ARE DOCTORS TURNED ON BY ATTRACTIVE PATIENTS?

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Yes and no. Maybe so. There is no doubt that doctors notice attractive patients just as much as you couldn't help but notice someone too tall, too short, coughing uncontrollably, lisping, shuffling along, or unattractive. You can't help but notice the pretty, the beautiful, the statuesque, the stylish, the bombshell, the vivacious, or the handsome - that's biologically driven magnetism you can't shut off and leave at the door. But 'turned on' is the tricky part. 'Turned on', meaning to feel sexually aroused in your nether parts with a throbbing beat to "tap dat" is less likely than you might think in a clinical setting.

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Don't flatter yourself, most doctors don't want to jump your bones no matter how 'hot' you think you are, for several reasons. First, is volume. We see so many people each day, naked and not, that our memories blur right after we see you further fading the next day when more new birthday suits appear in front us overwriting your memory. Second, is that viewing a person under harsh fluorescent lights, without mood music and alcoholic spirits, in an unaroused state is neither memorable nor sexually stimulating. Clinical offices are real mood killers. I prefer if you can keep your clothes on because changing in and out of your skin suit slows the visit down. But alas, for some ailments there is just no substitute for direct observation of your private bits. To get to the bottom of a bottom complaint (pun intended) it stands to reason that we have to look at your bottom.

 
Now if there is one fear greater than the fear of public speaking, I believe it is the fear of stripping down naked in front of anyone, including your doctor. It is so embarrassing that it doesn’t even make it onto fear polls. People prefer not to speak of it. Guys will apologetically claim the chill of the office or low barometric pressure or some other absurdity has put them at an anatomical disadvantage when having their “junk” examined. Girls will put off having pap smears done for years putting themselves at risk for undetected cervical cancer. Why so shy?

 

Don't people realize that you can die of cervical cancer, never of embarrassment? Maybe it’s the social asymmetry - I show you mine, how come you aren't reciprocating and showing me yours. The transaction feels unfair. But if doctors had to strip down to match each time you did, I bet a lot of pelvic exams would be deferred. Not to mention the risk of mutual attraction, “hello doctor, is that your stethoscope in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

 
But is that it? Why then do we feel comfortable being nude in front of our pet but not our doctor? They are both familiar faces. I think this paradox, this differential fear of being au natural is really a fear of judgement. Our neighbor or doctor has the capacity to critique what they see, and I believe that’s what makes us uncomfortable. Our pet, a young child, someone drunk, someone asleep, doesn't judge and that’s why we feel comfortable streaking in front of them.

Perhaps another reason people fear disrobing in front of doctors is a fear of being remembered. They fear that not only will their doctors create a mental attractiveness score card, but also use their prodigious memories to keep a visual file of their naked self for giggles, or maybe salivation later. Nothing could be farther from most doctors' minds.

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Doctors are so busy they are often blind to beauty, hunger, fatigue, and even the desire to urinate. Beauty is a hard illusion to maintain under a doctor's piercing fluorescent lights, cold cots, elevator music and Gestapo like interrogation. When I sit in my clinic chair, hungry, hurried, and harrowed, I enter a tunnel vision zone. Attractiveness registers only faintly dwarfed by a tsunami of professional task objectives.

 
All that being said, there have been and will be rare cases of doctors who do touch their patients inappropriately, often under sedation during pelvic procedures: typically older sexually frustrated males. 

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Can Doctors Date their Patients?

This is frowned on by medical regulatory bodies as a breach of professional boundaries for obvious reasons. Yet it rarely reaches their ears because unlike inappropriate groping and examinations, both adults are consenting if they agree to the date i.e. they genuinely like each other and want to get it on.

 

If a doctor does become romantically involved with their patient they are expected to stop seeing them as their physician forthwith - you can't have your cake and eat it too - and refer their care to a colleague. In the rarer case of a doctor or patient who is already married, things can become very ugly with transition to court circuses, professional reprimand or license suspension.

One bizarre love triangle I came across was that of a serial temptress that hooked not one, but two doctors in succession in the same little town. The salacious story took place in Mattawa, population 2000, and small enough that I had to squint to see it on a map. The temptress first jumped the bones of her family doctor. Authorities were called in when she began cooing about their relationship during a hospital admission for depression. He lost his license to practice.

 

Next was her psychiatrist. He was accused of sex, and using gifts of cash and antidepressants to "deepen her dependence on him". He is awaiting sentencing at time of writing. At no time during either court proceeding was the character of the enchantress called into question. That is because doctors are assumed to be in a superior position (pun not intended) of power to their patients. So even if Sharon Stone uncrosses her legs in front of you, and you feel fatally attracted, you are expected to avert your eyes and not to take the bait.

 
So why will a few doctors still hazard the risk of crossing their professional boundary asking their patients on a date when there's a large menu of less risky choices? Well consider that a doctor on the market for love will come into contact with more new faces through their job (5 days a week), than through their personal life (2 days a week). And unlike a nightclub one off meeting, you see the same person again and again as you care for them and migrate to caring about them. This is why more doctors than you would expect by chance, marry nurses or other doctors(about 20% of the time to be figurative). Proximity breeds procreation.

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Do Gynecologists get turned on?

A question that pops up is: "after seeing suffering vaginas all day, how do male gynecologists keep it up at home?" It is a fair question. But most of the male gynecologists I've rubbed shoulders with have successfully sired families so their sex drive seems to be intact. But how can this be? Perhaps an analogy might help. You've seen bruised and spoilt apples all the time; that doesn't mean you like ripe apples any less. A bartender doesn't tire of serving themselves spirits, or a computer programmer refuse to use his own computer when home. People also underestimate our ability to partition off our work-minds from our home-minds. So no, male gynecologists do not get turned off, their libido seems just fine thank you. They just don't get that excited at work. "Next..."