A Dear Abbey letter. What is your take?

Nurses General Nursing

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I would like to hear your opinions regarding this situation from a letter taken from Dear Abbey. Do you agree with Abbey? Or should the nurse have done something differently?

DEAR ABBY: While sitting with my husband in the hospital following his surgery, a nurse entered his room. We all chatted while she took his pulse, etc., when -- without warning -- she removed his covers to check the surgery site and totally exposed his genitals.

I was shocked and embarrassed, and have trouble ridding myself of the image of my naked husband lying there in front of another woman. I wish the nurse had given me the chance to leave the room.

Is there something wrong with me for having so much trouble with this? What can I do to avoid this in the future? -- RED-FACED IN EUGENE, ORE.

DEAR RED-FACED: On a scale of 10, I'd say you are probably an 8 on the "uptight" scale. You seem to have forgotten that the woman in the room with you was not a lap dancer, but a health-care professional performing her duties. Your husband was her patient, and in her eyes, was probably as sexless as a CPR dummy. To avoid embarrassment in the future, leave the room when the nurse enters

Specializes in Critical Care, Pediatrics, Geriatrics.
I'm sorry, I assumed since your screenname is a soldierswife, that you were in your 20s or 30s, which when you hit sixty, is considered young. Sorry, I will not make that mistake again.

Grannynurse:balloons:

That's fine. In fact you are right in your assumption. I am 22 years young. What bothered me about you comment is that you devalued my post r/t your assumption that I was "young and dumb" so to speak, and that my attitude would change with the wisdom of aging. I am an intelligent and articulate young woman who can form my own educated evaluation of a situation without being naive or disrespectful of another's personal values and modesty.

I certainly do not agree that my morals and attitude are as positively correlated with my age as you seem to imply. To me it seemed as if you were discrediting my opinion and speaking condescendingly towards younger generations based on the idea that we disagree in our out take on the situation. Pt dignity, respect, and cultural sensitivity are at the forefront of my nursing agenda.

I firmly stand by my responses and will continue to have an open mind towards any alleged situation, considering all parties involved...careful to not be quick to jump to conclusions or judge others based on a one sided account of an event. Nor will I devalue anyones opinion and chock it up to age (no matter which end of the spectrum that age falls on)

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
That's fine. In fact you are right in your assumption. I am 22 years young. What bothered me about you comment is that you devalued my post r/t your assumption that I was "young and dumb" so to speak, and that my attitude would change with the wisdom of aging. I am an intelligent and articulate young woman who can form my own educated evaluation of a situation without being naive or disrespectful of another's personal values and modesty.

I certainly do not agree that my morals and attitude are as positively correlated with my age as you seem to imply. To me it seemed as if you were discrediting my opinion and speaking condescendingly towards younger generations based on the idea that we disagree in our out take on the situation. Pt dignity, respect, and cultural sensitivity are at the forefront of my nursing agenda.

I firmly stand by my responses and will continue to have an open mind towards any alleged situation, considering all parties involved...careful to not be quick to jump to conclusions or judge others based on a one sided account of an event. Nor will I devalue anyones opinion and chock it up to age (no matter which end of the spectrum that age falls on)

Very well said.

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Specializes in Public Health, DEI.
When I am responding to a post, I try to take into consideration both sides of the story before I begin my response to be fair and open minded. I also post with a bit of a sense of humor and take everything that is said with a grain of salt. My father has always said, "Believe nothing you read and only half of what you see!":rotfl: It is my experience that certain people are going to be offended no matter what you do, how you say things, or what your intentions were. It happens all the time in real life and on this board. If I took everything at face value, I feel I would be quite naive. But then again, like others posted, I am already naive for my way of thinking.

:rolleyes: DA is meant for entertainment purposes and I am sure the shock value of her response was well thought out...anybody ever consider that the original letter may have been completely made up or a spin off of another letter they recieved that they wanted to juice up a bit? So for entertainment purposes, I found it comical. If it was I who was the nurse, I would not want anyone to jump to conclusions just because a family member has a certain perception of the situation. And if I was the wife, I would have spoken to the nurse or nurse manager privately about my concerns...not written to DA.

