58flyer

Male Nurse, I assume that as a nurse yourself you are comfortable with speaking to other nurses in the medical environment. Couldn't you have advocated for yourself and reminded them that this is not about them, it's about the patient? You say they were professional even as they made unprofessional comments. Was it really necessary that all 6 females see your genitalia? Nothing is going to change unless YOU speak up and advocate for yourself and other male patients. Working as a healthcare professional puts you in a perfect place to effect change. Speak up at staff meetings at your facility and suggest ways that men could be professionally treated. The status quo is not acceptable. As a patient I would not remove any amount of clothing unless provided with a gown or other coverings, and firmly refuse any "strip as you go" exams regardless of the sex of the provider.

Batman, some of the experiences I mentioned in my post occurred at an early age. By early, I mean adolescence or early adulthood, before one develops the social and communication skills that maturity and life experience brings. If I could go back in a time machine now and put myself in the difficult situations I encountered, they most certainly would have never happened. But it's the young people who most often encounter this kind of crap. They are easily pressured into submitting to something that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. It was at age 16, when I went in for surgery for my broken finger, that I had the horrific experience I mentioned in another thread. That might not have happened to someone much older. I can remember my mother telling me in earshot of the nurse, "these people are here to help you so do exactly what they say." I had every intention of being the good compliant patient. Oh, how I regret that. :angryfire I have to disagree with you Batman, about being "polite but firm." How can I be polite to anyone who disrespects me? To me, standard of care is the polite request to respect a patient's modesty. If I have to speak up and remind someone to do something so basic as provide privacy, then it's really the second request and I have the right to get forceful. Experience has taught me that asking nicely will not get the desired result. Only when I have snapped at them, with liberal use of the "f" word or "b" word, and demeaning them in the process, did I ever get the result I expected. A cleaned up example; "Shut the door moron, were you born in a freaking barn or what?" Yea, once I had a doc tell me I was not nice, only once. Before I retired from my last law enforcement career, I spent several years doing off duty employment as security in a hospital. I noticed that when medical people spoke to each other, it was direct, succinct, to the point with no sugarcoating. When communication was corrective in nature, it was often demeaning. I have found that approach works well when dealing with medical staff.

This is a sore subject for me. The REAL reason men don't go to the doctor is due to the great double standard in patient modesty. The simple fact of the matter is that many men have encountered a callous disregard for their dignity when it comes to intimate exams. By callous disregard I mean a general failure to provide privacy, appropriate draping, or an attitude that men are not as modest as women. Many men have experienced doors to the exam room being left open, staff barging in during exams, strip as you go exams, or, worst of all, the idea that it is OK to injure men because of the reality of a certain aspect of being male, the dreaded erection at the wrong time. (See my thread on "EEK! There is a woman in my room!) The tendency of men to find it difficult to express concerns of an emotional nature only adds to the problem. It is embarrassing to admit that you are embarrassed. Consequently, many men have a collective experience of associating healthcare with being humiliated. I'm sure women have been subjected to some inappropriate behaviors over the years, but overall it is far less than men have encountered. People tend to mind their Ps & Qs when it comes to the personal parts of female patients, and generally women have more confidence in the healthcare system than men. The bottom line: Women have more confidence in the healthcare system because collectively they are treated more respectfully than men. It's as simple as that. In all fairness I have noted that in recent years a much better attention to privacy. Maybe some of that is due to HIPAA, I just don't know. Maybe it is in my approach to dealing with medical personnel. I just won't tolerate certain attitudes like I used to. I used to fear medical people, now I am much more assertive. But, I still have vivid recollection of the days when the doc, using the strip as you go technique, would tell you, nearing the end of the exam, to drop the gown, stand up, totally naked, turn your head and cough, and then bend over the exam table, still fully naked, and have a gloved finger inserted into your rectum, and at the tender age of 19. All the while the exam room door is partly open. What do you think that does for my confidence in healthcare, and for my ability to turn to the healthcare system for these exams at a time when I really need them? :angryfire No medical person wants to admit that they might be harming their patients. It is very easy to blame the patient, then theorize why men don't go to the doctor. As a man, it is really hard to express oneself when asked why we delay when it comes to our health. I still remember when the urologist asked why I delayed having a lump on my testicle checked for a whole year, at age 24, and I just sat there in silence. And then he performed a strip as you go exam, and opened the door to walk out while I was still standing there stark naked. Yet he wouldn't even consider doing a full nude exam on a female, then he wonders why his male patients lack trust. The preponderance of females in nursing and ancillary staff in hospitals and clinics, and as unlicensed assistive personnel, only adds to the problem, as men frequently find they have no choice in who is exposing the personal bits. It's simple, you treat people with RESPECT, you have their trust, if not, you don't. That's why men don't go to the doctor.

