Two college students say they were forced to submit to transvaginal probes as part of their classroom training to learn how to perform the medical procedure.
The details are outlined in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Orlando against Valencia College and three instructors. It alleges that medical diagnostic students at Valencia College were forced to submit to the examination of their sexual organs under threat of having their grades reduced or of being blacklisted by future employers. The three defendants named in the lawsuit, Maureen Bugnacki, Linda Shaheen and Barbara Ball, have not responded to CNN's requests for comment.
Peer physical examination is an accepted practice in the medical field, but several recent reports cited by the U.S. National Library of Medicine mention a growing need for clear policies regarding peer physical examination at medical schools.
The lawsuit claims during orientation, the college "had a second-year student, Jennifer Astor (nicknamed the 'TransVag Queen') explain the medical diagnostic sonography program's faculty believed that students should undergo invasive transvaginal ultrasound procedures in order to become better sonography technicians."
"Valencia positioned these transvaginal probes as voluntary, but its actual policy and practice was that they were not," according to the lawsuit.
The suit also describes weekly probes for students in the program, saying they, "endured these invasive probes without a modicum of privacy. Plaintiffs would disrobe in a restroom, drape themselves in towels, and traverse the sonography classroom in full view of instructors and other students."
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