Re: Wearing Gloves When Taking Vital Signs?
I wear gloves for all patient contact, feel kind of naked without them. In fact, if I'm running in a room for something emergent I still grab them out of habit and can put them on in a milisecond. You just never know what a person has. And I don't really care if it offends them because it would offend me if they questioned my motive to protect myself and other patients. I've had patients joke about how many I go through but never offended that I use them. Most of my patients are too sick to care though.
And another reason I wear them is I might just be going in there to get a bp, but inevitably they want me to look at this, feel that, empty this urinal/bedpan/colostomy or warrant further assessment for other reasons. Never fails.
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