Bathing Classmates and Other Personal Boundaries?

[brownhairedgal]

I've read a few threads on this and honestly I am shocked. I was unaware that students had to practice anything on each other that was invasive or required them to wear any clothing besides scrubs or other professional attire. This concept did not exist for me until I read threads in which people spoke about these practices.

I do not think it is right for students to have to wear clothing that exposes them, even if it is "just" shorts/bathing suit/bra/sports bra/tank top. Nor do I think it is right for students to have to be examined or touched in any way by another student. If we're going to make it about why I personally don't like it, it is because I don't wear shorts other than when I swim, they are usually knee-length, and I don't swim very often (last time was 2-3 years ago). I don't like to expose my legs for various reasons and I don't want to have to purchase clothing to show off a body part that I don't ever show off, hence why I don't own that type of clothing.

In previous posts there were people to said it wasn't a big deal, and others who think students should have to because their predecessors had to (and they had to do much more to each other than just bathing- such as catheter insertion, breast/lady partsl exams, anal swabbing, etc.), and yet others say it is so that students can learn what it is like to be a patient. Many of these people are saying that those who take issue with it aren't cut out for nursing. This makes no sense to me.

Other than helping out your classmates by providing a body so they can practice and do their exam on, what benefit does this give you? You will make a friend in class who may or may not help you later? So the benefit here is teamwork? I find it highly unlikely that I will be working with the classmate after I graduate and I don't feel that it is my duty to let someone invade my personal space just because the school we are at doesn't use mannequins and real patients. A student is not the same thing as a licensed professional and I don't want inexperienced people touching me or using my body to practice things like injections or catheters or even bathing. Once they are licensed then I know I can trust that they are being professional and held responsible, until then they are no different than someone in my A&P class going for a biology degree.

None of this means I will have a problem with other people's bodies or caring for them. My own personal level of comfort for MY body does not mean I won't be able to do my job and do what I need to when caring for another person. My own body being exposed is not something that will help me when I am bathing a patient because I will never be bathed by a patient and I will never be unclothed in front of a patient.

It seems that people who went to school years ago had to do more to each other than the schools today and if you respond to this I would love to hear what years you went to school (your age is not important) and what your experience and opinions are.

P.S. This is not about a male/female thing, as I think either gender would bother me just as much.

[tiffanyleigh0212]

in our lab, everyone had to be the "patient" then everyone got to be the "nurse". we left all clothes on but shoes and hopped into bed, then 2 classmates took turns providing full AM care, pretending like it was a bath and putting each other on bed pans, and doing an occupied bed. it all worked out pretty good and everyone had fun. IMHO you can go through the exact steps of a bed bath with clothes on and still get the experience.. but different strokes for different folks

[flyingchange]

We had arms and legs washed by each other. It was valuable because I'd never have known what it felt like to get a tepid cloth on me and then not get dried immediately - brrrr!

Also oral care and feeding. Also very valuable to experience on the receiving end and useful feedback about what I would or would not do in the future.

[HyperSaurus, RN, BSN]

We don't do invasive procedures on each other at my school. Come to think about it, I have never seen or practiced a bed bath...

[mammac5]

We practiced bed baths and other personal care one the first week in lab with the simulation manequins...and then the clinical instructor I had for my first rotation was adamant about our doing a real bed bath that first day. It was good to do it and get it over with since I think a lot of us were nervous about it. She purposefully chose med/surg pts for us who were total care so we could really get in there and do basic nursing skills.

[shrimpchips, LPN]

My school does not allow us to do any sort of invasive procedure on other students. Instead, we have dummies and sim men/babies and "injecta-pads," etc. When we learned how to do perform a bed bath, we didn't really do them on each other...They gave us those bath cloths (similar to those pericare wipes...I'm sure all of you know what I'm talking about :)) and we could practice on the hands/arms/legs/feet on each other if we wanted to, but no one told us we HAD to strip down or wear a bathing suite or anything like that. I think the thing that I did which might have made someone uncomfortable was trying to move my partner's big boobs out of the way when I was demonstrating how to listen to heart/lung sounds

[hiddencatRN, BSN, RN]

I think there's a big deference between being cared for by a student and being cared for by students in your own program who are peers and with whom you have an ongoing relationship with. I've been a patient in facilities that had students, have had a room full of observers watching me get a pelvic exam, and have been fine with it. And I am ever so grateful that we were allowed to wear shorts and tank tops when we did physical assessments on each other, and that most instructors were ok with any individual requiring more modesty than that provided.

Let me just throw another idea out here. In nursing school we are taught that we need to learn to see the patient as a "whole" and not just a series of tasks performed one after another. Aren't our classmates whole people, too? If a patient was embarassed or reticent about an exam would you tell them to suck it up and put on their big girl panties?

What if, for example- your clinical group had 15 people in it, as mine did. Maybe there is a woman who has had a mastectomy and having a very hard time adjusting to the body image changes that ensued, she may not have let her own husband see the scar. Or even a younger person, a high school friend of my daughters, that has a structural defect in the bones of her sternum and ribs who will not wear a bathing suit ever. Of course, these people can go to ask for special exemption-- but do they need to disclose to the entire group why they don't want to prove their nursing mettle by exposing these things to the people she sees socially every day? I dare say you might learn more empathy by being kind to that person rather than exposing them to the group-think that you can't be an empathic nurse without experiencing something yourself.

::yeahthat::

If we can only be good at something we've experienced, that sure closes a lot of doors in nursing, doesn't it?

[roro13sf]

We used anatomically correct mannequins to practice bed bath and peri care. During the final checkoff, we had to do everything on a fellow student, but the student was dressed and we pretended with dry cloths, etc.

Now that we're doing physical assessments, we practice on each other, but we wear loose clothing so that pant legs can be hiked up and you can get a stethoscope into a shirt, etc. Not invasive at all, but the instructors still informed us that if anyone had problems being touched by fellow students, etc, that they would provide alternate arrangements.

I don't feel cheated out of a learning experience just because we didn't get to practice everything "for real" in the skills lab. Besides, you can practice at home by giving a bed bath to your significant other!

[ToBANurse2010]

i have to agree with some of the others. you the unlicensed person is in clinical wanting to perform invasive procedures on the patient; just think about how that person feels. during my learning experience we didn't do breast exams on each other nor did we do lady partsl/penile exams either. we did wash each other arms, legs and feet. we also brushed each oter teeth, now that was very uncomfortable for me. i got through it. i had an experience during clinicals when the patient i was assigned to didn't want an unexperienced person, i felt hurt , but i kept going. i know there will be days when you will come across a patient that don't want you as a nurse

[1969]

As a new CNA, I will tell you that YES, there is a right way to give a bed bath. It's all about right technique & patient privacy. Remember, "cleanest to dirtiest". Period. HTH

[sharpeimom]

i have to agree with some of the others. you the unlicensed person is in clinical wanting to perform invasive procedures on the patient; just think about how that person feels. during my learning experience we didn't do breast exams on each other nor did we do lady partsl/penile exams either. we did wash each other arms, legs and feet. we also brushed each oter teeth, now that was very uncomfortable for me. i got through it. i had an experience during clinicals when the patient i was assigned to didn't want an unexperienced person, i felt hurt , but i kept going. i know there will be days when you will come across a patient that don't want you as a nurse

i can hardly read this font! :smackingf

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw:

[nursel56]

i can hardly read this font! :smackingf

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw:

i agree! i was only able to read it through sheer force of will. . . ===shudder===

[alan headbloom]

When my wife was in med school (in the 80s), they used to practice small procedures on classmates. She did more "personal" exams on her husband (at home), though.