In one thread in this forum, I read where many of you were concerned about the public's view of the nurse's image. One nurse made a statement to the effect that "we have worked long and hard to shed the stereotype of the 'sexy nurse', 'nurse as stripper' image."
However, while Mediaography can desecrate any profession and make it fodder for sexual fantasy, many nurses are sowing the seed to their own destruction. It appears many nurses are directly contributing to the very image that they themselves want to be eradicated.
For instance, nurses see and deal with patient nudity all the time. New nurses apprehensive about the specter of seeing naked bodies are met with many reassuring comments such as:
"I've seen more body parts than I care to mention...no big deal..."
"I have seen hundreds of memberes, and they all look the same and none are impressive."
"You get used to it..."
Etc.
It's clear that nurses can be trained to "get past the nudity" so to speak and do their job without embarrassment to themselves or to the patient. If they couldn't deal with the nudity, they would be of no value to the patient or to the nursing profession. But I would like input from other nurses about the choices they make both in and outside their places of employment.
I have reference to a thread where nurses asked if it was OK to pose nude. To work as a stripper. To be a dancer at the local club. Instead of warning about the possible damage to the nurse's professional image or emotional health, most of the responses seemed to be more concerned about the BON regs concerning "moral turpitude". Still others made statements such as "What we do outside our places of employment is our business..."
Oh, really?
On one level, you are absolutely correct. If you want to be a stripper (it's legal, dont'cha know) you can be, I guess. The concern was more for the stripper's safety than what damage it could cause emotionally, and the damage it could cause to the "professional" image of nurses in general.
Medicine has always had two components attached to it by public perception: Mercy and Morality.
Nurses enter the field from all kinds of backgrounds. Not all hold the same world view or religious beliefs. Some have high morals... some have none at all, it seems. But don't you think that your view of nudity and your behavior outside of the work place can influence your actions in the workplace?
If a young lady with a beautiful build wants to pose nude for a photographer on the side, what harm can it possibly be to her career, right? If it was just fine and dandy, why go through all of the trouble to hide her second profession? Why the BONs concerns? If it is OK to be a stripper on the side, why not get business cards printed up and hand out to patients when they get better? I chuckled when one response said that stripping was *NOT* equivalent to prostitution. (Funny thing is, the word from which we get our English word *Mediaography* is the Greek word MediaEIA. And if you do a lexical study of the word, stripping and posing nude, indeed, are considered "prostitution." You are in a sense "prostituting" yourself when you have such a low regard for your own privacy as to let anyone see you for prurient purposes. No self respect... just putting it out there for just anybody. Doesn't a prostitute do the same thing?)
If a patient recognized the stripper-nurse (Wait! Is this not the image we are trying to eradicate? This ain't fantasy, myrtle, it's actually happening!) at the hospital, don't you think that if this young lady was tasked with giving him a bed bath that it would set up an awkward environment? Wouldn't it be a little hypocritical to warn the patient about his sexual remarks when she was putting it out there for him just a few days before? I know, I know, she is now a professional and must be treated like one. (Would hate to run afoul of the nurse regs concerning a bed bath, after all.)
Don't you think that our own view of nudity influences how we see the nudity of others?
Here's a post from a thread I recently found:
"I think Media is wrong, wrong, wrong. But I have heard nurses talk about it at the nurses station. Where they keep their movies hidden. Where they put their sex toys. How often their husbands cruise the net looking at Media. One nurse brought her vibrator to work and put in one of the batteries belonging to one of our tele units in the vibrator and showed it off. She also tells these disgusting stories. Not around me anymore of course because I am a 'prude'."
Let me ask the female nurses a question: since there have been reports of female nurses bringing Media to work and being actively involved with it, how does their viewing of Media affect their view of the male patient population? If centerfolds are posted in the staff bathroom (as it was reported to have occurred at a hospital in Arizona) how can these nurses wash their hands and glance at Mr July in all of his glory, and then go and give a full body bed bath to their male patient? Or insert a catheter? Does this not affect how you see the patient? His genitals? His body? Is this fair to him? I don't know of any patient who would want their nurse (whom he is trusting) to see him as a sex object or be the object of a mental "peep show."
Other things such as mentioning member sizes at the nurse's station or in the lounge are, of course, unprofessional. If we are supposed to be professionals in every sense of the word, and we are just fine and dandy with the nudity that happens every day, how can a nurse ever comment on a patient's size if she sees hundreds and "none are impressive"? Seems that some nurses are either still lacking in maturity, or their fascination with the male form is professionally hidden beneath their scrubs. As long as the patient doesn't know, it shouldn't matter, right?
When someone speaks down about nursing, they are met with "We are professionals and want to be treated as such." When they are caught acting unprofessionally, they simply say, "We are human."
In closing, if we want to fight for our rights to do and be anything we want outside of the medical environment, can we really complain when our choices contribute to a negative public perception?
Looking forward to your feedback and comments!
Thanks...
I know we are human and all have different tastes but the public has a very positive view of nurses based upon the stereotype that has formed over many years. When a few nurses behave in a way that the public thinks is incompatible with their image of the profession, then that is when some start to scratch their heads, I guess. Me included.
Horseshoe, BSN, RN
5,879 Posts
Are you similarly concerned with the effect of nurse attitudes towards female patients? You know, if the male nurse was say, a misogynist, "**** shamer" or the like, and how that could affect his care of his female patients who might not live up to his ideal of female purity? What if this male nurse had a patient who was a stripper (and who by your account is the same as a prostitute), are you concerned about how this could affect the care of this patient, who is as deserving of care and compassion as the virgin in the next room? Do you worry that such judgmental members of the profession might not be able to leave these questionable attitudes at home, and therefore might elicit a negative public impression of male nurses in general? Or is this nurse so rare as to be inconsequential in the big picture?