Nudity?

We would do that but not in class

Ok just kidding. the most that ever happened was some of the girls would take their tops off so we could see their back and chest easier for doing assessments. It was NOT required but it was easier and they were all comfortable with me.

We wore sports bras and short shorts for assesments. Never nude though.

I think it's another of the urban legends regarding nursing school. You don't catheterize or do perineal care on each other either.

When I took assessment, we were paired with a partner. We didn't take off any clothes to do the assessment. When we needed to auscultate heart or breath sounds, we lifted the partner's shirt to listen, but we still maintained their privacy. All of the curtains were pulled and nobody was exposed.

Reproductive and breast assessments were done strictly on mannequins.

We did, however, have a group demonstration at the beginning of the semester, but it was purely by volunteer. The most we ever saw of the person was their abdomen, and my teacher had explained this before she asked for volunteers.

We wore sports bras and short shorts for assesments. Never nude though.

I hope this is a joke, right?

Me

I hope this is a joke, right?

Me

Nope. We were assigned a partner of the same sex. We did our return assessments on them behind a curtain with our instructor. You'd be surprised how quickly you get used to it. We had to wear short/loose shorts so we could assess femoral pulses and inguinal lymph nodes. The sports bras so we could easily assess the abdomen and it was easier to mark the landmarks for auscultating heart sounds on our landmarks returns. If we had to leave our curtain we would put on a tank top. No one had a problem with it. These people are going to be like your family for the next five semesters. So it wasn't a big deal.

Thanks for the info, I'd hoped it was a joke. I don't even think I've let my mom see my shoulders in the past 15 yrs!! I don't even take my shirt off at the beach!! I'm going to ask some of the girls in the nursing program exactly what they were asked to do. I can't stress about it too much (which is my first instinct to do) about it, if it has to be done there's nothing I can do to change it!! Thanks again for the info!

Me

Thanks for the info, I'd hoped it was a joke. I don't even think I've let my mom see my shoulders in the past 15 yrs!! I don't even take my shirt off at the beach!! I'm going to ask some of the girls in the nursing program exactly what they were asked to do. I can't stress about it too much (which is my first instinct to do) about it, if it has to be done there's nothing I can do to change it!! Thanks again for the info!

Me

I'm a modest person, too. But it's a professional program so everyone was expected to act like such and not mock or behave in any inappropriate way. Only nursing students were allowed in our lab so even if you had to step outside your curtain you didn't have alot of random people that saw you. I'm not scared to let a health professional see my stomach, legs, or shoulders. So that's how I thought about it. These are fellow professionals and it's part of my training. They are there to learn, just like I am. They aren't critiquing my body but learning from doing assessments on me. We never did breast or reproductive assessments on each other of course. Good luck in your program, everything will be fine so try not to worry.

Hmm, only the pregnant students had to get naked, so we could check their cervixes. Wait, and the guys, so we could do testicle exams. The rest of us just had to go topless to do breast exams.

And if you buy that, I've got some ocean front property for you in Arizona...

We did wear bathing suits for our bed bath test outs. And when we did assessments, we kept clothes on, maybe pulled our shirts up for the abdominal assessments.

No nudity here. They asked us to wear loose clothing for our assessment and we just lifted/manipulated clothing to listen.

Providing privacy is a pretty big thing in nursing, so I'm surprised that you would do an exam in any way that left you exposed. I would have a serious problem with doing the short shorts and sport bra thing. I'm fat and uncomfortable having my stomach exposed around anyone--professional or not. It needs to be covered unless that area is currently being assessed.

We do practice providing privacy. We close the curtain and the "patient" is under the covers. We ask them if they would like to move the covers or if we can to better view their abdomen, chest, etc. There are points allocated on our returns for providing privacy, proper draping, closing curtains, and acting in a professional manner. I'm sure if anyone had an issue with it that those students could modify their clothing choice as long as it would allow us to still assess the body system. We asked our partner if they felt comfortable removing their tank top for the heart/lung assessment and then allowed them to put it back on when we did the abdominal assessment. Most of us just opted to simply wear the sports bra under the blanket so that it would allow our partner to finish their assessment sooner. We were time on all of them and they took every minute

we were allowed.

I think my post has been misinterpretted. We were allowed to wear a tank top. A lot of people removed their tank tops behind the curtains to allow their partner to more easily listen to lung sounds, etc. It was a personal choice. We weren't required to wear only a bra. Some people had longer shorts but they made it difficult to feel the femoral pulses and the examiner had to try to feel them from the top of the shorts which was

a little awkward for their partner. No nursing school is going to force their students to strip to underwear, so the students starting soon shouldn't worry about that.