Have we sunken so low? Would you?

[achot chavi]

This article just hit the newspapers:

Will work for... breast implants

25 May, 2009, 17:28

A plastic surgery clinic in Prague, which experienced a lack of staff, solved their problems by offering breast augmentation, liposuction and tummy tucks to employees as a bonus, The New York Times newspaper reports.

"It has been a success," Jiri Schweitzer, a manager at the Iscare clinic, said.

He added that the medical institution is now fully staffed as they received a lot more applications that the positions they needed filled.

Nurses, doctors and other staff, who sign up with the clinic for three years, can choose their free plastic surgery.

Read more

"I have mentioned this to colleagues and friends, and the interest in working here is huge," nurse Petra Kalivodova said.

31-year-old Petra has been working at the Iscare clinic for four years. She has chosen cosmetic breast surgery and liposuction as her bonus. The clinic charges up to $5000 for breast implants and $3380 for other procedures she could hardly afford on her $1300 salary.

50 nurses are working at the clinic and 10 of them had opted for plastic surgery, while several others were considering it. One male doctor is also thought to be getting liposuction.

But woman rights activists say motivating nurses with offers of breast implants is equal to turning them into "prostitutes."

"If any institution offers this incentive, then it has lost all credibility," Jirina Siklova, a gender studies expert and sociologist said. "I would expect such behavior from an erotic salon - not from an institution devoted to health care."

But Petra Kalivodova finds nothing offensive in her new improved body.

"I would rather have plastic surgery than a free car," she said. "We were always taught that if a nurse is nice, intelligent, loves her work and looks attractive, then patients will recover faster."

A large number of Czech nurses have left the country for Germany, UK and other western European nations in search of higher wages. According to official data, the Czech health system still lacks about 6000 representatives of the profession.

So not only private clinics are offering creative benefits to attract employees Na Bulovce, a large state-funded hospital in Prague, listed incentives on its official Website that include lunch vouchers, child day-care and "aesthetic operations at reduced prices."

[HippyGreenPeaceChick]

This is an informative article, sad and amusing at the same time. A girlfriend of mine who is a nurse works with a group of plastic surgeons, they have a large outpatient facility nearby. She says the majority of nurses there have gotten financial support to get procedures done there. But is that any different than other hospitals with their insurances that say the cover your care better if you use your hospital as opposed to going to another hospital across town. A friend of mine after his MI, said the doctors and hospital wrote off the rest of the bill after the insurance paid their part. Isn't that really just the same, an employee benefit. Just as we have discounted child care benefits with certain day care corporations.

The quality of journalism in this article leaves a little to be desired in my opinion

[achot chavi]

I guess if you work in a place where aesthetics is paramount, you feel the pressure to have these surgeries,

I am not against the facility giving financial considerations to their staff who are also patients, but they are using it as incentive to sign on for 3 years.

Do the prettier, sexier nurses get more attention from the doctors? Are they able to help their patients get better faster?

[Be_Moore]

Do the prettier, sexier nurses get more attention from the doctors? Are they able to help their patients get better faster?

When I was 17 I had my wisdom teeth extracted. As I sat in the waiting room on the day of the appointment, I noticed that all the the people working there were beautiful. Great smiles, bubbly personalities, and extremely friendly. I commented on this to my mother who was with me, and my mom (who is also an RN) offered some interesting insight..she basically said that the attractiveness is marketing and the bubbly personalities are necessary because oral surgery tends to be an elective procedure. People can choose not to go there.

It doesn't matter what your ER nurse looks like, but it definitely matters what your plastic surgery nurse looks like on a subconscious level. A woman going in for breast augmentation is going to inherently distrust a clinic full of A-cup women. A person going for orthodontic work is going to inherently distrust a clinic with a staff with crooked teeth. Make sense? This is EXCELLENT marketing on behalf of the firm. They get employees under contract and also get to use their staff as models of their work. It's basically genius. Not to mention that the women receiving the surgery get a boost of confidence if they were low-confidence to begin with. Everyone wins.

[achot chavi]

When I was 17 I had my wisdom teeth extracted. As I sat in the waiting room on the day of the appointment, I noticed that all the the people working there were beautiful. Great smiles, bubbly personalities, and extremely friendly. I commented on this to my mother who was with me, and my mom (who is also an RN) offered some interesting insight..she basically said that the attractiveness is marketing and the bubbly personalities are necessary because oral surgery tends to be an elective procedure. People can choose not to go there.

It doesn't matter what your ER nurse looks like, but it definitely matters what your plastic surgery nurse looks like on a subconscious level. A woman going in for breast augmentation is going to inherently distrust a clinic full of A-cup women. A person going for orthodontic work is going to inherently distrust a clinic with a staff with crooked teeth. Make sense? This is EXCELLENT marketing on behalf of the firm. They get employees under contract and also get to use their staff as models of their work. It's basically genius. Not to mention that the women receiving the surgery get a boost of confidence if they were low-confidence to begin with. Everyone wins.

