Modesty Issues

It must have taken alot for this 11 year old to tell his mom about the problem that he was having "down there."

its shocking to me that the mom and doctor would then further mortify this kid by laughing at the situation.

How would the mom feel if she was having her breasts examined and have a doctor point and laugh at her? How would the doctor feel if he was having his prostate examined in front of an unwanted "audience" of people.My guess is that these issues wouldnt be so trivial anymore.My guess is "we see this all the time"line would quickly become meaningless as well.

Its meaningless because they dont seem get that the guy turning his head and coughing isnt concerned at how IT MAKES THE MEDICAL STAFF FEEL.....Its meaningless because IT ISNT ABOUT YOU!!!!!!

The mom says "Ive changed your diaper" "Ive seen you before" the same way medical professionals say "weve seen everything before" and boasts about privacy and confidentiality....Blah Blah Blah.....the second they are done they are gossiping about how hairy your butt is and tweeting about everything you did and said.......Truth is I dont have extreme modesty issues I'm not offened by the human body but I am shocked that a mom doesnt understand that an 11 year old boy feels totally different about his member than he did when he was a 6 month old baby. I as a patient am not embarrassed by my body but why cant medical professionals understand this doesnt mean automatically mean I want to be spread eagle in front of a class of students. I find this common attitude pretty shocking considering they are so "educated"...(how about basic common sense)

How would you like it if the person who works at the your bank and has access to your financial history posted about how you're behind on you mortgage payments the same way you post about patients? How would you like it if your kids teacher passed around you kids F paper FOR LAUGHS the same way you pass around some patients Xrays for laughs. If you were visiting a friend and using the bathroom in her house how would you like it if she just purposely walked in on you the same way you simply walk in on patients as they are being examined.My guess is that you would be FURIOUS even at the thought.....But many consistently use their professional position and treat patients this way daily.

Knock before entering a room,pull curatins,introduce yourself to patients and your position, make sure they are comforatble with and intern watching....dont assume that just because he/she is comfortable with one intern observing doesnt mean they are comfortable with 5.Talk about what you are doing as you go along with the exam. Just because you as a doctor/nurse has done this 1000 times doesnt mean the specific patient has gone through it 1000 times.

Gender does matter it is an issue to many......yes most nurses/CNA are female but the LEAST you can do is acknowledge that it is an issue to many. Dont take it as personal attack to you or your education. Your political correctness simply STOPS at my genitals.

I was thinking about this kid and like i said it took a lot for him to come to his mother. My guess is with the way he was treated he would just as rather have the thing fall off before putting himself thru that again. The way he was treated was far worse than the original point for his visit. Same in my situation I was far more traumatized by the way I was treated by staff than I was concerned over the original reason for my visit.

I was very much caught off guard and didnt know what to expect...now I do.

I wasnt born a difficult patient....I was turned into one.and im sure its in my chart somewhere....and on facebook...lol

Well I can certainly tell you were traumatized lol, I get that and I want you to know if I was your husband I would have done all I could to prevent your experience! I was shocked at what you wrote.

Just to digress for a moment, it is simply outrageous how so many females have this opinion that males do not have modesty issues, or should not have modesty issues and that somehow, this is an immature thing to have. I have actually been told that BTW! I cannot explain where this comes from. I can assure you if you filed a complaint you would in all probability get a sympathetic ear. I think you should. Yours is one exception I am shocked at, the vast vast majority of the time female PT's are given their requests, we as men are simply told , there is nothing we can do, if you don't like it than go somewhere else, which by the way I have done on more than one occasion.

Like yourself, I have a high regard for Nurses, they are worked like mules, and they certainly have my respect, they just don't seem to understand we want the respect back . I just hope our posts here at least educate them on how things are on the other side of the experience.

What does any of this have to do with working in the OR? Go find the patient complaint forum for the bit.. sessions.

I was simply making reference to the topic concerning pt modesty in general....."What do you do or say to ease anxiety during the procedure?"These tips GO A LONG WAY in making just about ANY patient feel more comfortable...GEEZ

If a facility considers this issue important, it can do several things.

-- Work to balance genders on shifts.

-- Work to balance skill levels with genders on shifts.

