“Your privacy is important to us� so how did patients’ medical exams get on Youtube?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

  • Specializes in retired from healthcare.

You're browsing the web one day and come across some videos that expose girls private parts when they're on the exam table. How do you figure they got there.

  1. The patients were denied the right to medical care unless they agreed to be exposed in public
  2. We reserve the right to publish videos of you on the exam table for educational purposes” was hidden so deep into the fine print that some patients signed it in a hurry with tired eyes and thought they were seeing things
  3. The patients were re-compensated for the loss of their medical privacy so they never had to work again
  4. They put the patients on video without their knowledge and snuck it on YouTube and no one has reported it yet
  5. HIPAA makes an allowance for practitioners who film their patients for public education
  6. All the above
  7. None of the above

How in the name of God did they get these people to agree to be filmed during their medical exams?

They show the girls' faces so you might recognize them and show close-up pictures of their private parts to display on YouTube?

All I had to do was sign into my account and tell them I'm eighteen or older to access these videos.

They show graphic pictures that I didn't really need to see. In one of them, the man doing the lady partsl exam actually addresses the patient by Ms……..” followed by her last name which really gave me the creeps.

Some but not all these videos had drawings of girls private parts which is all they really need to educate the anyone including nurses and medical students.

Any creepy eight-year-old can create a YouTube account and pretend they're eighteen or older. Any peeping tom can gain access to these pictures that show the private parts of girls in their practitioners offices and if you ever knew any sex predators, this whole idea would creep you out.

The girls exposed on the exam table never show the viewers that they know they're being filmed outside of one patient who smiles and holds a flower and who only has her face exposed to the camera.

When I was in training and we used patients for educational purposes it meant we were all inside of a shut curtain or closed up room protecting the patient's dignity.

In my general goings about I meet up with people who have no clue about a patient's right to privacy.

They seem to think it's ludicrous when you ask them to mind their own business.

They seem to think it's their own decision whether they invade someone's privacy depending on whether THEY are okay with it and sometimes depending on whether they sacrificed their own privacy and sometimes because of their own self-importance.

One person even told me, Well you have to talk about it,” when I refused to talk about my patients during a gathering. In this case, they expected me to think I was the poor little victim that has to talk about it.”

The publics' ignorance and insensitivity are only being made worse by the availability of publicized pap smears. They make no mention of the fact that these patients are vulnerable.

They do not explain to their vast audience how the right to privacy and dignity are tied in with videos of patients' exams.

Maybe someone could clear up my confusion as far as how a medical office can reserve the right to go public with the care of their patients and include identifying information like the patients faces. I know there has to be some detailed process these people follow before they publish a video.

I would like to think the patients watch the videos first and then give their permission for them to be published.

I would like to think HIPAA requires the permission form for these pictures to be published to be separate from all other forms.

I do hope the entitlement of these practitioners to publish these videos is not because of some statement buried somewhere in a legal agreement that someone signs when they desperately need care.

I do hope You can't share pictures of me” is still an option when they expose someone's private parts on YouTube.

VANurse2010

1,526 Posts

Option F: the patients were fully informed and compensated for their time and exposure.

This entire post seems "creepy" and bizarrely hyperbolic.

klone, MSN, RN

14,786 Posts

Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.

People actually agree to do that stuff for educational purposes. As long as they've provided consent, I don't see anything wrong with it.

JustBeachyNurse, LPN

13,952 Posts

Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.

Perhaps are not "patients" but actors paid to be a patient and were compensated not only for participating in the exam for educational purposes but consenting to the exam and their name/likeness to be published in the public domain. Did the videos indicate that these were of actual patients? I doubt it.

I think your first assumption that these are typical patients and not compensated actors may be the issue. Therefore in your poll, my response is "None of the above" I

know the major university medical school affiliated with the university that my sisters attended actually advertised in the undergraduate news paper for students to be paid to be patients for clinical practice of medical students with direct supervision of the clinical physician professors.

This was before youtube but I wouldn't be surprised if consent to video/photograph the scenario wasn't an option in the consent. Depending on the exam to be practice, more intimate or complex exams paid more $$$$ than say a patient history scenario (only conversational).

As long it is an adult of legal age signing an informed consent to the exam and recording of the exam in exchange for compensation I see nothing wrong. While patient confidentiality may apply, if these are actors volunteering for these exams and videos HIPAA does not apply as no insurance was billed (required component for a HIPAA violation)

Alnitak7

560 Posts

Specializes in retired from healthcare.
Perhaps are not "patients" but actors paid to be a patient and were compensated not only for participating in the exam for educational purposes but consenting to the exam and their name/likeness to be published in the public domain. Did the videos indicate that these were of actual patients? I doubt it. I think your first assumption that these are typical patients and not compensated actors may be the issue.

Therefore in your poll, my response is "None of the above" I know the major university medical school affiliated with the university that my sisters attended actually advertised in the undergraduate news paper for students to be paid to be patients for clinical practice of medical students with direct supervision of the clinical physician professors.

While patient confidentiality may apply, if these are actors volunteering for these exams and videos HIPAA does not apply as no insurance was billed (required component for a HIPAA violation)

Thank you for explaining this. I only saw one video where it was clear that the patient was acting.

JustBeachyNurse, LPN

13,952 Posts

Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.
Thank you for explaining this. I only saw one video where it was clear that the patient was acting.

A few of my sister's friends did this, in college and broke students will do many things for some cash. Some are theater majors so they work hard at not looking like they are pretending/acting.

amoLucia

7,736 Posts

Specializes in retired LTC.

Wow! Learn something new everyday!

MunoRN, RN

8,058 Posts

Specializes in Critical Care.

Option G seems the most likely; this is what is called 'reality Media', which includes many sub-categories including realistic appearing but staged medical exams with actors pretending to be patients and doctors. There's a lot of really weird stuff out their in the Media world, so I'm told anyway, and much of it does make it's way through YouTube's filters.

ponymom

385 Posts

Option G seems the most likely; this is what is called 'reality Media', which includes many sub-categories including realistic appearing but staged medical exams with actors pretending to be patients and doctors. There's a lot of really weird stuff out their in the Media world, so I'm told anyway, and much of it does make it's way through YouTube's filters.

Yes this... They could actually be Media actors.

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN

1 Article; 20,908 Posts

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

What made you look for it on You tube?

What is your obsession with patients and pictures?

SHGR, MSN, RN, CNS

1 Article; 1,406 Posts

Specializes in nursing education.
What made you look for it on You tube?

Especially because you "didn't really need to see?"

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