They are separated by a dark blanketlike screen hung between them. Behind it, the woman is covered from head to foot by her burka. The two do not talk directly to each other. The patient's young son--he looks to be about six years old--serves as the go-between. She has a stomachache, he says. "Does she throw up her food?" the doctor asks. "Do you throw up your food?" the boy asks. "No," the woman says, perfectly audibly, but the doctor waits as if he has not heard. "No," the boy tells him. For the purposes of examination, there is a two-inch circle cut in the screen. "Tell her to come closer," the doctor says. The boy does. She brings her mouth to the opening, and through it he looks inside. "Have her bring her eye to the hole," he says. And so the exam goes. Such, apparently, can be the demands of decency. When I started in my surgical practice, I was not at all clear what my etiquette of examination should be. There are no clear standards in the United States, expectations are murky, and the topic can be fraught with hazards.
