What Instruments Do Gynecologists Use?

Gynecologists (or Ob/Gyn) are doctors who specialize in women's health. The instruments that these medical practitioners use develop and change with new advances in technology. In many instances these instruments have grown smaller and less invasive. This improves the ability of gynecologists to view and diagnose a patient without needing surgery.

Cameras

• Gynecologists use small, miniaturized cameras to assist them in seeing inside a patient's body. These cameras are similar to those used by other doctors for less invasive surgical techniques. These cameras insert through the vagina or, at other times, through small incisions in the stomach to visually assess the inside of a woman's body. These cameras used to be strictly for viewing what's happening inside the body, but now they can be attached to other instruments that gynecologists use to help fix internal problems.

Hysteroscopes

• Hysteroscopes are instruments that are meant to see into a patient's uterus. These instruments are centuries old, but modern scopes are much smaller than their predecessors. According to sciencedaily.com, these tools range between 3 millimeters in the smallest forms to 10 millimeters at their largest. They work by pressing into the vagina, pass the cervical canal and into the uterus. Hysteroscopes also assist in removing a woman's uterus when the organ ceases to function, referred to as a hysterectomy.

Resectoscope

• A resectoscope's initial purpose was to help men with enlarged prostates by shaving layers off of the prostate for tumor removal. Currently, this same instrument, with minor alterations, assists in vaginal treatments by pressing into the vagina and the uterus to remove and shave off tumors and other cancerous growths. Since the instrument is small, it isn't a painful process and requires very little alteration to the patient's body.