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Discussion

I handled this poorly. What would you do?

Several months ago, an inappropriately friendly and much older man, whose wife was critically ill, wanted to show me his houses on his tablet. Well you have to be polite so I looked at the picture of this vacation property and the other vacation property. Then he had a life size selfie of his member, no doubt induced by an ED drug, on the tablet and a big grin on his face. There were many things I would have liked to have said or done, but I said nothing and I walked out. Mainly because I was shocked and because I had too much going on to waste time on this creep.

For the rest of that shift, I completely avoided him or had helpers in the room. I did not take that assignment again. We assigned male nurses as much as possible.

His creepy attempts to be friendly continued for weeks. We all knew he used his tablet to "flash" myself and another nurse but for his wife's sake we did our best to tolerate him and be polite.

This situation was very political. The administration would have done nothing if I had reported it. Much later, it occurred to me that if this had happened elsewhere, it might be considered indecent exposure.

It bothers me that we let him get away with this because he could be doing this to staff at other facilities right now.

What would you do? Shrug it off? Notify security? Report it or write an incident report, ask administration to intervene and tell him he is not permitted to use electronic devices in patient care areas?

I guess that I am partially writing this to warn others that if a visitor wants to show you something on a tablet, you might see something that you really don't want to see and that it is hard to erase something like that from your brain.

Some people are going to think it's no big deal and that's fine. I really would like to know what you would have done if this had happened to you.

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    I think I would have pointed and laughed at it.

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    I have had things like that happen to me before, and I've just told the person they can't say or show things like what they have and went on. If it's been something that's recurring, I reported. We had a family member once who behaved really inappropriately toward the nurses and was reported to the AOD. He came and told him if he didn't stop, he would be escorted out by security under terms of harassment and not allowed to visit anymore.

    If it were a one-time occurrence like yours, I probably would've just told him that's inappropriate to show me or others, and moved along like you did.

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    I am sorry you have to go through this. You handled it just right, in my opinion.

    In my experience, this sort of folks want your reaction. Pretty much of any sort, but something. Not giving them what they want, just moving through pics stone-faced, and pretending that you do not know what they are talking about if there are any questions ("did't you notice.... let me try again and return to the last one..." makes the trick, as far as I had experience with it. Pretending to be d*** busy at all times and charging the family with a responsibility of a sort ("can you watch this blood pressure machine for me so it stays in this room?") helps as well.

    In the facility I am working, a nurse can come to the shift charge any time and just said that, for this or that reason, she/he will either trade assignment then and there or request someone as a chaperone in the room at all times. Due to our population (racially divided area, chronically critically sick patients with families living on the edge for months) incidents like this happen sometimes. Luckily, our management is not so terribly much with "customer service" idea and will not hesitate to speak with family if needed.

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    I asked my husband his thoughts on this and his comments were: "Report this to upper management and make them do their jobs. Report this to your union. This is sexual harassment. Don't be passive; make your management and union act, and, also, put the person that's doing this on notice."

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    • Expert
    I asked my husband his thoughts on this and his comments were: "Report this to upper management and make them do their jobs. Report this to your union. This is sexual harassment. Don't be passive; make your management and union act, and, also, put the person that's doing this on notice."

    Since I work in psych I tend to make a pretty quick and automatic "that is highly inappropriate" comment and would have done exactly as you did and walked out of the room. However regardless of if you feel management would have done anything I absolutely would have filled out an incident report.

    My big concern with this type of deviant behavior is that while it is inexcusable for you to have been traumatized by this my greater concern is that this creep might be inclined to do this to a child. I would also probably run his name through the sex offender website just for the heck of it.

    I'm very sorry this happened to you, how disgusting. P.S. I'm no prude but really this is predatory behavior, imo.

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    Your management should have been notified and then it is in their hands. If he has done it to others then this is a problem that needs dealt with.

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    I regret that I did not do the right thing by reporting this or at least informing the transport team or receiving facility about the husband's inappropriate behavior.

    I can not say more about the situation for privacy reasons.

    Thank you everyone for taking the time to respond and for your well reasoned comments.

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    I personally would have called our security (which happens to have one supervisor that is a retired police officer) and they would have informed the man of his options...chill out and be respectful, leave, have charges brought against him, etc. I would have also done an incident report. Hopefully this is just one unique incident that you will never have to worry about happening again!

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    I failed in saying something in the past in a similar situation. Patient purposefully flashed his cell phone to staff showing a picture of him and his wife having sex. Everyone knew he was a pervert and everyone ignored it. I was fairly new and am naturally timid, was very embarrassed but didn't know what to do or say.

    It's hard to come up with a response quickly. In hindsight, I should have immensely told him that was inappropriate and said if it happens again, I would call security.

    We shouldn't be subjected to this behavior at work. It IS sexual harassment.

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    "Oh, was that a picture of your hairless cat? I've heard of them but have never seen one so small!"

    Not to make light of what you went through at all. It definitely sounds like harassment. I'm sorry you were subjected to that! I wish reporting up the chain of command was the solution, or at very least documenting for future caregivers, but it sounds like your hands were politically tied and that you did the best thing possible given the circumstances.

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    I would have said, "Mine is bigger."

    Saying that as a woman, I feel that would have wiped that ugly smile right off his face.

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    "Oh, I see someone learned how to google image search"

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