Yes, but cosmetic surgery is not without risks. As a professional nurse, I hate the thought of being hired for my good looks and bubbly personality!!! Any why stop at the nurses, shouldn't the Administrator, Medical Director, Cleaning staff etc all be beautiful and bubbly?

The orthodontist we chose for our kids has miserable bed side manner, the staff dont even use makeup but boy are they productive, efficient and professional and do a great job in straightening the clients teeth etc. They are also reasonable!! They are not trying to sell a bill of goods, just a good product!!

[GilaRRT]

Meh, clearly they are offering benefits that increase retention. I remember getting a cool hug a nurse button for nurses week as a bonus, who am I to cry bad and point my finger. In addition, we are not even talking about the USA. Heaven forbid somebody in another country does something different.

On a side note, the best medical facility I encountered in Afghanistan was a Czech hospital. Really good people, and the nurses provided excellent care. Too bad they were de-mobilized. A real loss, and sorry for use because we had to deal with the French military hospital following the loss of the Czech role I.

[beachmom]

It's all in how you look at it. It's a plastic surgery clinic, and it sounds like they are just offering free care as a perk to those who work there. They don't get it until they've worked there three years, so they are not saying you have to be pretty to work there. If they worked at a car place, no one would say they were "sinking low" to accept free car washes.

I worked for a dermatogist for awhile, and we all got free facial peels, etc. We all enjoyed it. It improved morale to be getting expensive stuff for free, and we could tell the pts, by experience, what they were going to go through.

[achot chavi]

I think they have to commit to 3 years, not wait the 3 years...

I agree with "we could tell the pts, by experience, what they were going to go through." But dont think every nurse has to go through every procedure in order to empathize with the patient. And every situation is different...

I just feel that nurses have fought this image of being prostitutes from the days of Florence Nightingale, that we should be working on our professionalism .

I cut out the picture of the nurse that went along with the article but can assure you, it took us back a hundred years!!!

[GilaRRT]

It sounds like employees other than nurses can opt to go with this plan. Plastic surgery = prostitution? You know, the hospital I worked at would not give me break on any lab or even cut a few bucks off an MRI after a recent injury. Even with insurance, I paid over a grand out of pocket. However, the hug a nurse button for nurses week was great and made me feel like a valued employee.

Here we have a facility offering free services to employees, and people are complaining? We had best clean our own house before complaining about somebody else IMHO.

[achot chavi]

According to the article:

"But woman rights activists say motivating nurses with offers of breast implants is equal to turning them into “prostitutes.”

“If any institution offers this incentive, then it has lost all credibility,” Jirina Siklova, a gender studies expert and sociologist said. “I would expect such behavior from an erotic salon – not from an institution devoted to health care.”

What can I say, I happen to agree,

BTW the best incentive you can give me for working is my salary on time...

[Be_Moore]

Women's rights activists also tend to be extremists. It hardly turns them into prostitutes. They still work as nurses, regardless of the benefits they are offered. MOST companies offer discounts on their services to their employees. When I waited tables I got a discount when eating out at the restaurant chain I worked at. Now that I work at a very large hospital, I get a very cheap insurance premium that involves going only to the hospital I work at (we are self-insured). I don't see why this is a bad thing all around...it applies to EVERY OTHER JOB on the planet. Do you think car salesmen pay themselves commission when they buy vehicles? Why is it a bad thing when suddenly we realize it happens in plastics? My mother is a nurse for pain management and her boss gives employees free consultations and such...I guess that makes my mother the equivalent of a drug dealer?

Oh, and by the way, if your biggest incentive is salary then work in-patient nights on holidays. Some people choose clinic jobs which are rarely as good in pay because they value other things, like hours that they work. So if you have to work a 9-5 for personal reasons, considering that pay is going to be roughly equal between multiple jobs, you choose the one with the best benefits.

I'm sorry that you somehow equate prositution with cosmetic surgery, but when my mother was working for another doc she got free Botox. I dare you to call my mother a prostitute. Face it..some women want plastic surgery for outside of work, and if a job offers it for free then it has greatly boosted their income. My opinion of this is that the only people who are going to be accepting the jobs on that criteria are people who wanted the surgery anyway, but couldn't afford it. It's not like they are saying "If you work here you must get breast augmentation." They are saying "If you work here, you don't have to pay for the breast augmentation / collagen injections / botox / face lift / tummy tuck / lipo that you ALREADY WANTED but COULDN'T AFFORD.

So chill out. No one is forcing you to move to the Czech Republic and get breast augmentation for work, and don't condemn the actions of other people who are free to make their own choices about their own bodies.

[aKyRN81]

To previous poster !

The main concern seems to be about breast augmentation , but you know, there are lots of other procedures to be had. I think much more kindly about such things at my age now than I did when I was younger and everything was in it's proper place. Bring on the free facelift and blephroplasty.... I'd sign up too !!!