So I had my first clinical day for OB and my instructor told us not to wear gloves when doing vitals for the post-partum mom. I was totally in shock. I told her that I normally wear gloves every time I'm doing vitals or a Head to toe assessment just in case an unexpected situation came up. Or what if I had to help change a pad or something I wouldn't want to say " hold on for a minute or two let me grab some gloves" Anyway she said that they are not needed when doing VS. I find this very contradicting in that we as nurses and student must always use standard precaution, we must always treat everyone as if they are infected. Now, If I'm providing comforting measures or holding someones hand, I may not use gloves all the time, but they are still close by.
So my question is do you or do you not wear gloves when taking vitals. I'm just curious here...
Maybe I've been wrong for wearing gloves all this time ?
I do NOT wear gloves when doing vitals. We were taught that it makes thhe patient feel contaminated to wear gloves every time we walk in the room or touch them, and it is also not necessary. Now of course if they have a contagious disease where contact precautions etc are in place, or open wounds etc then I would wear gloves. There is actually a school joke about the student whose afraid to do vitals without gloves because she doesn't know any better. I have also noticed that when my own DR. comes in to examine me she doesn't automatically put on gloves. She listens to my chest, back, feels my neck, and otherwise examines me without gloves. She only puts gloves on to do my GYN exam.
Wearing gloves to do vital signs? This goes beyond germophobia. It's offensive to the patient, unnecessary/wasteful and shows a lack of edcuation--> By that I mean, if the pt has intact skin and isn't on isolation precautions, then there is no earthly reason to wear the gloves (other than personal preference/already mentioned). It shows a lack of understanding of basic care.
If I saw a newbie wearing gloves with every.single.contact with the patient I would immediately assume that they did not know exactly what they were doing, as would other nurses and doctors. The pts would just be offended. Plus, you are taking away an intimate form of human contact-touch. The way a nurse takes a BP can be much different from someone struggling to do so in gloves. And your pt misses out on your human touch.
If I came across poop or blood (has happened many, many times) I would say, "hold on, let me put some gloves on".
Never had a pt get offended by that. Also, the gloves in my rooms are about 2 steps away from the bed.
I'm sure I'll get all kinds of responses about the lack of education thing, but honestly, if you think you need gloves for VS then seriously....
My thoughts exactly, thanks for posting it for me!! :yeah::yeah::yeah::yeah::yeah::yeah:
Our instructor told us that it is not necessary to wear gloves for VS, but it is completely a personal choice. I can understand where you are coming from when you said if something came up and you had to change a pad or something like that.
I was told that it is just common practice for infection control. You don't want to transfer anything to the patient's environment that could possibly get them sick.
by the way: in my pp clinical two days ago, the nurse told me I had to wear gloves when assessing the baby (even though I just did a full newborn assessment with my instructor and neither she nor I wore gloves). I was only doing VS and ended up not even touching the baby's skin but I felt like a fool wearing the whole shebang.
I do not wear gloves to do vitals. You are only touching her arm... No reason to wear gloves there unless she is oozing some bodily fluid. A lot of patients probably find that wearing gloves while doing vitals is very offensive. This is not an invasive procedure...
:yeah:
truern
2,016 Posts
Thanks psychRNinNY...that was a good article!