With a blue paper sheet covering her pubic hair, a 30-year-old woman is lying naked from the waist down, with her legs spread open on an examination couch in a hospital room. A trainee doctor opens her vagina with a speculum and gazes inside to find the cervix.But this is no ordinary pap smear. The woman being examined is in fact a teacher, and she's here to show the medical student how to do a gynecological exam which is painless and stress-free for a patient—by allowing them to practise on her own body.The University of Oxford medical school is one of several which have pioneered a groundbreaking feminist way of teaching medical undergraduates gynecology, in which women from the general public are trained to teach medical students.Many women dread cervical screening tests and similar examinations after having had less than comfortable experiences, both physically and emotionally. And vaginal exams are of course especially hard—sometimes traumatic—for women who have experienced rape or sexual abuse. One in three British women between 25-29 don't attend smear tests, often because of fears they are embarrassing or painful, which has led to a rise in cases of cervical cancer. The medical profession urgently needs to make these tests less daunting for women.Continue reading on Broadly.