At my last such "visitation" my only problem was that I was given a generic "authorization" form to sign that said in essence that they were allowed to render me unconscious, and the "doctor in charge" was authorized to do "anything deemed appropriate" until I woke up.

As the process used within this practice assigns an "examining physician" at random for such tests, and your own doctor is not permitted to specify who will perform the test, and as I had never met anyone involved and had no idea of what they might consider "appropriate," I simply marked out that section of the form, wrote "REFUSED" in the entire section, and signed the rest of the form.

This caused some "momentary panic" when I arrived at the examination suite, but when the D.I.C heard my explanation, he looked at the forms and then said - "Gee, I never knew it said all that. We need to ask them to rewrite this form."

(Is my confidence building?)

He then cheerfully said "We can just omit the anesthetic so you can stay awake and we can discusss any problems before we do anything about them."

(Am I ready for this?)

Although some might find the procedure distinctly "undignified," and it does produce some "unusual sensations," with the exception of a slight "intitial shock" due to failure of the prep nurse to properely warm the instruments of torture I can't say that it was more than "intermittently mildly uncomfortable."

I was pronounced "As fit as can be expected for someone in such decrepit/degenerate condition" and sent home to collect my dignity. (Of which there's very little in the best of times, so not much collecting to be done.)

IMO, the day lost to the "pre-test" preparation is the major objection to having this done "whenever," although I expect my primary care physician to suggest when/if it needs doing and to make the appropriate recommendations to me first, rather than taking some arbitrarily devised schedule as "the last word."

Of course, I have taken some care in selecting (and training?) a physician that understands me and is willing to discuss my needs in terms that permit "mutual participation" in my treatment. For some, that may not be possible in our current medical culture/environment.

John