I am a senior at a top 20 university that has always been passionate about healthcare, but especially nursing. However, I reluctantly let go of my dream to be a nurse because I was born with Amniotic Band Syndrome.
Amniotic Band Syndrome has left me with disfigured fingers and while I have never had any difficulty carrying out any activities, I am unsure about many things such as:
1.) Will I be able to give injections? My fingers and hands have a pretty strong grip, however my fingers are only 2-3 inches long. My ultimate goal is to be in bedside nursing in a hospital. I am meeting with the dean of nursing at my local cc to discuss the injection part and hopefully I can meet with a clinical instructor at the school and assess whether I can give injections/insert IVs.
2.) Getting a job in general. Given that the job market is so tight and saturated, why would anyone want to hire me when there are other nurses that can perform all duties?
3.) Will patients feel uncomfortable with my hands? Will management or colleagues feel that I am a liability?
At this point, I will still put in applications into PT school, but I still have such a strong desire to be a nurse. Is it realistic?
I'd love it if you could share any info that you find regarding custom gloves. I have very short fingers and even XS gloves are too long by about 0.5 - 1cm per finger. The thumbs fit fine. I don't have any problems doing most things, but once in awhile I screw my glove tips into luer locks when hanging IVs.
I have a question about your coworker. How does he use gloves? I have nine fingers that are pretty stunted and when I wear size small gloves, they are still too large and have a lot of extra space in the digit areas. The reason I ask is because, I talked to an RN that is the Dean of Nursing at my CC and she really wanted me to try to find a way to have "gloves that are skin tight so that they are more sterile."
Hi Red,
About gloves...my hands are very small (my fingers are of normal proportion to the size of my hands). I wear XS gloves in non-sterile gloves and the smallest sized sterile gloves that I can find when I need them (usually the smallest the hospital has is 6 which is still a little big) and depending on the brand, sometimes they are a little loose. As long as the wrist part of the glove is tight I think its fine.
His one hand with all the fingers (which aren't fully 'normally' shaped and that are on the smaller side) he can wear a glove like anyone else (not sure what size he wears in sterile vs non-sterile). For the hand with the two fingers, he has to go with a size a little larger than he wears on his 'normal' hand in order to get the hand in the glove on since he doesn't have 5 digits to put in to the fingers of the glove. It basically looks like someone putting a glove on without putting the fingers in the fingers of the glove if that makes sense. Honestly, I've never really noticed how he puts it on just how it looks when it is. His hand with the two fingers really isn't a fully fuctioning hand like it should. He can open/close the fingers together and grasp things so really he only needs the ability to be able to open/chose the fingers. But as for fine motor/grasp things he can't do that with that hand.
I wish I could help more, but honestly I've never really sat and studied how he does things. It was actually quite a while before I even noticed his abnormal hand.
I'm sure you will perservere and be able to do anything else those of us with average length fingers can. BTW, I also have a friend whose also a nurse who had been born with one arm that stops just below the elbow. And she's an awesome nurse!
Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.
Hi,
I would have no problem having you as my nurse and if you can do other activities i am sure you could do nursing ones.
Try contacting PSS (Physician Sales and Service) they are a huge medical supply company and could probably help you on the gloves issue. In fact, I can give you the name and contact info for a rep if you PM me as i do not want to make it public.
Of course if I find out anything I'll let PM you! I've tried contacting a few manufacturers and we'll see what they say when they get back to me!
Hi CrunchRN!
That is very generous of you! I can't message you because I haven't posted 15 topics, but it is still possible to send me a message. If not, I'll just PM you once I reach 15 topics.
What makes a glove sterile is not how it fits, but how it's sterilized. That lady is handing you some weird BS, in my opinion. My hands are tiny, and maybe some XS non-sterile gloves fit decently, but it would take a size 4 sterile to fit me. I put in foleys and such just fine with whatever comes in the package, and take a size 6 unopened in case I do something dumb just to the gloves. I've seen many folks put foley catheters in with the glove fingers hanging off looking loose, it can be done even if the things don't fit.
And patients will not be upset if you have funny-looking hands, they will be impressed that you are able to function and overcome your issues to help people. Honestly I don't know what kind of people they get to teach these days but the Dean needs to have a less discriminatory attitude. The things that will determine how people respond to you are your ability and your confidence. It sounds like the woman is projecting her own problems and needs to hush and let you learn.
My fingers are proportional to the rest of my hand, but are still only 2-3 in. We have several brands of gloves in the nursing lab at school and one of the brands has an XS that fits really tight/fits properly (in a good way), but I have no idea what brand it is. Another brand the S is an inch too long for each finger. The main issue I have is doing sterile procedures with kits that come with sterile gloves inside of them. My instructors let me get my own package of sterile gloves instead of using the kit's, but have occasionally made me use the kits b/c they stated that in some situations in a hospital I might not be able to get my own/small sterile gloves. It just makes me be extra attentive during sterile procedures so the extra inch of glove doesn't touch something it isn't supposed to.
You all are awesome! Thank you for the PM's and encouragement so far. Here's what my hands look like in case you guys are curious or if it would improve feedback!:
Even with seeing the picture of your fingers, I'm still in the line of thinking...if you are able to function doing everyday life things I don't see a reason why your disfigured fingers would stop you in becoming a nurse :)
You may have to get a more creative with doing certain things as opposed to those of us who have 'normal' fingers but I can still see no reasons why you would be excluded from nursing because of your fingers.
rednotebook
23 Posts
Hi Cobweb!
I love the article. Thank you so much for linking it! I'm currently browsing exceptionalnurse.com :)