I have messaged some of you here with my latest news but after looking back over this thread I think there may be others who may want to know. My wife and I have been trying to adopt for over a year now and a little over a month ago the adoption finally came through! We are now the parents of a baby boy! It's been exciting and a real adventure. What a learning curve! Family, friends, and neighbors are just as excited as we. Sterile or not, I AM A DAD! What a blessing this has been! flyer

I see you have been busy this AM with the posting :typing. Good morning to you sunshine . I know the difference between a hospital and a 5 star motel. But since you brought it up, I bet that hospital stay is a heck of a lot more expensive than a night at the Ritz Carlton. I don't expect to be treated like royalty, but some respect would be nice. In my experience in requesting same sex care it seemed that people would get an attitude about it. I was just asking, I understand if the requested caregiver wasn't available. I would be more inclined to accept care from whoever was available if they were professional about it. But it is hard to trust someone once they display an unprofessional attitude. More than once I have accepted the invitation to go elsewhere. Peace, my friend:flowersfo.

I hope this doesn't freak you out. In my career in a large city police department I was an evidence technician for 6 years of the 24 years I worked there. Among my duties were photographing injuries that were the result of criminal action. These included sexual assault/battery. Unlike the all female team that is mentioned by mwboswell, with my agency it was luck of the draw on who you got as far as an evidence tech was concerned. Of our 2 dozen or so evidence techs we only had 2 that were female, at that time. Photographic evidence is crucial, you have to get it right, or the poor patient may have to endure it again. We used the best photo equipment available, ring flashes, ALS, and other stuff to bring out the best image. A common sexual battery injury is bitemarks. They frequently occur to the sexual parts of the body: breasts, buttocks, inner thigh, pubic mound, etc. Since a bite comparison may be made to a potential suspect, the photographic evidence has to be exact. The injury is likely to be transient, so it has to be done in a timely manner. The patient is still reeling from the experience, and has to be put through being photographed. It has to be done to insure a successful prosecution, which is often very important to the victim. We trained with the SANE nurses. It irked some of them that most of the evidence techs were male. I never knew of an instance where a male evidence tech got a complaint. I was always exceptionally careful about how I went about photographing a female sex assault patient. With the help of the nurse, I only photographed the injury itself, draping the other areas not involved. When the nurse adjusted the drapes, I would turn around so as to not see any more than I needed to. As a sexual abuse victim myself, I could relate to what the victims were going through, though I never let that fact be known. The victims had their own problems. Despite doing all I could to minimize the patient's discomfort, some of the SANE trained nurses weren't very compassionate. One time I was setting up to photograph a bitemark on a woman's breast, the nurse just lowered the woman's gown to her waist, exposing both breasts. I covered her back up and had the nurse exit the room with me and I explained the proper techniques for performing this task in a manner that would minimize the discomfort to the patient. The other extreme was nurses who didn't want us male evidence techs involved in any way with female victims. Sometimes they would make a scene when we showed up which made the interaction with the victims all the more difficult. One nurse was a girl I used to date in my single days. I've seen her post on this forum, at least I think it's her, (hi Dianne, guess who ? ). I retired from the agency 6 years ago, at that time they were still using evidence techs from the police department for sex crimes photos. We had the best training, experience, and equipment. flyer

I guess it would be decision time. It would depend on how bad I needed the treatment, how long could it wait, is there a follow on shift with males available, and so on. The only times I have needed emergency care were when I was at a level 1 center anyway, there were always male personnel working at the time. So, it's never presented a problem, except for attitudes of course. Heck, if I'm hurt bad enough I won't be in a position to request anything anyway, so I'll just deal with it when I can. I try not to worry myself over what I cannot control.

Thank You for your service. Sorry to hear they treat our veterans that way. What are your thoughts on the MEPS physical?

Even funnier when you recall that the 3 writers of the song weren't even from Alabama, 2 were from Florida and one was from California.

I agree with you here. I get really annoyed when some HCPs just decide to train on you without asking. I once asked a trainee to leave the room on an EKG. I complicated the matter by telling the trainee "sorry, if it was up to me I would let you stay." I had to explain that it wasn't left to me, the trainee was just thrown in without asking, which was the whole point of me telling her to leave. I hope they learned something from it. ASK next time. When it comes to EKGs, I just wish they would shut the door. Yes, I am male, call me a prude, but when I am the only one shirtless and in plain view of the public, it makes me uncomfortable. It wouldn't bother me at the beach, when everybody else is similarly attired, but to lay there with everybody STARING through the open door in a doctors office gets old real quick. Yes, even men can be modest about their upper bodies. Thankfully, I was able to convince my present PCP to make it a rule to close the door with every EKG. You mentioned V.A., are you a military veteran?

