Medical for Females?

[usnreed2014]

I know that females over 21 have to have a pap done during Pdays. Could I go to my regular doctor before I go so I dont have to worry about it during training? I'm shipping out in less than two weeks..

[LT Guppy]

"Maybe"
Usually they'll take the documentation from your current doctor.
However, you're so close to your ship date, I wouldn't do it.
Also, they don't always do exams during P-Days, sometimes it's not until you get to A school or later.

[PropertyofBuMed]

There's absolutely no way for you to work around this.. You will be mandated to get pap smears done as part of your individual medical readiness throughout your naval career. They wont take civilian results.

It will be done automatically by a female most likely in bootcamp, but in the fleet it could be male. You ALWAYS have the right to request a female to do the procedure however.

That said, if you can tolerate it, its always appreciated if you allow male corpsman to take care of any female health needs. As awkward as it may be, when you allow male corpsman to take care of your OB/GYN needs you are allowing us an opportunity to learn about womens healthcare needs, and get more comfortable treating females.

The vast majority of women request women to work on them.. which is fine.. until theres an emergency and only male corpsman are available.. then you wind up with a male corpsman that's never worked ob/gyn, attempting to take control of a gynecologic emergency with 0 gynecologic experience. If you're ever in agonizing pain you probably wont care if its a male or female that works on you and you're going to want that male to know what he's doing if that's what has to be done.

This can be exceptionally relevant if you're on a ship, where the majority of corpsman are male, and when things can happen during underways. Just remember male corpsman are here to LEARN, and be better medical professionals, not violate our patients dignity. If a solo male is unnerving, its helpful to request a female to do a standby (stay in the room and supervise the procedure), this is also a right that you have that doesn't deny the male the opportunity to learn.

[LT Guppy]

Originally Posted by PropertyofBuMed

There's absolutely no way for you to work around this.. You will be mandated to get pap smears done as part of your individual medical readiness throughout your naval career. They wont take civilian results.

Not necessarily.
During your career, yes. But when you first enter if you're over 21 they will take civilian exam results. It was one of the requirements when I went through meps.

But like I said, in this situation, I would highly recommend letting the navy take care of it.

[PropertyofBuMed]

Originally Posted by Guppy

Not necessarily.
During your career, yes. But when you first enter if you're over 21 they will take civilian exam results. It was one of the requirements when I went through meps.

But like I said, in this situation, I would highly recommend letting the navy take care of it.

Navy medicine sources are down at the moment, but this may be correct. I Can't check the actual instructions to confirm right now.

I See information elsewhere saying you can bring pap results 6 months prior, however I see other information that states that you're likely to get one done anyways. This makes sense as your civilian results will likely not be logged appropriately in the system (Just the nature of the beast).

I Would stick to letting the Navy take care of it for this reason. there's a substantial probability that they'll just ask you to redo it within the military health system. Get it logged into ALHTA and then its there for life. You wont have to sweat just having to have it redone in the fleet.