Need advise regarding uncomfortable, disrespectful situation

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trytounderstand

101 Posts

36 minutes ago, Maria Crocker said:

He was still wearing the outside vest type jacket when he wheeled me back to the OR.

This is your complaint. This is what you should have mentioned to the charge nurse not the fact that you were having a male nurse.

You should receive a survey form. If not request one. If you cannot get a survey form speak with their patient advocate or their manager and put your complaint in writing. It is not going to change what happened, but it will make you possibly have some closure. And remember up until the moment they have started you can say no.

Although understanding your concern about an all male team, possibly, to the charge nurse there is nothing she can do about that. You have to keep in mind that male patients have that scenario all the time. If they complain or ask for accommodation they still would have been told the same thing you were. I know before you were in the situation you did not think that scenario would happen. That is why it is important to ask questions before the procedure and if you have objections voice them then.

Perhaps this experience, will make you more empathetic the next time you have a male patient and he needs a foley catheter inserted, a dressing change, prep in a sensitive area or asks for scrub pants or tear away shorts. Believe it or not it bothers most men they have just learned to shrug it off and move on.

NICU Guy, BSN, RN

4,161 Posts

Specializes in NICU.
44 minutes ago, Maria Crocker said:

Wrong NICU guy. He was still wearing the outside vest type jacket when he wheeled me back to the OR. And to the person who suggested I can't remember from the Versed....wrong. The info I provided was before anesthesia pushed the Versed. I work as a circulator, so this was not a foreign arena.

Well, I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt, he is just gross. I agree with you on that part of your original post. As for the rest of your post, I understand your point, you experienced what male patients experience daily. In many surgery centers and small hospitals, there are no male circulating nurses. Men are told "we are all professional here and we have seen it all before", so essentially "suck it up". If that is an issue for men, then they either go to a bigger hospital where there are men in the OR or suck it up and deal with it.

GrumpyRN, NP

1,280 Posts

Specializes in Emergency Department.
On 2/28/2020 at 11:37 AM, Maria Crocker said:

I am hoping some fellow nurses can help me out. I had a hysteroscopy and D&C at a surgery center yesterday. I was the first pt in pre op in the am and was awaiting my GYN to show. Mind you, I had no choice in Dr.'s with my HMO and I don't know him very well other than the fact that I find him to be a very quiet, meek person. I noticed a male in scrubs looking at my chart a couple of times but he did not introduce himself and the scrubs appeared to be what he wore to work along with a outside jacket on. Meanwhile, anesthesia introduced himself and I felt very comfortable with him. A few minutes later, the male in scrubs walked by again and informed me he was going to be the circulator. Never interacted with me other than that. I voiced my dissatisfaction with the RN who was pre-oping me; stating I did not understand why I would be assigned a male circulator for a GYN case with other GYN cases to follow. I found that unacceptable in a ambulatory setting. So here comes the ORT and says "hi" I wanted to say "hi" since I am the only other girl in your room. Meanwhile anesthesia comes out with the Versed and then the charge nurse comes up to me stating she had heard about my concern and she does not have a female circulator. Now the circulator is at the foot of the bed. I proceeded to tell her again that I thought this was handled very unprofessionally and that it is probably not the right time to discuss it as I am getting sedated. The circulator never spoke with me, obtained a pmh or my meds/allergies. So much for a patient advocate. And for the record, he was still wearing those same scrubs and outdoor jacket that he came in with as he was wheeling me into the rm. I am so angry at the unprofessionalism and complete disregard shown to me. I would love to here others' in put. I am not male bashing, I have worked side by side with male nurses for the past 15 yr in a emergency dept setting. Thanks.

I have quoted your original post with some of it bolded. It seems to me that your concern was about having a male nurse and the scrubs and coat thing was very incidental, certainly as written above.

It was not until your 4th reply, and even that was in an answer to NICU Guy, that YOU mentioned the scrubs and coat again. As far as I am concerned your whole complaint was about the male nurse being male in a gynae procedure. I understand that you were a bit embarrassed by the whole thing but you don't get to blame the male nurse for being male.

As far as the scrubs and coat you saw, unless you had followed the nurse into work you don't know what he was wearing or how long he had been wearing it or whether it was sanctioned by his employer.

Hey Grumpy, I think we are all nurses. If I go to perform a procedure on a patient and they request a different nurse, whether male or female, that is their right as a patient. I admit I was completely thrown off guard when he appeared as the circulator. I had a male GYN and anesthesiologist, so it is not that I have a "beef" against men. This is a ASC in a large city, I was the first GYN case with numerous to follow that day. I felt uncomfortable having a male circulator with the case I was scheduled to undergo especially with the rest of the team being male....That is my right as a patient and I verbalized it. As I said previously, had the anesthesiologist not been as professional and comforting as he was, they would have had a cancelled surgery. The circulator obviously was aware of my anxiety and never made any attempt to build a rapport or ease my anxiety and neither did the charge nurse. They were irritated that I even made mention of it. Maybe some of you that want to make this a "racist" issue need to review patient rights. If I were assigned to take care of you and you requested a different nurse, I would respect your decision and your rights.

JadedCPN, BSN, RN

1,476 Posts

Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.
4 minutes ago, Maria Crocker said:

Hey Grumpy, I think we are all nurses. If I go to perform a procedure on a patient and they request a different nurse, whether male or female, that is their right as a patient. I admit I was completely thrown off guard when he appeared as the circulator. I had a male GYN and anesthesiologist, so it is not that I have a "beef" against men. This is a ASC in a large city, I was the first GYN case with numerous to follow that day. I felt uncomfortable having a male circulator with the case I was scheduled to undergo especially with the rest of the team being male....That is my right as a patient and I verbalized it. As I said previously, had the anesthesiologist not been as professional and comforting as he was, they would have had a cancelled surgery. The circulator obviously was aware of my anxiety and never made any attempt to build a rapport or ease my anxiety and neither did the charge nurse. They were irritated that I even made mention of it. Maybe some of you that want to make this a "racist" issue need to review patient rights. If I were assigned to take care of you and you requested a different nurse, I would respect your decision and your rights.

