Hernia Repair Patient Dignity

[Catfostermom]

Since my husband just had hernia surgery, I have been looking into patient dignity.   He went to a male Dr for the surgery.  When he went into the ACC it was all females.   Since we are in Covid restrictions still, I couldn’t go in with him.  He was very uncomfortable with all the females and thought the attitude of I’ve seen thousands of memberes was totally Unprofessional. He felt that while they did their “jobs” they didn’t care how uncomfortable they made him.  Believe it or not males do not want to expose themselves to you.  Just because some of you don’t care who sees what, others do.  You are so correct about the double standards that females wouldn’t put up with that but males have to.  Ladies,  think about how off putting you are to your male pts when you make those comments.  Males also tend to hide their emotions. But, you bet your butt if I was allowed in and saw how uncomfortable he was I would have said something.  He was already nervous and alone and just wanted to get it over. 

[trytounderstand]

6 hours ago, MunoRN said:

It sounds as though the "this isn't a spectator sport" came fairly late in this scenario, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if nurses were much more abrupt about their assessments after that since it's a comment that could be taken as sexually inappropriate. 

So a patient who is alone, embarrassed, under the influence of drugs makes a comment that hurts a nurses feelings he/she then should be treated in a manner that only makes the situation worse.  That is the matter you need to bring up to the patient advocate.  The nurses may not have responded in a professional manner.  You have had responses and no one on here can make the situation any better.

To bring this back around to the topic, what if the situation had been reversed and it was a female patient with male nurses?  Would this have occurred and how would management handle it?

[klone, MSN, RN]

12 hours ago, NurseBlaq said:

You're upset they saw his privates, you're upset you weren't allowed in the room, you're upset he had more than one nurse, you're upset at people on this forum who don't even have anything to do with any of this, you're just upset. Seems like a control issue.

Maybe another patient of the nurse assigned to your husband had an emergency, maybe other staff were checking in on your husband to make sure he was alright despite the chaos, if they're under Covid guidelines you know why you couldn't be there, and again, no one on this forum was there.

You don't know anything about nursing yet here you are with all the smoke for strangers on a forum instead of the people who you feel did something wrong to your husband, yet you also know nothing about why there were different nurses checking on him. Had no one checked on him you'd be upset about that too. Seems there's no winning with you. Just say you wanted to come on here and gripe at nurses and call it a day.

Also, don't be a coward with an anonymous email to the manager. Go see them in person and give them all the smoke you're trying to give nurses on this forum who have nothing to do with anything. I mean if you're going to be hateful, go all in to the people who need to hear it and can do something about it. If your attitude towards them is anything like it is on here, the blame and point fingers while simultaneously not understanding the basics of nursing, then you've already closed the door to open communication. Appears you already have a scenario in your head and there's no changing that, facts be damned.

I get he was uncomfortable and I understand why. What I don't understand is why, as a grown adult man, didn't he ask where his primary nurse was when all those people came in and out? Is he not capable of speaking up for himself? He needs to start because your attitude is making things far worse than what they need to be. People can't even have a basic conversation with you. Sheesh!

Best post of this g-dawful thread. Thank you.

 

[trytounderstand]

Quote

 

13 hours ago, NurseBlaq said:

I get he was uncomfortable and I understand why. What I don't understand is why, as a grown adult man, didn't he ask where his primary nurse was when all those people came in and out? Is he not capable of speaking up for himself?

 

 

If the situation was as the poster wrote and he made a comment this is not a spectator sport, then he did speak out.  The nurses although they may have been affected by the comment should have explained again exactly what was going on and respected his dignity.  If he tried to cover himself and the prep nurse did not cover the area that at time did not need to be exposed then he was speaking out.  

But again no one here can fix this.  The poster and her husband need to take it on up the chain and report the situation and their feelings.  All patients and nurses deserve to be treated with dignity. 

[Catfostermom]

Take this out of a nurses perspective.   You ( male or female) just had surgery.  One nurse comes in does or does not explain what they are looking for, does their exam and leaves. How ever long later another nurse comes in may or may not have said I’m here to check your incisions.  In your mind the incisions are above the waist so that’s what they need to check. Again YOU are not a nurse.  Then they proceed to check lower.  After different nurses come in, you are now at your most embarrassed, uncomfortable.  You say this isn’t a spectator sport.  The nurses take this as sexual and that’s OK. Even if the pt meant too many are starting to look.   But, it’s not OK for the pt to take that so many different nurses it could start to feel like it is sexual or just plan gawking now?   Nurses talk... not all... but you know they do.  With so many coming in what might you think, as the pt not a nurse? 

 

 

Yes... I am taking it up with the pt manager. It takes time to get an appt.  they are only open M-F.   She has yet to get back to me to set up an appt.  she doesn’t know what it’s about so no reason for her to blow me off. 

[JKL33]

1 hour ago, trytounderstand said:

So a patient who is alone, embarrassed, under the influence of drugs makes a comment that hurts a nurses feelings he/she then should be treated in a manner that only makes the situation worse. 

It isn't that it hurts anyone's feelings, per se, it just brings a sexual aspect into the scenario when no one else would have had reason to be thinking in those terms.

 

1 hour ago, trytounderstand said:

To bring this back around to the topic, what if the situation had been reversed and it was a female patient with male nurses?  Would this have occurred and how would management handle it?

It seems like plenty of women have been attended by males while they "spread their legs" and try to push something relatively huge out of their lady parts and possibly also defecate while people of both sexes watch because they need to "help" and to "keep them safe." [Quotations used because see how things sound when someone uses quotation marks that way?] Then they get to have a complete stranger grab their breast and wrangle it this way and that to get it in someone else's mouth so someone else can suckle it. Kinky stuff! ?

With regard to your question specifically, if I went for carpal tunnel surgery and 5 different nurses (male or female) felt the need to check my breasts, I'd probably think to ask if that was entirely necessary. This hernia surgery and the "checks" afterward are not anything like that.

All patients' sense of bodily privacy/modesty is important to me as a nurse. At the same time, reality actually is not just whatever happens to be in anyone's head.

I just realized that's something else wrong with this current complaint we are discussing: Half of it is about claiming complete ignorance and the other half is about being sure of others' complete inappropriateness and wrong intentions.

I really don't get the mindset of looking for ways to feel wronged. Life is so much happier when one doesn't go about it that way. And I do believe that when things are small potatoes in the grand scheme of life, it's as simple as mentally deciding to keep those small potatoes in proper perspective. But that is just my opinion of course. I am also biased, because I have a soft spot for customer-facing workers...in lots of different businesses. I know that they are smiling even though they probably just came from some team meeting where something ridiculous was added to their plate that day. I have found them to: Often enjoy interacting with customers, enjoy helping others. They are realistic (translates as more honest IMO), good at conversation for the brief time they are interacting with you, and just overall pleasant on the whole. Outliers are the exception and if they don't screw up the business I was there to do then who cares.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Thread closed for staff review