I'm just a student but an issue came up in class that really had me We were discussing med administration and lady partsl suppositories. One of the male students in class asked if he would "have" to do that for a pt., or if he could delegate to another nurse. The part that most surprised me was that my nursing instructor told him it was fine, she had male nurses she worked with who refused to insert foley's on females and other procedures involving the peri area of women.
This just seems so unprofessional to me. A pt. is a pt. and if they need care, it's our job to provide it. I understand that we're in a crazy litigious society and she mentioned one male nurse who brought a female aide in when doing foley's and things (I understand that a lot more). But honestly, the tone from this male student and one other in class was more like "that's so gross, I can't handle it" rather than "I'm scared for my license".
Is this common? I've had male OB/GYNs care for me personally and didn't think twice. I guess it just made me uncomfortable the sexual implication that they seemed to be projecting onto a medical procedure. Am I just out of touch?
I think my point was lost. NURSES WHO ABUSE RELIGIOUS EXCEPTION.
I suspect most of us would agree with you on that one. But I don't think that has been the concern here. None of us want to promote or defend abusers and scammers.
Perhaps some religions would conflict with a majority of nursing obligations.
I don't think that's the case or the issue. The question is 'how is the care to be done?' There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Why take on an oath to serve in a specific manner
I've got a degree and a license. I never took an oath to anything or anyone. Is it common for nurses to take an oath? (Maybe that's what I missed by not going to graduation.)
Should THIS person be allowed to sift thru reponsibilities and strain the rest of the staff. How much task swapping can you do without endangering continuity of care?
Now you're getting to the issues! This is the kind of conflicting values that would need to be considered, prioritized, and reconciled. Now, how? By what standard?
My instructor only specifically cited abortion as an acceptable reason to dismiss yourself from direct care of an assigned pt.
I wonder why that, and not something else? What if the abortion is needed to save the mother's life? Does it matter if the nurse or doctor is a Catholic, Jew, Methodist, etc? It will effect their decision, won't it?
Can you give me some more, less obvious examples?
On a Canadian health site I recently saw a nurse had written in a question. They have a Muslim patient, and heparin has been ordered. Do they first notify the patient that this is a porcine derivative, and hold the medication until this is clarified with a cleric? Moreover, is the nurse even obligated to know such things as the source of a medication?
There are really many examples. They range from life-and-death severity to things concerning modesty, family authority, and diet. The issues may be centered on the patient, or they may be an issue for the caregiver.
You have a good point, but the bottom line is in the job description when you apply for your job. Can you do X, yes or no? If you can't, you don't get the job. That's not religious discrimination. Religious discrimination is when someone in human resources decides not to hire you because you are a affiliated with X religion. If you can't do the job, you don't get it. Bottom line. You raise good points, but you're veering off into fantasy land.
Whoa! Noone here has said anything at all about religious discrimination! That most certainly is not the issue. Again, those two words (nor any corollary) have not even come up. I think you've been reading a different discussion.
SO, does your religion affect your ability to perform any common treatments? I am a member of a southern baptist church. Far from perfect in practice. Can you suggest some activities I might choose to refrain from participating in? AFTERALL, I'M A STUDENT STILL.You clearly have no respect for my beliefs and seem willing to presume a far greater knowledge of appropriate linear questioning. I hope to aquire a sufficient amount of knowledge to sit at your table and provoke a more satisfying discussion for your inellectual capacity. NOT TRYING TO BE MEAN SPIRITED. YOU HAVE FAR MORE EXPERIENCE , ITS FRUSTRATING TRYING TO MAKE A CLEAR STATEMENT OF THE INTENT OF MY LINE OF QUESTIONING AND REASONING. AND AS FAR AS I KNOW MOST NURSES DO INDEED STILL TAKE THE NIGHTENGALE PLEDGE AT GRADUATION.
SO, does your religion affect your ability to perform any common treatments? I am a member of a southern baptist church. Far from perfect in practice. Can you suggest some activities I might choose to refrain from participating in? AFTERALL, I'M A STUDENT STILL.You clearly have no respect for my beliefs and seem willing to presume a far greater knowledge of appropriate linear questioning. I hope to aquire a sufficient amount of knowledge to sit at your table and provoke a more satisfying discussion for your inellectual capacity. NOT TRYING TO BE MEAN SPIRITED. YOU HAVE FAR MORE EXPERIENCE , ITS FRUSTRATING TRYING TO MAKE A CLEAR STATEMENT OF THE INTENT OF MY LINE OF QUESTINING AND REASONING. AND AS FAR AS I KNOW MOST NURSES DO INDEED STILL TAKE THE NIGHTENGALE PLEDGE AT GRADUATION.