I’m sorry for your situation but now you’re being ridiculous and just not making sense. First, I believe you mean a sexist issue. And the only one who is making it a sexist issue is you. I’m going to assume the reason you are focusing on the nurse, rather than the male doctors in the room, is because of his unprofessional behavior which is inexcusable. But him being a male has nothing to do with it.

NICU Guy, BSN, RN

4,161 Posts

Specializes in NICU.
8 hours ago, Maria Crocker said:

especially with the rest of the team being male.

That is not completely true. The surgical tech was female.

On 2/28/2020 at 6:37 AM, Maria Crocker said:

So here comes the ORT and says "hi" I wanted to say "hi" since I am the only other girl in your room.

9 hours ago, Maria Crocker said:

As I said previously, had the anesthesiologist not been as professional and comforting as he was, they would have had a cancelled surgery... If I were assigned to take care of you and you requested a different nurse, I would respect your decision and your rights.

If I had asked for a male nurse, but there were no male nurses available, what would be your solution? Either suck it up, reschedule, go to another hospital. Would you also recommend running home and post on AllNurses how they should never let female circulator nurses have male patients?

I always assumed nurses were compassionate and empathetic and this has been my first post on this site. As professionals, you may not have agreed with my feelings but the attacks regarding how I felt is shocking. Thanks for the support.

GrumpyRN, NP

1,280 Posts

Specializes in Emergency Department.
23 minutes ago, Maria Crocker said:

I always assumed nurses were compassionate and empathetic and this has been my first post on this site. As professionals, you may not have agreed with my feelings but the attacks regarding how I felt is shocking. Thanks for the support.

Whoa there. No one has attacked you. Every single person has stated that they understood and accepted your feelings about having a gynae procedure, including NICU Guy and myself. However you are the one who has made it very clear that you were unhappy with a male nurse being present (see the quoted text below) and as I have stated, the way he was dressed was incidental to your original post.

18 hours ago, Maria Crocker said:

I admit I was completely thrown off guard when he appeared as the circulator.

This is the "Men in Nursing" forum and YOU have been the one attacking men. You stated we had shown anger towards you but you have still not shown us where that anger is. YOU are the one who made it sexist.

As professionals we accepted your feelings but also as professionals we are not going to accept sexism.

In conclusion, I am sorry you had what you felt was a poor experience but you will know in future to demand an all female team (good luck with that) I would have been more concerned about how the surgery went.

trytounderstand

101 Posts

1 hour ago, GrumpyRN said:

I am sorry you had what you felt was a poor experience but you will know in future to demand an all female team (good luck with that) I would have been more concerned about how the surgery went.

Although it may have bothered you not to have more females on your team, I personally would have been more concerned about someone taking care of me after or during a procedure who may have had what I felt was contaminated clothing. But to be honest once you voiced that you were concerned about a male nurse taking care of you even the female charge nurse may have taken offense especially since you yourself are a nurse. I am sure there have been times when you were caring for a male patient who would have preferred a male nurse but was hesitant to ask.

This is a lesson learned. In the future ask questions and request for accommodations before the day of surgery. Once you are there sometimes it is what it is. If they do not know beforehand sometimes they cannot make the accommodation and sometimes even then they cannot. As many have already pointed out male and female patients have to accept this type of situation all the time.

Specializes in Retired.

That's what "retrograde amnesia" means..that you forget things that happen up to 10 minutes BEFORE you are even given the drug.

allnurses Guide

hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I

4 Articles; 5,049 Posts

Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
12 hours ago, GrumpyRN said:

This is the "Men in Nursing" forum and YOU have been the one attacking men. You stated we had shown anger towards you but you have still not shown us where that anger is. YOU are the one who made it sexist.

This! The fact the OP chose the Men in Nursing forum was in essence an attack on male nurses. It would have more sense had she posted in the professionalism forum. As a woman who is a nurse I understand that most times I will have female nurses still I have never asked to not have male staff/nurses even when things like a foley insertion were involved.

Let's face it men in nursing have had to deal with discrimination in one form or another since the day they decided to go to nursing school. Up to an including being barred from certain clinical experiences such a labor and delivery being stereotyped as gay (although there is nothing wrong with that.) After one of my surgeries where I could barely stand I appreciated the male nurse who was strong enough to help me move around without fear of falling or being dropped.

Just my two cents

Hppy

In a clinical once, while shadowing a floor nurse, one of the clients was due for a lady partsl exam. I had been shadowing the floor nurse for all of her clients, and she had said she would ask the client if it was OK if a student observes her perform the exam. The client, looked at me long enough to see that I was of the male variety, and said something like "Uh, no." I told the nurse OK and that I would sit this one out. When the nurse came out, she seemed concerned as to whether or not I was either upset, or was OK with the refusal or lack of a learning opportunity (although there was to reason to feel this way other than to make sure we were on the same page). I had to reassure her two or three times that I had not given it a second thought. The client had the right to make the decision, it caused no problem for us as we were well staffed, and with female nurses. There may have many angles to look at this, but for me the short version is, it was probably a more comfortable experience for the client without me/a second nurse/a male nurse in there during the exam. The job got done and all was well. I have not been in the clients shoes, nor would I need to be, and my training can come later. There will always be a certain percentage of refusals by clients for any and all medical procedures when the regular staff tries to integrate a student, male or otherwise. I have read all of the previous dialogue and it was a good discussion. Just putting my two cents in.

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