Patient requests for gender of OR team?

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Brought on by a thread in the general nursing forum.

OR nurses, have you had patients request a specific gender of the staff in the OR, and if so, was it a male or female patient?

I've only had it happen once, and it was a female muslim patient who had travelled in order to have a female surgeon in the specialty she needed.

[GadgetRN71, ASN, RN]

Never had it happen. If it did where I am now, the patient would be SOL..there's just two of us on my shift. I do a lot of trauma though, so most of our patients really don't give a hoot, or they're too drunk to make a request maybe.

That thread is unreal, BTW. Every so often, we get that here though. People convinced that we OR nurses just love looking at the memberes of our male patients. I just don't get it.

[SandraCVRN]

I've only had it happen once, and it was a female muslim patient who had travelled in order to have a female surgeon in the specialty she needed.

This got me thinking...I wonder if it was the pt or the family that wanted a female doctor? Not saying the pt didn't want it but it reminded me of a couple of times when we had Jehovah Witnesses as heart pts. We have learned to ALWAYS ask a pt after the family has left and before they are sedated one last time about blood. Twice pts have told us yes they want blood but do not want their families to know.

So we need to remember to advocate for our pt.....

[PetiteOpRN]

I had a wife request an all male staff for her husband. She was told that this request could not be accommodated (there are no male RNs trained in the specialty). She settled for having the foley put in by a male.