Florida College Students Forced to Undergo Transvaginal Ultrasounds While Being Called "Sexy"

Let a fellow student conduct an "invasive" transvaginal ultrasound on you while your teacher calls you "sexy" and suggests you should be an "escort girl," or be "blacklisted" from working at local hospitals. That is the choice sonography students at Valencia College, a community college in central Florida, allegedly faced, according to a lawsuit filed last week by two former students.

While asking students to participate voluntarily in certain procedures is not uncommon in education programs, medical professionals told TPM, forcing them to do so goes against established standards of the medical education field.

The lawsuit alleges Valencia College officials unconstitutionally forced students in its medical sonography program to submit to the “extremely invasive and often painful" transvaginal ultrasound procedure. The plaintiffs were threatened with academic and professional punishment when they brought up their concerns, including the presence of a male student who would be performing the procedure on them, the suit says.

The plaintiffs allege that one of the defendants, the program’s chair Barbara Ball, told the students to “find another school” if they didn’t want to participate in the exams. Another one of the defendants, Maureen Bugnacki, a laboratory technician at the college, allegedly threatened to “blacklist” the students at local hospitals if they did not undergo the procedures, the lawsuit says.


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/forced-transvaginal-exams-lawsuit