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Dr. Michael Greger, M.D., is a physician, author, and internationally recognized speaker on public health and nutrition. Best known for his evidence-based research on diet and disease prevention through his platform NutritionFacts.org, Dr. Greger typically focuses on topics such as lowering LDL cholesterol naturally, the benefits of plant-based eating, and preventing chronic illness through lifestyle. But in his latest newsletter and accompanying video, Dr. Greger turns his attention to a disturbing practice outside his usual domain: the continued use of pelvic exams performed on unconscious women without their consent in medical schools.
According to Dr. Greger, this is not a new revelation. He first wrote about the issue more than twenty years ago in his book Heart Failure, describing his experience as a medical student at Tufts University School of Medicine. “I am all gloved up, fifth in line,” he recalled. “At Tufts, medical students—particularly male students—practice pelvic exams on anesthetized women without their consent and without their knowledge.” He wrote that the students would line up beside the operating table as the patient lay unconscious, calling the experience a formative lesson not only in anatomy but in moral erosion.
Dr. Greger says the practice remains a “dirty little secret” in medical education—an “age-old” violation that persists globally. Some have even referred to it as the “vending machine model” of pelvic exams, where students take turns “as if the patient’s body were a tool, not a person.”
Critics have called it “an outrageous assault upon the dignity and autonomy of the patient,” reflecting a misuse of power and moral insensitivity that continues to stain medical ethics. As Dr. Greger notes, even prominent educators at major institutions like Johns Hopkins have admitted that the practice is so routine that “none of us even think about it.”
When the same issue surfaced in New Zealand, the chair of the nation’s medical association apologized, stating he was “very sorry that women feel they’ve been assaulted and violated in this way.” The interviewer’s response was swift: could it be, she asked, that anesthetized women “find it hard to know what’s going on?”
According to Dr. Greger, defenders of the practice often claim it falls under a patient’s “implied consent” when entering a teaching hospital. But research shows most patients have no idea when medical students participate in their care, much less perform invasive procedures. “Deliberate lies and deception,” Dr. Greger says, have enabled the practice to persist.
Surveys of medical students reveal an unsettling trend: nearly all have been introduced to patients as “doctor,” and as they progress through training, they grow less likely to disclose their student status, especially when performing intimate or invasive procedures. Some even reject the idea that explicit consent should be required for such exams.
Dr. Greger challenges the rationalizations. Comparing a pelvic exam to inserting a surgical tool or looking into an eye, he says, ignores the uniquely intimate and violating nature of the act. “Patients admitted to teaching hospitals do not, by mere admission, relinquish their rights as human beings,” he writes.
Studies show that nearly all women—up to 100% in some surveys—would want to be asked for consent before medical students perform vaginal exams. When faculty were asked why they don’t simply request permission, Dr. Greger says their response was chilling: “We can’t ask women—if we do, they might say no.”
Two decades after first sounding the alarm, Dr. Greger remains astonished that this issue still demands exposure. “It’s jaw-dropping to me that I’m still trying to expose this practice more than 20 years after I first wrote about it,” he says.
Watch Dr. Greger’s full video report, Ending the Hidden Practice of Pelvic Exams on Unconscious Women Without Their Consent, at NutritionFacts.org.
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