My significant other came home the other day from nursing school (3rd day) stating that he is going to need to bring his bathing suit to school because they are learning to give bed baths and will be practicing on EACH OTHER. I honestly didn't believe him but he insists that it's true, and that he's heard from more than one instructor that they really will be stripped down to bathing suits and literally, bathing EACH OTHER with soap and water.
I find this astounding that in this day and age, an accredited (community) college would ever think this is appropriate practice to use as a learning tool! I can think of so many things wrong with this on so many levels- for starters, it's a total invasion of privacy, degrading, embarrassing, unprofessional, and at the very least, simply ineffective! (How are they going to proper peri-care? That is something VERY important that I feel isn't emphasized enough on in schools).
Apparently the justification for the practice is that 'the dummies can't get wet'. (No kidding, that's why every other nursing school used dry cloths to 'pretend' bathe). No one I know has ever heard of this. I've informally polled people at work and they all think it's just as bizarre as I do. Disturbing, really.
I will be contacting, (anonymously), the school to inquire what this is all about. I really cannot thinking of a worthy justification for it, other than knowing how it feels to be 'exposed' as a patient??
i just don't know.
Has anyone else heard of this type of thing? I just can't imagine being bathed by my classmates! Even when we learned how to apply EKG's we had the right to volunteer NOT to be a subject (I wasn't). I'm super modest! He even said that there is a quite heavy set girl in the class who is very mortified by this.
I have read this thread. We were never formally taught how to do a bedbath here. I learnt on the job. The only thing remotly related to this that I have done is to be blindfolded and fed during a nutrition study day.
I would absolutly not allow myself to be bathed. Even for the person doing the bathing, it is not a realistic experience.
We have to do this. The shorts and tank routine with soap and water, sparing the peri care but describing it. I find it terribly invasive and it brings up a lot of things for me. Just how much of my personal health hx am I expected to share with classmates? Because bathing includes physical assessment, and I have things that will have to be explained.
I think its funny that so many people on the boards assume that, as nursing students, we have not also been patients prior to this time. Personally, I know exactly what it feels like to be a patient, because I have been seriously ill before and I have been a patient.
Much of my motivation in becoming a nurse is the excellent care I received from so many nurses. It is what made that period of time endurable. I want to provide that care for others.
Patients can definitely refuse to be seen by students. It is a choice for them. They can refuse hygiene. They don't "fail" or get kicked out of the hospital if they say no. Students feel stressed and uncomfortable and they are afraid to voice an opinion or to say no. That doesn't seem very healthy to me.
We have plenty of dummies and we have SIMS so I just don't see the necessity of bandying about our own health info and vitals and skin integrity, and all of our health issues to whomever. Seems like info that should be covered by HIPAA in any other context. I become increasingly more uncomfortable as it seems we are expected to share more and more involving our own health in order to make the labs "work" for each other. Like others who have shared though, I don't wish to rock the boat.
I get that some of you don't understand the concerns here, but perhaps you could at least understand that for some people, it is quite uncomfortable for a variety of reasons.
I think that anyone who is going to perform personal care on another person should experience what the patient will experience as much as possible. I see it as a good learning experience. I cannot tell you how many times I have observed nurses/assistants give bed baths without covering up the patient with a towel or bath blanket. It almost seems that the simple act of giving another person privacy does not matter. I believe that if a nursing student has to experience the humiliation of being bathed by his/her classmates then he/she will be a better nurse for doing so :) I bet that the majority of those students will never give a bed bath to a person without making sure that they provide as much privacy as possible.
When I was in school for medical assisting in the early 90's we had to give each other injections and practice venipuncture on one another. I found that while I was giving injections (saline) to my classmates, I appreciated the feedback they gave me. Rubber arms do not say "ouch" or "I didnt feel a thing".
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
The basic problem I have with the bed bath issue is that it is a psychological exercise done by unqualified people in the guise of a skills exercise.
It's often an Esalen-style "bonding" or "trust" exercise done by untrained people in the guise of a skills exercise.
What little practical value it may have is far outweighed by the potential damage that can be caused to someone who is coerced into exposing their body to a group of peers who are unqualified to either know how to identify or treat psychological problems such as post-rape or sexual abuse, disease, physical anomaly, or any number of others.
When you're a nurse you will be compelled to learn how to do many painful and invasive procedures on your patients without having had them done to yourself.
I asked one of my bedbound homecare patients if she thought doing that would be helpful, and she was outraged. I was really surprised to hear that. Maybe she thought a bunch of people giggling over the silliness of bathing classmates in tank tops and shorts and believing that it taught them "what it's like to be the patient" mocked what it's really like to be unable to perform these basic tasks for yourself.
Back in the day there were very few male nursing students. Our class only had one. Guess who was my partner, and I'm not male:)
Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! I remeber it clearly all these years later. How many times can I type Yuk!. No tank tops and shorts for us. Swimsuits and trunks. I cringe when I remember it. With a history of child abuse behind me, a stranger touching me was simply torture.
It was an exercise in idiocy as far as I'm concerned.
The only things we've actually practiced on eachother in lab were passive range of motion, blood glucose, head to to assesment (without removing any uniform, maybe shoes and socks) vital signs.... nothing requiring anybody any real discomfort. I think it's totally unacceptable to require students to get that up close and personal for just 'practice'. Tho our instructor did tell us there are some schools where students are required to void into a bedpan during lab for the same 'practice' purpose.
JDZ344
837 Posts
I have read this thread. We were never formally taught how to do a bedbath here. I learnt on the job. The only thing remotly related to this that I have done is to be blindfolded and fed during a nutrition study day.
I would absolutly not allow myself to be bathed. Even for the person doing the bathing, it is not a realistic experience.