professional boundaries

[kiwindn099]

Hello all

I am a lecturer in nursing with a special interest in paediatric nursing. I am currently putting together a paper on the concept of professional boundaries and the student nurse.

I would appreciate if you could please give me your thoughts and comments and / or experiences where maintaining professional boundaries has proved to be a constraint or a supporting factor for the student nurse.

[purplemania, BSN, RN]

probably more cause for restraint, IMO. As a student I was providing care and what I thought was a friendly bedside manner to a young man (at least 20 years my junior). He asked me to close the door, which I did, then he asked me for sex, which I did not. Later he told my instructor that I "led him on". Of course he was totally delusional but I have never forgotten the dirty feeling of being in his presence and never returned to the room (my instructor re-assigned me). I had a Mom ask me to change the medical record to indicate the hospital was at fault for her daughter's condition (not true, but she said she could not afford the bill and that would be a way out of paying). She said I was the only nurse who seemed to really care. Another incident of manipulation. The "game face" is necessary to maintain profesisonalism and your own focus. It is hard to do, when you also want to show empathy for the individual. Nursing is hard, huh?

[barefootlady, ADN, RN]

No really, a few years ago there was a young man on our floor and none of the younger nurses wanted to care for him. I had been on vacation and was assigned to his care. I knew he needed some assistance with bathing, offered to set him up, do his back, put the call bell close for him to ring when he was done. After 5 minutes the light came on, I went in, found him beside the bed, naked, aroused and wanting assistance. I turned around, went out the door, grabbed several clean wash clothes from my linen stack, walked back into the room, handed them to him and told him that was a job he was capable of doing for himself. Then I went straight to the HN, verbally reported the incident, sat down and started a written occurance report, and reported the whole episode to his physician. He had been pulling this sort of thing all week, no one had told me, they wanted to see what I would do. I guess I passed the test, he was released to his mothers care the next day. She sent a card to the unit after his discharge and I was the only nurse mentioned by name and thanked for my good care of her son. Takes all kinds of things to be a good nurse.