I saw an article today where many emts's and paramedics across the country were being accused of inappropriate touching and I was just wondering in a profession such as nursing how does one avoid being accused of such things while still doing their job? After all it is a job which requires touching and undressing of people and sometimes emotionall disturbed people.
Here's a link to the article if anyone is curious. In theses cases the accusations may very well have been founded but an intresting topic nonetheless.
Specializes in CVICU, Burns, Trauma, BMT, Infection control.
I wasn't going to "touch" this one- no pun intended. But this smells of the crap we put up with on a daily basis in EMS. People have always thought of us as ambulance drivers, not trained health care providers. Like she said in the article, "somebody I never expected to touch me touched me".
YES, we are going to touch you- if we are doing our jobs correctly we are going to touch you a lot and repeatedly.
If you are in a car accident and I'm worried you might have internal injuries I'm going to put you on a backboard with a C-collar and blocks, strap you to that and the litter, and carry you to the truck. Once we get in there I'm going to cut your clothes- ALL of them. I need to check you from head to toe(s). I'm going to palpate your chest/flanks/back (around and sometimes including your breasts ladies) and listen to your lungs. I'm going to press down on then squeeze your pelvis to check for fractures. I'm going to check for femoral pulses- yes I'm going to stick my hand in your groin. I'm going to palpate your legs- top to bottom. Sometime during all this I'm going to have some of my cohorts help me "logroll" you and check your back/buttocks for injury. And that's just the "personal" areas.
On a medical call, if you're having abdominal pain I'm going to expose and palpate your belly and auscultate for bowel sounds. If your pain is lower I'm still going to look/feel within the limits of my scope of practice. If you're having chest pain I'm going to expose your chest and palpate it first before I stick those cute little electrodes all over you. Including lifting your breast if needed for the 12 lead.
And yes, there's usually 2 people on a truck. But the person driving has a mirror to see what's going on in back- and they're SUPPOSED to check every once in a while. Can they see everything? No, but if I'm noticing that my partner is taking 20 minutes to check a female patients chest or pelvic area and there's no reasonable explanation then we're gonna have a problem.
I've been accused a couple times of assault/inappropriate touching- the one that springs to mind was the 30ish female who showed up at our station and accused me of assault because I had my hand on her chest and hurt her. My director asked if this might have been due to the fact that she tried to kill herself with an OD and I was sternal rubbing the crap out've her to keep her awake until we got her in the truck. :imbar Issue resolved.
Do I think that none of my brethren are capable? The Chester County Pa. case was near my work. It happens unfortunately. And for the record, if the Florida medic really assaulted his patient he should've lost certain parts of his anatomy. But for every on accusation that bears merit there are many others that occur when we try to just do our job and people get upset that the "ambulance driver" touched them.:icon_roll
Thank God for you guys,I could never do what you do. :tku:
There are predators in every profession,in every aspect of society. It's kind of scary if they don't do a background check though. I bet they do from now on.
Specializes in A little of this & a little of that.
How many BON's check backgrounds? It's always the employers doing the checking. Then, it's usually only a search of the state database. Not to mention that so many bad people of all kinds have just not been caught. Dahmer had no criminal record.
Not being faslely accused is the motivation for male OB-GYN's having female nurses present for exams. You just have to be careful to have witnesses when doing procedures that may cause the patient to believe or claim that something inappropriate is happening.
I thought the article was poorly written, making no distinction between "ambulance attendant" and paramedics. EMS professionals, especially at paramedic licensure level, are highly trained members of a profession with the same standards of conduct as nursing. They have to provide care in situations where it may not be feasible to carefully explain what is being done when they must expose the chest or pelvic areas. Their working
circumstances make them more liable to false accusations. Of course, there are bad apples in any profession and they should be weeded out before they harm anyone. But, an article like this is just meant to inflame and outrage the public.
Wow this is a scary one...I am not in EMS, but I have many male friends all in their early to mid 20's that are EMT-Ps. Actually, one of them was accused by a male patient while inserting a foley cath in the ER...the patient had "no idea" that putting in a foley involved touching. While I feel in my heart that was BS, he was punished. The facility wanted to just cut him in an attempt to avoid the issue. I do feel that ALL employers should review on a case by case basis when hiring/or by event. No doubt someone will take advantage and do the unthinkable, and they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, and never rehired in healthcare again. My deepest respects to all the EMS professionals out there.:heartbeat
I've been in EMS a while, and, frankly, I'm not really surprised by any of this. (though the numbers, for what is a small profession, are a bit staggering)
Alone, in the back of an ambulance with a vunerable person is a great set up for a sexual predator. Like any predator, these folks naturally seek out good hunting grounds - the tall grass, a dark alley, the rectory, an ambulance.
Fortunately, although I've met a lot of creepy paramedics and EMT's, I've met a lot more good people in this work than bad.
TiredMD
501 Posts
I'm no expert, but I think step #1 would be not molesting your patients.