That might just be the case. This is a very safe helicopter design and one that I have many hours in. Failure of the component mentioned in this case is exceptionally rare. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20080909X01417&key=1

You're welcome. Since this thread came along I have looked at my Katrina album and it has refreshed my memory of my time in MS. I can't imagine what it must have been like to have been there during the storm. My heart goes out to all those who lost so much. :icon_hug: The first couple of nights there, when we were still trying to figure out accomodations, we slept at the Border Patrol station close to the Harrison County Jail. We were only about 100 yards from the helicopter. After a couple of days we located 2 rooms at the Motel 6 (if memory serves correctly) in Pascagoula north of the interstate. If you know where I am talking about imagine trying to put a helicopter down on the front lawn of that place, it was tight! After a few days some of the FDLE (Fla Dept of Law Enf) guys got sent home and we "inherited" their rental car. After that we parked the helicopter at Trent Lott airport and drove back to the motel. At the motel there were some people who had lost their homes due to flooding and were staying at the motel. I really felt guilty taking up motel rooms when folks living there had no homes to go to. That's always an issue with hurricane details. Rescue workers, law enforcement, and recovery personnel taking up motel rooms and the local folks are out on the street. I did 2 weeks on the MS coast and got relieved. My whole agency stood down after 3 weeks. With Gustav we sent the special operations team out but no aviation assets. Now watching Hanna and Ike. I worry more about Ike. Have you heard anything about Beauvior in the local news? I can't find anything on it. I hope they didn't flood again, they just reopened in August after rebuilding from Katrina.

I'd have to say I would stay too, but I live in the center of Florida. We don't get storm surge here. Frances and Jeanne came practically over my house. With Frances we were without power for a week but we had a generator. Jeanne was just as bad but the weaker trees were already blown over so we didn't get the power outages as bad. Charley missed me by 50 miles. With my job I had to deploy to the damaged areas and assist with law enforcement duties. I worked Charley and to me it looked like a 10 mile wide tornado went through. From the air it was easy to follow the path as you had a 10 mile swath of destruction, very much like a tornado path but much bigger. I worked Ivan in Pensacola and the damage was impressive. The highway out to Ft Pickens was marked only by a power line; the poles were gone and the road covered up by sand or washed away. I was sent to work Katrina. Went to N.O. first but with all the assets there we were redeployed to Gulfport. I have to disagree with you about the power of the storm. It was the most widespread destruction I have ever seen. All along the shoreline homes, businesses, apartments were gone. Nothing but slabs for long stretches of waterfront. 80 ft shrimp boats washed miles inland. I remember a McDonalds, it was just a slab and a sign. A Walmart appeared intact until I landed my helicopter in the parking lot and you could see clear through the building. All the contents of the store were washed out behind. Miles of railroad were washed aside. I took lots of photos which still don't match seeing it in person. The casino ships were washed up on land. Railroad containers and boxcars from the port were washed into nearby neighborhoods. I felt like crying at the sight of Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis' last home. I landed my helicopter on US 90 out front and looked at it up close. A security guard escorted me around. It was unknown then if could be repaired. I had seen it before in all it's splendor and was a sickening sight to see that way. It has since been restored but many irreplaceable artifacts were forever lost. The whole MS coast was impassable, to get to our hotel in Pascagoula we had to fly the helicopter there and land in the parking lot. To get breakfast we had to land on a patch of grass next to the Waffle House. Even if you could drive, there were no rental cars to get. Our staging area was the Harrison County jail complex in Gulfport, it was a long way from Pascagoula. At peak we had about 6 helicopters operating out of there. Our duties in N.O. consisted of personnel rescue at first, but it was decided that the military helicopters were better suited for that. We shifted to Gulfport where we flew food, water, ice, generators, gasoline, tents, sleeping bags, propane, medical kits, and many other types of survival supplies out to the damaged areas. Occasionally we flew the big shots, polititians and agency heads, around for a look see. We flew some news videographers too. Some of the video I now see on the weather channel was shot from my helicopter. These were typically 18 hour days. I may get deployed to Gustav, depending on how bad it is. I don't wish a hurricane on anybody. Those things are really nasty.

Officers can "run" anyone, anytime, without any particular reason. It's getting to the person that is the challenge. Traffic stops, for example, cannot be made for that sole purpose. The officer has to have legitimate reason to be in contact with the person he/she is running a name check on. In the OP's example, the officer is employed at the hospital, presumably as security. The patient is the "shady" subject of concern, also at the same hospital. The officer has legitimate reason to be in contact with the subject in the normal course of his/her employment there. A valid warrants check can then be made. I used to do it all the time, when I had nothing better to do. :wink2:

I don't see how it would violate HIPAA if you notified the officer in your ER about his warrants. You might want to make sure he really does have warrants so your credibility doesn't suffer in case he doesn't. :imbar If he is wanted for ANY criminal violations, you can bet he is dangerous. It's just a matter of time before he gets around to violating the law against YOU.

