tried to get this across with my bad French but no matter how I tried I soon came to understand that it didn’t matter how much I wanted one, there wasn’t one. I had my cell phone and quickly called Maurice. “Maurice, where are you?” He was about 10 minutes away trying to get to the radiologist as quickly as possible. “Maurice, they won’t give me anything to cover up with!” Of course, there was nothing he could do from his metro seat.
I obviously had no choice so I took everything off and shyly stepped out to the room where Atilla (I called her that in my mind) waited. She directed me over to the oldest looking x-ray machine I have ever seen. I guess Americans are used to the newest, latest, most expensive machinery there is when we get procedures done. I had a feeling this thing was probably made the same year I was born, but I got up on the little platform anyway. I understood the words left and right, and inhale and exhale were understandable so we got the x-rays done. I was sure that, while the procedure was being done, the door would open and a strange man would walk in, probably to sweep the floors, or a male patient would be walking by and get a good look. I really felt rather traumatized. Neither of these things happened and in a few minutes I was dressed and back out in the waiting room where Maurice now waited. He told me that he had talked to the lady at the desk and that patients were never given gowns for x-rays; that they had to be able to see “landmarks” to know where to direct their machines. “Well, we wear gowns in America and they don’t have any problems finding ‘landmarks’!” I said rather crabbily.
Well, I didn’t die and I got the x-ray, which, by the way are yours for life. You never leave them at some doctor’s office but take them to whatever doctor you will be seeing. I have some x-rays of my teeth from the dentist, too.
Later I talked to a Belgian friend who had lived in the States for many years telling her about my episodes with the Gynecologist and the Radiologist. She told me that, being European, she would go in to see her Gynecologist in France and as he asked her questions she would undress in front of him putting her clothes on the chair, they would walk over to the examining table where he would do his examination (without a nurse) and then she would get dressed again.
When she moved to the States and had her first appointment there, a nurse led her to a changing closet inside the examination room, told her to get undressed and handed her a sheet. My friend was totally mystified as to what the sheet was for, so being enterprising, she rolled the sheet up into a little roll, got on the examining table and put it behind her neck. The nurse walked into the room and gave a little scream and said, “What are you doing? Cover yourself up!” My friend was shocked and puzzled. It took her a minute to understand exactly what the nurse wanted.
Maurice informed me one day that they were offering free mammograms at various locations in France. I considered getting one for about five minutes but after the traumatic experience of just getting a chest x-ray, I decided there was no way I was ready for one. I was made doubly sure of this when a friend told me of her mammogram in France. It was done by a man. She had to undress and walk through two rooms to reach the machine. He stood her in front of it, then went behind her, put his body next to hers and his arms around her and guided her breasts into the machine as he wanted them. She was a little shocked at first but said it was less painful than some mammograms she has had in the States. I just can’t do it. I had no idea that my streak of puritanism ran so deep.
I’m sure there are many other tales in the Naked City, to use an American metaphor. I had no idea there would be so many differences. I hope I never have to go for surgery or be admitted to a French hospital. That would be interesting, to say the least. I wonder if French patients in hospitals get gowns?