URBANA, Ill. (WAND) - It is a disturbing trend happening in some teaching hospitals across the country... medical residents performing non-consensual pelvic exams on women under anesthesia for different surgeries.

There are laws against this in six states, including Illinois. But a law professor at the University of Illinois has spent almost two decades attempting to make this illegal across the country.

Professor Robin Wilson said tackling this issue can be tough, because women may not know an additional procedure was even performed on them.

"These are exams that are minimally invasive," Professor Wilson said. "It doesn't leave any track marks, you know? You're not necessarily in any pain. You're not even going to know it happened. So, patients never come to learn about it... except for in this instance." 

The instance she is talking about concerns a doctor in Arizona who has requested anonymity. She contacted Professor Wilson after having stomach surgery at the hospital where she worked.

"One of the residents, because she's a nurse there, actually just for whatever reason happened to say, 'Oh, so we were teaching medical students to do pelvic exams on you,'" Professor Wilson recalls. "And she just flipped." 

The Arizona doctor was sexually assaulted when she was 11-years-old.

"So, this has brought back a huge flood of memories, and she's really struggling with it," Professor Wilson said.

The Advocacy Supervisor at the Growing Strong Sexual Assault Center, Brennan Bandy, said this kind of trauma can be a major setback in a victim's healing process.

"If she's kind of started her healing process or she's in the middle of it that whole time and then this happens again," Bandy says, "that sort of sets her back to day one."

Professor Wilson does not believe the intent of the teaching hospitals is malicious. However, she said consent is either not being given or is not being made explicitly clear.

In some cases, the doctor will ask the woman if she is comfortable with the pelvic exams prior to the surgery. But when the medical students come in and practice the exam, they are operating under the assumption of consent, while never actually asking or hearing from the woman herself.

"We try to say that we like an enthusiastic 'yes' as consent," Bandy said. "So if they're like, 'Yes, go ahead and do that,' then we are getting their complete approval of that situation. If someone is having that taken away from them, it's very traumatizing and victimizing."

"This needs to be like the '#MeToo Movement'," Professor Wilson said. "We need to have people saying '#JustAsk'. So I think we need to change the culture of medical education and continually remind ourselves that it's important to ask."