Sounds like I owe you an apology. I sincerely apologize, and I hope you will accept it. I am not judging your beliefs at all, and I am sorry that I said something to imply that I did. I did say that I think you, and many of us, are unaware of the complexities and pervasive nature of these issues; but I didn't mean that to be insulting or demeaning. Just an observation. I apologize.
I think nurses that abuse religious exclusion are likely to be more vein than faithful. Abortion and euthanasia are clearly the most powerful religious conflicts in nursing. Specific cultural, ethnic or religious practices are well managed by the medical community as a whole. Nurses that find themselves unable to provide appropriate and respectful care for pts because thier own interpretation of what is acceptable to their "religious" beliefs, are simply making excuses to keep from getting their hands dirty. I am a christian and strongly believe that outside of willfully taking a life or causing intentional physical or emotional harm, my faith doesn't exclude me from serving all pts needs and respecting their beliefs.
You can't have it both ways. First you say you cannot do two activities because of your Christianity: take life, cause physical or emotional harm. They are clearly the most important issues to you, not necessarily to others. But you also say religion is an excuse to keep from getting one's hands dirty. Other religious beliefs are as strong as the issues you ascribe to Christians, they are not excuses but are personally held values and ethical guides to behavior. So, are Christians the only ones allowed to refrain from certain activities? No.
I work with many different nurses; I have no problem with putting Foleys in when my male colleagues ask for their female patients. Those same males have helped hold the lady's knees if she could not maintain position herself. This does not mean they don't know how, or would refuse in life threatening circumstances (but how often is a Foley a lifesaving effort?). I absolutely refuse to perform activities that will kill a child in the womb. My colleagues will never ask it of me. (Ectopics are not in the womb). We accept each other as individuals with different strengths and abilities. How is asking me to put in a Foley any different than my asking another nurse to do a task for me, when they are better at it? I'm lousy at art lines, I get someone who is good at it. If a guy is not good at female Foleys because of lack of experience, who cares what motivates the lack?
Nurses cannot separate their own spirituality from their practice anymore than they can suspend the rest of their ethics and morality.
A student who refuses to learn to care for all aspects of the patient is not being honest about his/her education. A man can learn to do the sterile technique on a manikin, and never have to actually do it on a live woman; nevertheless would know the technique. An instructor who refuses to teach a student any procedure is failing in their obligations to the students, and should be censured; as should the student who refuses to learn. I had a male patient who did not want a female to cath him, but guess what? The only male available was my student whom I had to supervise. It still made the patient more comfortable to have a male touching him than me.
Any intimate care is just that, intimate. Part of respecting my patient is respecting their response to intimate care, and their wishes.
SO, does your religion affect your ability to perform any common treatments? I am a member of a southern baptist church. Far from perfect in practice. Can you suggest some activities I might choose to refrain from participating in? AFTERALL, I'M A STUDENT STILL.You clearly have no respect for my beliefs and seem willing to presume a far greater knowledge of appropriate linear questioning. I hope to aquire a sufficient amount of knowledge to sit at your table and provoke a more satisfying discussion for your inellectual capacity. NOT TRYING TO BE MEAN SPIRITED. YOU HAVE FAR MORE EXPERIENCE , ITS FRUSTRATING TRYING TO MAKE A CLEAR STATEMENT OF THE INTENT OF MY LINE OF QUESTIONING AND REASONING. AND AS FAR AS I KNOW MOST NURSES DO INDEED STILL TAKE THE NIGHTENGALE PLEDGE AT GRADUATION.
I also am a Southern Baptist. Medic09 does indeed respect our beliefs, he and I have had many discussions. I put Foleys in whenever he asks
What will you choose to refrain from? You already answered that: abortion and euthanasia. Me too. I am good with offering comfort care, not forceably prolonging life with futile measures. Some consider that euthanasia.
You have to identify for yourself your own world paradigm, or as the textbooks say, your own biases. Knowing how your biases may influence your care or what you have to offer any particular patient is important.
