IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2023 - 29

to the campaign, the bill in New
Mexico also faced significant setbacks
and has stalled.
" Decisions to shelve the bill
have been made largely behind
the scenes rather than in the
public forum of the legislature,
denying the public their right
to participate in setting the policies
that ultimately govern their
health care and their right to
make decisions about their own
bodies, " says Livia Fry, legislative
advocate for At Your Cervix. " We
hope to see this change when the
2024 legislative session begins
and are working hard to ensure
that New Mexico's bill gets a public hearing
and that the people of New Mexico get their
right to be heard on this critical issue. "
States that are considered to be fairly
progressive can still struggle to pass legislation.
Some of these states, A'magine
explains, may face more roadblocks because
of push back from in-state medical
associations and medical schools. For example,
the law in Connecticut took four
years to pass due to strong opposition
by members of the Connecticut medical
community. " We're dealing with big institutions
that do not want to be regulated
and do not want to be told what to do
and, unfortunately, do not always support
this, " A'magine says.
Ultimately, though, A'magine says that
most of the time these laws pass almost
unanimously once they make it to a vote.
" Colorado was almost unanimous. That's
kind of unheard of in our very polarized
political world, " she says. " Anyone that's
not in medicine and doesn't have that lens
can very clearly see that this is wrong. "
Bergan and A'magine are also working
directly with medical students. They have
formed a partnership with the American
Medical Student Association (AMSA), a
progressive organization with the largest
student membership in the United States
that screened the film in June 2023. They
are meeting with medical students across
the country to develop a student-written
A'magine, holding Beth's baby Stella, with Editor Beth Nelsen
(at desk) and Bergan.
pledge that medical students will pledge
" to not do things nonconsensually to
their patients in the name of their own
education. " Finally, they are in the nascent
stages of looking into how to support
students who have learned in this
manner and have had difficulty reconciling
the experience, another way in which
they face moral injury.
A Vision for the Future
The laws prohibit nonconsensual exams,
but are gynecological exams with consent
the way forward?
" I don't think anyone should even be
asking patients if we can practice on them
while asleep, " A'magine says. " The only
benefit, and it's a significant one, granted,
is that students can feel pathology that
might be present. Fibroids, cysts, et cetera.
It's an opportunity to sense what
that feels like. But it's not a way to learn
how to do a good pelvic exam. "
Pelvic mechanical models " serve a
purpose. " With models, students can
practice the technical movements, but,
A'magine remarks, students can't receive
feedback on how that feels. " This method
can't replace real live teachers, but it can
help, " she says.
What they both would like to see is
more integration of the GTA within the
medical educational world. " Then students
are practicing on an awake being, "
DECEMBER 2023
A'magine says. " There are reports
and research about exams being
performed on cadavers or
unconscious people, but those
can't take the place of a live and
conscious body. Most women
... aren't comfortable so they're
more tense. Having an awake
living person who can tell you
that it's the right spot or it's not
the right spot, that conversation
and that work is inspiring. It's
a progressive and revolutionary
way of teaching medicine. "
As a GTA, A'magine has worked
with thousands of medical students.
She witnesses their anxiety
as it is the first time many students
are touching a patient's body, but then she
sees the " wow moment " at the end of a
session where they have " learned so much
with so much care. "
" By the end of it, they have so much
gratitude. Because they really got what we
were offering them, as the person who's
allowing them to examine our own bodies
and give them feedback in real time, helps
them adjust to make it more comfortable
and also focus on the language that's appropriate
or not appropriate to use. The
work is about how to give a comfortable
exam and how to work with and communicate
with patients. That piece is important, "
says A'magine.
" Really what students need is more education
about consent and consent processes,
and that's getting left out, which is such a
shame and such a missed opportunity for
the medical schools to be modeling what
informed consent looks like, " A'magine
says. " The students want that. They feel
like they're getting short changed by not
being a part of that process. "
A'magine and Bergan continue to make
progress toward their goals. Their work
with the AMSA is ramping up, and At Your
Cervix was accepted for Public Broadcasting
Service broadcast in 2024.
-Katianne Williams
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE
29
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2023

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