-- Actually work to hire more male nurses. That's where the politics and economics of this issue comes into play. Of course nursing is mostly a female profession, and will probably always remain so -- but that doesn't mean the profession can't take positive, dare I say "affirmative" action to be more gender inclusive. The military is mostly male and will probably always remain so -- but it is becoming more open to women and more of them are having a positive impact in that all male culture. Same goes for other historically male professions. These changes aren't just happening, they've being made to happen through conscious efforts in include women. The same isn't true for historically female professions like nursing and elementary school teaching. There are actually fewer male elementary school teachers than there were 10, 20 years ago. And nursing is moving too slowly in an gender inclusive direction. Someday, the medical culture in nursing will recognize that a good gender balance is not just good business (economically) but also more intellectually stimulating and professionally enhancing.

The problem is that most medical facilities, although they try to accommodate when they can, don't consider this a relevant issue and are essentially satisfied with the status quo. Basically, we'll deal with things with what we've got but we're not going to do anything to improve things.

I do believe you hit the nail on the head.

I do have several nursing instructor friends who do tell me more and more males are joining the ranks, but yes it is slow but increasing .I personally think gender saturatwed professions are disappearing which is a good thing for everyone and I agree that the institutions are generally satisfied with the status quo, but I also know that complaints are increasing and that the institutions are slowly but increasingly being held accountable. YOur overview is telling and exacting though.

This seems like a stone age argument. The nurse is there to help the patient, why does it matter what gender they are? I mean really, when I have had to be catheterized, the furthest thing from my mind was thinking that the nurse was getting his/her jollies off seeing my urethra. As long as it didn't hurt, I would have accepted a monkey cathing me. When you are in a traumatic situation or entering the OR, there isn't much in the way of a choice in nurses...whoever is scheduled in that department will be doing your cath. Nurses are professionals, they provide privacy and promote dignity as much as possible regardless of gender.

Stone age,? really? It's unreal you can say that if you have read the blogs on the topic and the issues we are discussing.

Of course trauma and lifesaving are of the utmost importance, and who cares what anyone's gender is , but, and there is a big big butt here, there are egregious situations in er that just don't need to happen. None the less, We are essentially discussing what is happening elsewhere in the hospital where needless ignorance or calloused disregard of the PT's emotional health is at steak here. I repeat, your not working in garage on automobiles here but with real live people who in all probability have never been in a hospital their entire life and what happens is pretty distressing. Yea-your professionals-but your not adrogioious either, totally devoid of any curiosity, emotions or feeling so we just are not buying into that old stone age reply, " Were professionals here!" It would help if you were naked while invading our privacy, but I guess thats just realistic. One could say we have seen it all also so why not be naked in there with us? I know its stupid, but perhaps your getting the idea. It is soo much easier to be the clothed one while we have our gentiles exposed and worked on and pontificate on our childish behavior.

I respectfully, disagree with you.

To wahwahgerman -- Everyone is different. They have different values and beliefs. Everyone isn't the same as you. Do you believe these differences should be respected? Or do believe in the "one size fits all" philosophy? To assume that people who don't see modesty the way you do are living in a stone age, is arrogant. I hope you're more open to different cultures and values that that. And again, we're dragged back into the ER. Most reasonable people will accept that emergencies are different situations. And, as you say, "Nurses are professionals, they provide privacy and promote dignity as much as possible regardless of gender." Although that's true, you need to be sensitive to patient feelings, beliefs, religions, cultural backgrounds, and possible sexual abuse history. It's more complicated that the stone age vs. "modern" times.

poetnyouknowit -- I reject the way you framed your question -- and that's a major part of the problem with discussing this issue. The right questions aren't being asked. I refer you to a study -- "Preferences for female and male nurses: the role of age, gender and previous experience -- year 2000 compared with 1984" by Anna Chur-Hansen BA PhD found in Journal of Advanced Nursing, 37(2), 192-98.

You're framing gender preference for patients assuming that all contexts are equal -- that is, having your vitals taken is equal to a pelvic exam, or what the anesthesia provider does compares equally with an extremely invasive intimate urological procedure. The study I quoted, rare for these kinds of studies, presents these kinds of scenarios to patients and not surprisingly, gender choice is connected to the context of the exam for men and women. Most of these kinds of studies don't consider context, and none that I can find ask why patients prefer one gender over another. You're simplifying a complicated human, psychological response. And, I must say, if this is such a contentious issue -- why do we just accept that most women today, esp. young women, prefer female doctors for intimate exams? Is there something wrong with these women? Are they in the stone age? Why is it so difficult to understand that a significant number of male and female patients prefer same gender care depending upon the context? I do understand that in a perfect world with perfect human beings, perhaps gender wouldn't matter. But this isn't a perfect world, people aren't perfect, and much research out there demonstrates that gender matters in many different contexts.