YES! It does happen to other folks! You are not alone. As a police officer I get it all the time. You would think my profession sucks! My SIL was an RN and every time she would see a police officer speeding or do a rolling stop at a red light, she would be on the phone to tell me all about it. I would respond with some wicked witch RN story. We did get some great laughs out of it, usually just agreeing that cops and nurses are just sorry asses.....:chuckle (Me:Well Cindy, we are a sorry bunch aren't we? )(She:yes we are flyer) Misery loves company :cheers:

You will be fine. In fact, you may like the South so much you might decide to stay a lifetime. Get out and meet people. You will have fun, especially in a college town. Nobody is going to beat you up. Expect the "where are you from" questions anywhere you go. It's normal, folks just want to get to know you. When I venture out of the South for a visit up north, people are always asking me where I'm from. From my accent they know I am Southern, they just want to know exactly what state. I was a little nervous the first time I visited Gettysburg, Penna', knowing they gave my great grand pappy had a rough time back in '63. But all they wanted was for me to spend my money there.

I have asked several women who have been in the military about their entrance physicals. All of them, officer and enlisted, said it was a mirror image of a civilian exam. This is the first I've heard of a group exam. Well, I learn something new everyday. Were any male docs, nurses, or corpsmen involved with this? I'm sure it would be easier if all involved were of the same sex. What did they do about the pelvic? Not in a group for that part I hope. In my single days I dated 2 female naval aviators (not at the same time:bugeyes:). I asked them about how they were treated when I came to physicals and such. They had to go to SERE school like the guys but they didn't get the stripped naked treatment the men got.

The aircraft was a Lockheed L1011, big wide body heavy jet. 163 souls on board at departure, 134 killed on arrival, plus 1 on the ground. 26 passengers and 3 flight attendants survived. That First Sergeant of yours really does have 9 lives! I've heard of guys in Vietnam having crashed a number of times, but 8 is the most I have heard of yet! He wasn't afraid to jump back on the horse! I've only had 1 helicopter break on me, and I managed a successful autorotation. The Orlando news was all over it with film and color pictures. Fun...

In my case I was fortunate to be well covered. See post #40 of this thread.

I only wrote one article about it for an aviation safety publication many years ago. I just tried to google it myself to see if it made it into cyberspace but no luck. As to my post, you quoted it so you know what I wrote. Anyway, what happened... aircraft struck the ground at about 20 knots vertical speed and about 170 knots forward speed, caused by having flown through a microburst on final approach. The second impact was on a road hitting cars, fences, and lightposts. Aircraft began to break up and burn and then stuck a water tank. My injuries were composed of brain contusion, skull fracture, several fractures in some vertebra, bladder trauma, and lots and lots of cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Got completely covered in fuel which also got in the eyes. Reinjured an already cracked sternum. That's all I can think of at the moment, my paperwork on the accident is stored in the attic so I don't have it in front of me. Lots of other people hurt way worse. Feel free to PM if you need more detail, don't want to get in trouble for being :offtopic: :beer:

I haven't been in the military, but with high school athletics and gym class, I have done my time in the showers/lockers. Even now, we co-train with the military and use military facilities, so it's still a recent experience. I don't have any problem with that. What I find troubling is group medical exams. Now that won't happen in the civilan world but it is common with military physicals. My sister in law was a military nurse and would tell me about how the men were examined, with females present. Of course the female exams weren't anything like that. I recall in high school where a volunteer doc came to the school to give the football team a physical. I suppose some of the guys couldn't afford to get a physical that was a part of the requirement to participate in sports. So they had this doc come in and give us all a free physical. The only cost was our dignity. If it was all guys, it would have been no problem. But this doc just had to bring along his "nurse" to help keep up with the forms. The coach could have done that. The "nurse" was wearing casual clothes. She stood right there with the doc while all the guys were paraded in front of her wearing just undershorts. While there was no prostate exam, one still had to drop the shorts to have the hernia and testicle exam. Right in front of the "nurse." I knew it was coming and on the appointed day I just handed the coach a statement from my family doc that I was cleared for sports and disappeared. The coach said that was unacceptable because I didn't endure what the rest of the team did. I won out because of the shortage of first string defensive ends. Can you imagine if high school girls were examined in a similar fashion in the presence of a male HCP? Someone would go to jail.

Actually, the info given in the post you quoted is the most info I have given on the accident on this forum. The other mention was just in passing. What details would you like?

Congratulations!!! :yelclap::cheers: Time for a well deserved vacation!

ITA. If the circ is being done solely for the sake of appearance, I don't think it should be done. And "looking like daddy" is a poor reason too.