Please Tell Me Where I Went Both Ways. Not Getting Hands Dirty Was Referring To A Nurse Who Abuses Religious Exception. But To Be Fair, I Will Tell You I Object To Abortion And Willfully Abusing Patients( I.e Those Silly Girls In Minnesota). But I Am Not Promoting My Beliefs, Trying To Support My Rationale. Its Easy To Avoid This Issues Difficulties By Riding The Fence. The Type Of Questionable Judgement Im Refering To Is Refusal To Handle Blood, Or Blood Products Based On Religious Beliefs, Maybe Hanging A Bag Is More Rare, Is Treating An Open Wound That Uncommon Or Vastly Different? I Think You Jumped In Without A Good Understanding Of The Discussion. If You Have Time Check My Posts And Get The Whole Picture
MEDIC09-No Apology Needed. I Think You Are Very Knowledgable And Probably Be A Good Mentor. Thanks For Sharing Your Thoughts And Opening Some Areas For Improved Understanding
Please Tell Me Where I Went Both Ways. Not Getting Hands Dirty Was Referring To A Nurse Who Abuses Religious Exception. But To Be Fair, I Will Tell You I Object To Abortion And Willfully Abusing Patients( I.e Those Silly Girls In Minnesota). But I Am Not Promoting My Beliefs, Trying To Support My Rationale. Its Easy To Avoid This Issues Difficulties By Riding The Fence. The Type Of Questionable Judgement Im Refering To Is Refusal To Handle Blood, Or Blood Products Based On Religious Beliefs, Maybe Hanging A Bag Is More Rare, Is Treating An Open Wound That Uncommon Or Vastly Different? I Think You Jumped In Without A Good Understanding Of The Discussion. If You Have Time Check My Posts And Get The Whole Picture
I raised the issue of blood products because it seemed like another task where a nurse might have a religious prohibition, but I'm just guessing. I am aware that Jehovah's Witnesses don't accept blood transfusions, but I don't know whether they are allowed to give them. There may be other religions with similar prohibitions, but as Medic observed, there's a lot we don't cover in nursing ethics courses. My main point, really, was that I would not balk at hanging blood for a nurse who had a religious problem with it, nor with helping a new nurse who just wasn't sure how. I wouldn't want to lose a valuable or potentially valuable colleague over something like that. I would similarly be willing to help a nurse who had a serious problem with pericare--something more valid, in my estimation, than finding it gross.
I can imagine that religious (or other moral/ethical) restrictions may get abused from time to time, but I somehow doubt that's very typical. My experience with people with strong religious views has been that honesty is pretty high among their values.
A more typical "abuse" of an exception might be for pregnancy. It seems one doesn't have to be in healthcare long to encounter a pregnant co-worker who wants to use it as an excuse not to do their job. On my unit, we try not to give pregnant nurses isolation patients, even though we all realize that universal precautions should protect the nurse and her fetus. Similarly, good body mechanics do not preclude pregnant nurses from safely lifting. But there's an unwritten understanding that we try hard not to take a chance, if it can be avoided. We all realize that these precautions are technically unnecessary. If the nurses does what we all should be doing, they're as safe as any of us, and in the rare cases where a doctor orders no lifting at all, they can go on light duty. Still, I think we all understand that practice isn't always perfect, gloves tear, patients can get rowdy, whatever. Then, too, a pregnant nurse may just be unduly anxious, and since we care about our coworkers, we try to accommodate that. If a pregnant nurse needs five coworkers to assist with getting a patient from a cart to a bed, it isn't much harder for six of us to show up and just do it for her. But if a nurse couldn't bring a patient a pillow or a pitcher of water, we'd likely think they needed to be doing something else for the duration of their infirmity.
I'm spinning wildly off on a tangent, perhaps mostly because I don't want to get ready for my doctor's appointment, but I think I may have a point, somewhere. Oh, yeah. I think it's pretty clear that no one wants to be taken advantage of by imaginary (or exaggerated) restrictions, but I think we do need an environment where nurses care about each other, as well as about their patients. If a patient has made untoward advances to a female co-worker, I should want her to call me if he needs a Foley. If a female patient of mine prefers a female to change her sanitary pad, my coworkers should be glad to do it, and should know that I'll do what I can to help them out when they need it. I think what Medic has been getting at, and if so I concur, that we ought to be willing to respect the values of our coworkers, just as we do our patients. There may be cases where those values just aren't compatible with being a nurse, or at least a bedside nurse. There may be cases, such as the OP cited, where those "values" are just silly, (lady partss are gross) and suggest a lack of sufficient maturity to be a nurse.
To me, the "restrictions" Tweety mentioned in his post seem a bit excessive, but I'm open to the possibility that I'm a new nurse and not yet as paranoid as I ought to be. In any case, I can tell by his history on these boards that he's a nurse I'd be happy to have on my team, and it would be well worth accommodating his concerns, even if I don't share them. Next time, he might be the one not saying, "Well, if you're having this much trouble placing an NG, you'll never be a good nurse." So, having respect and compassion for our coworkers, in addition to being the right thing to do, may just be in our self-interest, because we all have issues of some sort.
Personally, I wouldn't want a male nurse inserting anything into my lady parts. I wouldn't mind having a male nurse, but if this needed to be done, give me a female please.
We were discussing med administration and lady partsl suppositories. One of the male students in class asked if he would "have" to do that for a pt., or if he could delegate to another nurse. The part that most surprised me was that my nursing instructor told him it was fine, she had male nurses she worked with who refused to insert foley's on females and other procedures involving the peri area of women. 
Medic09, BSN, RN, EMT-P
441 Posts
I suspect most of us would agree with you on that one. But I don't think that has been the concern here. None of us want to promote or defend abusers and scammers.