Nudity?

Nursing Students General Students

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Hi!

Alright, so I heard from someone that while she was in nursing school she had to strip down, do physical exams and then be naked for the rest of the class! I'm not a nursing student yet, but this scared me. I'm not comfortable with my body and plus there are guys in these classes. I don't know whether to believe it or not. Can anyone tell me if you had to do this? I'm really freaked out.

Thanks!

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.

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Whoever told you this probably never went to nursing school.....

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Um. No. That does not happen.

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.

You seriously believe this? Come on. Think about it. MAYBE practice bed baths, but just go though the motions for sensitive areas...but just sit their naked the rest of the class? If you can not figure out this one on your own:uhoh3:

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

But this comes up surprisingly often! Sometimes the pre-nursing student will claim they heard from a friend (who's mom's cousin was married to a nurse) that "they always used to" practice peri-care, catheterization, and rectal tube placement on each other in nursing school!! :eek:

No, no and triple no. I've had a standing offer for anyone with first-hand experience, or even 1 degree of separation, to substantiate those claims. Not happening. At least for 30 or 40 years prior to 1975, when I went to school. Go much farther back than that, and you're into the Victorian Era.

In reality, the students bathing each other, etc. has become controversial of late, on moral, and philosophical grounds. Some feel a nurse should have all the procedures done on them "to feel how the patient feels". I learned that many classes actually tie students hands down to experience being fed, things like that.

If anyone is interested in a very lively thread not terribly old, check out:

Bathing Classmates and Other Personal Boundaries? - Nursing for Nurses

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Specializes in NICU Level III.
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.

We did the same thing. Nobody cared.

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This below would have never happened at my school!!! We never did anything invasive on each other. However, I guess it depends on your school.

Warning... watch at your own gross-out risk! The top one is nursing students practicing NGs on each other, the second is I believe paramedics?! Choose your skills practice groups wisely.

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Hate to tell you, but at Duke we did head to toe assessments on each other, to include breast exams. Our assessment class was at the grad level so we did exactly what the grad students did. Just your lab partner, the instructor, and you. Fifteen minutes (or less) of embarrassment. No big deal. We sucked it up and moved on.

We wore shorts, though! No pelvics!!!

I'd volunteer for an NG tube. I tried in school but the instructors wouldn't let me. How am I supposed to know how bad it is if I've never had it done? Sure, you can stretch that sentiment from the ridiculous to the sublime, but give me a break.

I've never even had my tonsils out. I have no idea what any of this is like.

I also wore a full ostomy bag all day (under a suit - our rotation was on a urology floor and I volunteered to be the guinea pig for our presentation) and also borrowed an empathy belly (even bought a maternity shirt at a thrift store and wore the thing all day - drove, went out to eat, the whole bit). I've never been pregnant. How else would I know? (And hats off to all of you who have - WOW!)

I'm all for as real-world as you can get it. I wouldn't force someone to do it, but if someone wanted to and liability allowed, heck, I'd let them.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.

We wore t-shirts and sweat pants for assessment check offs. The instructor was more interested in placement, so the thorax was never uncovered as you can verify placement through clothing. The men were told and expected to displace the breasts of classmates using the back of the hand. The abdomen was to be exposed, though, to be able to see the landmarks more clearly. Depending on how high the waistband was, some waistbands needed to be pushed down a bit.

It wasn't degrading, and everyone acted very professionally. My group was very friendly and trusted each other. Some of us who have children were joking that we were glad we had to lie down for the abdominal assessments so that our "baby bellies" didn't look so big! :D

My partner was male, and his hands were shaking the whole time during our practice run through. I'm not overly modest, so I just talked to him a lot between practice and check-off to make him feel more comfortable with me. But I'm also the type of person who will encourage my ob/gyn doctor (who teaches PAs a lot) to allow the PA to do gynie procedures on me...

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That's exactly what it was like in school for me. Once we pulled the gown open the first time, it was like ripping off a bandaid - very quickly it wasn't a big deal. Everyone was very professional about the whole thing.

I actually think it was a good experience. I'm not one who's nervous in a doc's office about having to take my clothes off (and I'm actually pretty modest!), so a bit of uncomfortable was a good thing for me.

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Specializes in Community.

We were asked to wear singlets a couple of times to practise assessment. I am very uncomfortable letting other people touch or see too much of me so I opted out (as did many others). Bottom line is never do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.

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OK, so now I got myself preoccupied with this NG stuff...

Here is another, and this one is of your future physicians :lol2:

OK, now I will stop.:)

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