Be all of that as it may... I have no idea what has or has not occured to anyone else, but I can't go around guessing as to the veracity of the posts on this or any other bulletin board. If a question is asked, or a situation raised, when I respond, I respond as it is presented. I have no doubt that many times the reality is different, but it is impossible to discern that on a bulletin board. If I out and out don't believe it, I just don't respond at all. I've gotten caught up in that more than once, and it is pointless. I once posted a story, incredible but true, and had someone who I once considered a BB friend call me a liar. It ticks me off to this very day. I go with the benefit of the doubt philosophy myself.

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I like your answer the best. We are so used to seeing so much nakedness that we don't even blink an eye.:chuckle

I would have warned the pt....I need to check your incision, etc. I'd probably ask the wife/ pt if they would want a look at it too. That should be a cue to the wife.
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Specializes in Oncology/Haemetology/HIV.

I always am amazed at posters that denigrate someone else's opinion by insinuating that they are too young/old/married/single/with children/childless/female/male to possibly understand and be appropriately sensitive to a particular issue.

I am also amazed at those that will grab the phone/pen/email to complain to Dear Abby/lawyer/DA/patient representative when a very simple, "Excuse me, but I prefer that I be out of the room when you examine my spouses's whatever...I know that may not be usual, but please warn me next time", would work quite nicely.

But that, I suppose, would be too lacking in offense, too polite, too simple, too responsible, and contain much too much common sense for today's society.

Would that we work to correct mistakes and inform others of our preferences, rather than suing them/whining about such things that are easily corrected.

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as a cna (not nurse yet) i do remember constant emphasis on privacy. (only uncovering one part at a time and never exposing what doesn't need to be exposed. having said that, it sounds as if the incision site was close to that "area" and maybe the nurse could have "warned" them both, but really who is going to suspect that the wife is embarrased by her husbands private parts? she seems a bit uptight, and to have to sit down and write out a letter to dear Abby? That is very strange to me...

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.

I don't why the nuse had to expose his genitals while checking an abdominal dressing. I think the nurse was inconsiderate of her patients right to privacy and I think Dear Abby wouldn't have appreciated having that done to her and that then she would have had a different answer. Wrong Abby, Wrong!

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I don't think any of us are saying it is ok to violate a person's privacy.

But it is a little funny that the wife was concerned about her husband's nakedness only because there was another woman seeing it.

Obviously you ask permission and state your purpose and guard the patient's privacy.

steph

Maybe the nurse was "hot" and she was uncomfortable thinking about her working so "intimately" with her husband :rolleyes: . The more i think about it, i bet that is what the issue really is.

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...

I am also amazed at those that will grab the phone/pen/email to complain to Dear Abby/lawyer/DA/patient representative when a very simple, "Excuse me, but I prefer that I be out of the room when you examine my spouses's whatever...I know that may not be usual, but please warn me next time", would work quite nicely.

But that, I suppose, would be too lacking in offense, too polite, too simple, too responsible, and contain much too much common sense for today's society.

Would that we work to correct mistakes and inform others of our preferences, rather than suing them/whining about such things that are easily corrected.

I nominate this for the best post ever award!:)

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Specializes in Critical Care, Pediatrics, Geriatrics.
I nominate this for the best post ever award!:)

Second that nomination fergus

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You apparently are unaware of the number of husbands and wives who do not expose themselves to one another. And you apparently are unaware of religious restrictions regarding nudity. And you certainly give a great deal of latitude to the nurse's 'mistake' of yanking back the covers and exposing the patient's genitals to his wife. And by you, I mean all of the collective you who think the wife is off the deep end. Perhaps all of you and DA could benefit from some retraining in cultural and religious values and restrictions.

Grannynurse:balloons:

if it were a religous or cultural issue, wouldn't thi sbe in the chart? Obviously this isn't the first time this man had to be "exposed" in the hospital. Perhaps it hasn't ever happened to his wife before, but i would think that if it were a cultural or religious issue this would have been brougt up because of the nature of the problem... I do agree that the nurse should have said something, and maybe she did early on (such as upon walking into the room)but it was forgotten during the "chat" that they all were having. In any case the wife seems more jealous than anything, maybe she has some issues to work through. Privacy is essential, but it isn't like the nurse walked up and wipped off the sheet in a public room.

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It would be so nice if people would not chalk up someone's opinion on a subject to them being young, and predicting their attitude would change as they grow older!:rolleyes:

Sorry, that's just rude.

thankyou! i have not seen anyone here who is not all for respecting a persons privacy.

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