I work sometimes with a male nurse, who I usually enjoy working with. Tonight I had a new admit, who was also a male, so I called the other nurse to come do the skin assessment with me, which is protocol. My male patient reported a large hematoma inside his thigh. The other nurse told me to leave the room. I told him no, that is my patient and I want to be present for the skin assessment if the patient was agreeable, which he was. So the patient showed us the bruise, which was so high up it was practically perineal. It was a very bad hemtoma, almost black in colour. So, to my shock, the male nurse reaches waaaaaay up to the patients crotch and starts feeling around...without any gloves. It was very uncomfortable and my jaw just about dropped. He paused for a few seconds and then asked me to step out of the room. Again I said the same thing, but this time I stepped out. When the nurse came to the station, he described the bruise as having a knot under it. I explained again that I didn't appreciate being told to leave when my pt said it was fine that I stay. He told me the patient was getting 'embarrassed' that I was there, and he knows this because he is a guy. Anyhow, his 'assessment' seemed very inappropriate to me. Later the patient denied being embarrassed and stated that he would rather i have stayed. When I asked him if he was at all uncomfortable with the other nurse, he deflected the question, 3 times.
The is the second time something like this has happened. The first time I asmin'd an IM injection into the gluteous muscle of a young man, and the male nurse stepped in and started rubbing the guy's butt, I mean massaging it, again bare handed...under the theory of rubbing the injection site for whatever clinical reason. I kept thinking OK he's gonna stop doing that any minute now, but it seemed to last forever, him massaging the guy's butt. I was so uncomfortable that I reported it, but apparently the pt was not uncomfortable and so nothing was done.
This nurse has a mysterious history. Apparently he had some kind of felony years and years ago, something about striking a police officer, and the story goes that having had a felony, he cannot be around kids, legally. All we really know is that he cannot work on the children's unit or be around kids for some reason connected to the policeman incident. Sounds a little off to me, but OK.
