Hi. I'm a student in a Japanese Nursing School. Our school starts in April, and I just made it through first three months. I am facing a big problem, and I need to know the situation of the Nursing Schools in other countries.
We are learning how to wash and clean patients' body on bed. ( I suppose this is common in every nursing schools in the world.) BUT, when you learn and practice, do you wipe (clean) eachother in class? My teacher says the nurse-role students will be wearing the nurse uniform, and the parient-role students will have to take off all clothes except undear-shorts and lay in bed. We will have to take off bra too.
Is this common in your schools??? Is it?? Don't we have the basic human rights??
I have discussed this with some of the nursing students in other Japanese nursing schools. Some schools do not let students take off their clothes, but most schools are doing the same thing. Can you believe it? I never expected this. I was expecting to use a dole to practice.
I've heard this argument before and it sounds just as ridiculous now as it did the first time I heard it. Nurses are not stupid. They do not need to go through these experiences to understand them. Pelvics are uncomfortable - everyone gets that. Having someone else feed or wash you is uncomfortable - everyone gets that. Shots hurt - everyone gets that. There is no need to make students practice on each other. That is what clinicals are for.
I second that because you do not need to be in a position like that to know how vulnerable your patient is feeling. It would take a very non compassionate person to not know/feel that when you are bathing someone they are not comfortable. Would you be comfortable having someone bath you? I know i would not. So w/o having to go through with it in a skills lab i already can sympathize with the patient.
This is absurd ! There is no way I would do this. I hated when we had to test eachothers BGL on eachother. Nothing like shakin hands trying to stick you !
is it that you don't see the irony in this situation is it that you refuse to recognize it? note a comment like this: "i can't believe in these days that schools would permit such things to go on. this seems to me to be an archaic practice. why can't they go to a teaching hospital and do them on real patients?" so, let's just practice on the patients or on dummies or wear bathing suites.
+ 1.
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another commented that patients are more than willing to let student nurse practice on them. maybesome are. certainly not all. so -- you don't have to really experience things likebed baths to really empathize with the patient? maybe not. how about the oldexpression "walk a mile in my shoes." i read nurses on this blog who are quick to chastise patients because they have no idea what nurses really do. how can the patient really understandwhat nurses go through. i would suggest the same is true for nurses, especially younger nurses who are healthy and have had little in-hospital experience.
empathy can occur without experience -- i don't have to experience terminal cancer to empathize with the patient and their loved ones.
the social role expectations we forge as peers are completely different than that of a nurse-patient relationship. how can younger nurses understand what patients are going through during bedbaths? we're not talking about a patient receiving news that they're never going to walk again... we're talking about giving the patient a washcloth and saying 'you get what you can and i'll get the rest.'
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what happened to the cld cliches that are so frequesntly used: "there's nothing to be embarrassed about." "we're all professionals here." "i've done this a million times." "seen one, seen them all."
not being embarrassed is totally different from being mandated to do so. as an emt if i was transporting a co-worker and/or peer they would receive the same professionalism as any other patient. as students we are peers, not patients.
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don't misunderstand me. your points are valid from you perspective. but some patients read your comments and are completely stunned. they see as complete hiprocracy. both perspectives are valid. it's too bad that we can't get patients and nurses together to talk about this kind of thing, to learn from each other, to feel more comfortable with each other, to develop more trust.
are there really that many patients reading the forum? i wonder if 'allpatients.com' is registered yet. it looks like you're kind of missing the point of this forum; it's not for the patients, it's for the nurses. a nurse chastising a patient on the forum is a way of venting and sharing. it's not intended to get back to the patient and for most intents and purposes it shouldn't. the op's original post was not about trusting her classmates or feeling comfortable bathing patients it was about the school making student expose themselves while practicing a remedial skill.
We used dummies to practice. Doing work on each other often opens the school to big liability issues. If there are no dummies doing it in bathing suits and shorts isn't too horrible. I would have done that.
I have talked with the head of the teachers yesterday. She understood my point of view and quite easily changed the rule and let us wear bathing suits. That's better. Much better than topless!!! Your comments encouraged me very much. Thanks.
I'm proud of you. You spokeup for something that didn't feel right and had the process changed. I also applaud your instructor for seeing your POV and doing something about it. Bravo!!
stripec30 you might be surprised at how many patients read the comments on allnurses.. and how many articles and blogs list the url.. often to a specific page....and you really might not like the commentaries that they post on other blogs about what they read here... Your comments are often combined with experiences (usually negative ones) and do a lot in the forming of patients views of nurses...and in their reactions to them in real life experiences. They can understand a lot of human reactions...but never anything that even smacks of arrogance, untruthfullness, or double standards.. and get very vocal about these things.... so my point is... if ya do not want someone to read your words you need to have a care that it is not easily accessed.
I really don't understand howa school could honestly expect their students to take off their clothes and have a pelvic exam done by another student. I would never agree to that. I can understand practicing drawing blood or something but a pelvic exam is ridiculous.......
I think this is a really interesting topic for debate.
At my school, we read the text, watched the videos, practiced on mannequins and had the opportunity, if we chose to, to don a swimming costume and have another classmate/s bath us in bed. It was very much open to personal comfort, choice and preference and admittedly, not a lot of students were willing to (though, this had a lot to do with time constraints, also.)
However, when it came to other basic things we learnt in the same class - manual blood pressures, oral care, using a lifter etc... we were all happy to participate and have our teeth cleaned with oversized tooth brushes by other class mates.
Consider, though, how many of us would be willing to have things like IV or IM injections practiced on them? Or a catheter insertion? (How many schools would allow this?!)
Where do you draw the line as to what classmates are fair game for?
it looks like you're kind of missing the point of this forum; it's not for the patients, it's for the nurses. a nurse chastising a patient on the forum is a way of venting and sharing. it's not intended to get back to the patient and for most intents and purposes it shouldn't. the op's original post was not about trusting her classmates or feeling comfortable bathing patients it was about the school making student expose themselves while practicing a remedial skill.
tookewlandy
727 Posts
I second that because you do not need to be in a position like that to know how vulnerable your patient is feeling. It would take a very non compassionate person to not know/feel that when you are bathing someone they are not comfortable. Would you be comfortable having someone bath you? I know i would not. So w/o having to go through with it in a skills lab i already can sympathize with the patient.
Andy