Sims' position

Common card · No. 365297

Sims' position, or left lateral Sims' position, named after the gynaecologist J. Marion Sims, is usually used for rectal examination, treatments, enemas, and examining patients for vaginal wall prolapse. Sims' position has the person lying on the left side, with the left hip and lower extremity straight, and the right hip and knee bent. It is also called lateral recumbent position. Sims' is sometimes the person lying on the left side with both legs bent. J. Marion Sims developed the Sims position and other techniques in the course of experimental vesicovaginal fistula surgery on enslaved women, performing operations without anesthesia. Although anesthetics were not yet standard practice, his experimentation involved multiple painful surgeries before he perfected the technique: one patient had 29 failed attempts over four years before the final success. His techniques did benefit that patient in the end, and countless future patients, but as the experimentation was performed on enslaved...

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