This article denotes something that the nurses in my area have wondered about since early 2015.
To summarize;
"When the man arrived at the hospital with severe abdominal pains, a nurse didn’t consider it an emergency, noting that he was obese and had stopped taking blood pressure medicines. In reality, he was pregnant — a transgender man in labor that was about to end in a stillbirth."
In school we were informed by our nursing instructor that the typical S/S of a heart attack were taken from male patient complaints. She went on the explain that the female patient has a diverse and varied complaints when it comes to heart attacks. We should use caution and critical thinking to allow us to come to a conclusion on pt condition during a possible heart attack.
Enter now the necessary doublethink that must occur when dealing with the trans-gendered community. You look, talk, reports as, and have legal documents stating your are a man, but I as a healthcare professional need to treat you as a woman.
This, as the article has shown, is going to increase the number of inappropriate treatments and misdiagnosed issues, especially in trauma and emergent situations. This is something that we as healthcare providers need to begin to have conversations about to ensure own own safety in our professional lives.
