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Hospitals must now obtain written consent for pelvic exams
The federal guidance was issued to doctors and medical students who sometimes perform pelvic exams for training purposes when a patient is under anesthesia.
MINNEAPOLIS — Hospitals must obtain written informed consent from patients before subjecting them to pelvic exams and exams of other sensitive areas — especially if an exam will be done while the patient is unconscious, the federal government said Monday.
New guidance from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services now requires consent for breast, pelvic, prostate and rectal exams for “educational and training purposes” performed by medical students, nurse practitioners or physician assistants.
The department’s release said the guidance was issued to “reiterate and provide clarity” regarding hospital consent requirements. Federal regulations previously mentioned obtaining consent for “important tasks” related to surgeries, and did not provide the level of detail about medical students.
If hospitals don’t obtain explicit consent, they may be ineligible for participation in Medicare and Medicaid programs, and also may be subject to fines and investigations if they violate patient privacy laws, Office of Civil Rights director Melanie Fontes Rainer said.
Doctors and medical students sometimes perform exams of sensitive areas for training purposes when a patient is under anesthesia. At least 20 states have passed laws requiring a patient’s consent.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and other top health officials criticized these exams happening without explicit consent in a letter sent to teaching hospitals and medical schools Monday. The letter said hospitals need to set “clear guidelines to ensure providers and trainees performing these examinations first obtain and document informed consent.”
It’s difficult to say how often these exams take place, experts said, or how often patients understand what they’re consenting to when they sign forms before surgery giving broad consent for a range of procedures.
The letter is a “critical leap forward in protecting patients and medical residents,” Scott Berkowitz, founder and president of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, said in a statement.
“It’s a shocking problem with a very simple solution — hospitals need to ask for consent clearly and explicitly,” he said.
Alexandra Fountaine, a medical student at Ohio University who testified in front of a state House committee against the practice, was skeptical that the letter would result in “actual policy or real change.” But, she added, it made her feel more protected and respected.
“Something like that happening is my biggest fear,” she said. “As women we’re all afraid of being violated on a daily basis … but when we’re put in very vulnerable positions, like being anesthetized, I think that’s especially terrifying.”
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Morgan Geyser, who is now 22 years old, filed a third petition seeking her release from a psychiatric hospital.
WAUKESHA, Wis. — A Wisconsin woman accused of stabbing her classmate to please horror character Slender Man more than a decade ago asked a judge again Friday to release her from a psychiatric hospital.
Morgan Geyser, who is now 22 years old, filed a petition with Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren seeking her release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. The petition marks the third time in the last two years she has asked Bohren to let her out of the facility.
She withdrew her first petition two months after filing it in 2022. Bohren denied her second request this past April, saying she remains a risk to the public.
Geyser’s attorney, Anthony Cotton, didn’t immediately respond to email and telephone messages Friday morning.
Geyser and Anissa Weier were 12 in 2014 when they lured Payton Leutner to a Waukesha park after a sleepover. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier egged her on. Leutner barely survived.
The girls later told investigators they wanted to earn the right to be servants of the fictional Slender Man and that they feared he would harm their families if they didn’t carry out the attack.
Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide and was sent to the psychiatric institute because of mental illness. Weier pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide and was also sent to the psychiatric center. She was granted a release in 2021 to live with her father and was ordered to wear a GPS monitor.
According to KARE 11 Meteorologist John Zeigler, trees between central Minnesota and just south of the Iron Range are in peak color condition.
MINNEAPOLIS — If you’re planning a trip north of the Twin Cities this weekend, you’re in for a fortune of fall foliage.
According to KARE 11 Meteorologist John Zeigler, trees between central Minnesota and just south of the Iron Range are in peak color condition.
“If you’re around the Twin Cities, there hasn’t been a lot of changeover yet,” Zeigler said. “So, this is the changeover happening now north of Saint Cloud. If you go up toward the Iron Range here, I actually think it might be a little bit too late.”
Zeigler said to hit spots like the Brainerd Lakes Area, in addition to cities near Duluth.
“If I was traveling to the north and I want to see the perfect colors, I would go to Two Harbors,” he said. “I would go to Duluth [or] Brainerd Lakes Area is great.”
Zeigler said if peak leaf peeping is what you’re after, Saturday will be the warmer of the two days, but Sunday is also an option — as long as you bust out your winter garb and bundle up.
“Sunday is not a bad day, but look at the 40s in Duluth — even in Hayward we’re in the forties,” Zeigler said. “Maybe a little bit of rain during the morning hours and breezy, so if you’re gonna be out there on Sunday, 40s, put your jacket on. Actually, I would pack a bigger coat heading to the north.”
Zeigler said it will still be a few weeks before we hit a peak in the metro and other communities in southern Minnesota.
KARE 11 will continue to update peak fall color progress. You can also check in with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fall Color Finder Map on the agency’s website.
The charges are connected to a fatal incident in which Thompson is accused of hitting a vehicle with his SUV, resulting in the deaths of five young women.
ST PAUL, Minn. — A jury has found Derrick Thompson guilty of drug and firearm charges stemming from a high-speed crash that claimed the lives of five young women in Minneapolis.
Thompson faced three charges – possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, being a felon in possession of a firearm and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime.
The trial lasted less than a week. On Tuesday, jurors watched a violent and graphic video that showed Thompson’s rented SUV running a red light at high speed and crashing into a vehicle waiting at a stoplight. All five passengers inside the car that was struck were killed.
But both prosecutors and Thompson’s defense team told jurors it was not the most important piece of evidence they’d see in the case, urging them not to attempt to analyze the crash itself.
“This is a case about an armed drug dealer,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Calhoun-Lopez told the panel. “We are here today because (the) defendant crashed that car carrying 2,000 fentanyl pills, cocaine, fentanyl powder, and a loaded gun.”
Calhoun-Lopez explained Derrick Thompson’s subsequent fleeing and lying to police following the deadly crash proves the gun and drugs were his. In addition, DNA testing links Thompson to the items.
But the defense offered the jury an alternative theory that was absent from the public realm until recently when it was revealed that Thompson had a passenger in the rental car – his brother Damarco Thompson.
Thompson’s attorney Matthew Deates told jurors that Damarco is the flashier of the Thompson brothers and that he likes colorful, flashy things like the blue cap police found on the passenger side of the Escalade. Deates added that the colorful wrap on the handgun matches those tastes and that the spot where police found the bag containing the gun and drugs also points to the defendant’s brother. The bag was located under Damarco’s blue hat.
“That is the definition of confirmation bias. It’s tunnel vision. It does not make it right. This caused the government to charge the wrong person. But you – as the jury – gets to weigh the evidence and decide,” Deates said in his opening statement.
Thompson’s legal woes are far from over – he faces five counts of third-degree murder and five counts of criminal vehicular homicide at the state level.
