double standard? or comfort/risk level difference?

[kid a]

My wife is a medical provider and routinely gives physical exams, as well as, yes the dreaded prostate exam.

Over lunch yesterday (i'm used to this kind of talk over food) she told me this story of an exam earlier in the morning when she was examining a fellow doc (no names mentioned) for hernia. If you've ever been examined for a hernia, you know there is extensive probing in the . . . well you know the area. The doc was a general surgeon and a specialist in hernias - so he basically gave her an update lesson on exams in that region.

She routinely does this on male patients without another person in the room. I asked her if it was routine to exam male patients alone in the room. (I mean - couldn't he complain of harassment?)

On the other hand, she said it was very rare for a male IM doc to exam a female patient without another female in the room? Should she be inviting colleagues in the room to examine male patients?