Nurses Who Have Convictions About Doing Intimate Procedures on Opposite Sex

[modestwoman]

I believe the OP is talking about herself. And it has been my experience--and is well documented in the medical literature--that someone that is so conflicted about the opposite sex has usually been molested or abused sexually . that is unless it is part of their religious beliefs.

People can have their own "convictions" but when they can not fulfill their job description because of them it is Bye-Bye. There is a line waiting to take your job.

Actually, I am working on starting a non-profit organization, Medical Patient Modesty (patientmodesty.org) that would work to promote stronger patient modesty in medical settings. It is my desire to work with nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals. Many of them are unaware of some modesty concerns patients have. Each patient is very unique. Some patients have a greater demand for more modesty than others and I feel that medical professionals should work to respect their wishes. I do believe patients need to speak up more about their wishes. For example, if a man is going in for a vasectomy and wants an all male nursing team only, he should speak up about his wishes and have them written on paper. My suggestion for him is to ask the hospital/surgery center to find out when all male nurses could be available and schedule it with their schedule. Some people assume that men don't care about their modesty, but some men are very uncomfortable with female nurses participating in intimate procedures or surgeries.

I assume that you are an ob/gyn nurse. I'd really love to talk to you about some modesty concerns that have been expressed about the ob/gyn field. Women are often able to get their wishes for all female team in ob/gyn when they wish. I know it's very rare for male nurses to work in ob/gyn. There are some modesty concerns women have expressed about childbirth that I'd like to discuss. Even if you have an all female ob/gyn team, there are some modesty concerns I'd like to address.

People have a variety of reasons for wanting extreme modesty. You are right that some people have been sexually abused and that's one of the reasons. I have never been sexually abused at all. To be honest with you, I have been trying to research more about sexual abuse victims and modesty in medical settings because I desire to help those people too. For me, I want my future husband to be the only man who can see and access certain parts of my body. I'm very modest. I will share more of my story in the introduction I made a little later. I feel that medical professionals should work to respect wishes of patients regarding modesty regardless of reasons.

Here are some reasons why some people only want same gender care when it comes to intimate things:

1.) Some husbands and wives don't feel comfortable with exposing their private parts to anyone of the opposite sex including medical professionals. They feel it is very special for the husband to be the only man who can access and touch certain parts of his wife and for the wife to be the only woman to access and touch certain parts of his husband. They love that special bond.

2.) There are some single people who have very, very high standards for purity and don't wish for their private parts to be exposed to the opposite sex even in medical settings. Sometimes, a single person wishes for their future spouse to be the only person of the opposite sex to see and access certain parts of their body.

3.) Religious reasons as you mentioned.

4.) There are some sexual abuse victims who get very upset about intimate procedures and being naked because it brings painful memories. Even some female sexual abuse victims are upset about being handled by females. I am trying to do more research on this.

5.) Some People are simply not comfortable being naked in front of the opposite sex because they are extremely modest.

I don't know the nursing student who emailed me personally. She found my web site (patientmodesty.org). I was very surprised to get an email from her. I really would love to work to help nursing schools and nursing supervisiors to excuse nursing students or nurses who have strong convictions from doing intimate procedures on the opposite sex. I don't think that they should be fired or not allowed to get through nursing school. What if a lady has very strong passion in working as a cardiac nurse, but at the same time she feels convicted that she should not do any intimate procedures on male patients such as giving bath or inserting foley. I think that nurse should be able to get the job and allowed to stick to her convictions. The truth is every hospital floor has a good number of nurses. It is not like she would be the only nurse. There are many other nurses on that floor who can do the intimate procedures.

One of my Christian friends decided to go and interview for a job at a very popular inn where a lot of people go to for elegant dining about 12 years ago or so. He was around 19 or 20. The popular inn/restaurant served alcoholic beverages. He was very excited about potentially working there, but then realized that he might have to serve alcohol. He had strong convictions about alcohol. It was very difficult, but he went to the man who interviewed him and told him that he was afraid that he had wasted his time because he could not serve alcohol. You won't believe this, but the boss decided to hire him and told him that he didn't have to serve alcohol and that others would serve alcohol. His coworkers tried to get him to serve alcohol, but he would not. He worked there for a number of years. It worked out very well. He was the only one who didn't serve alcoholic beverages. This shows that it is possible for a person to successfully get a job without compromising his/her convictions.

This is all very interesting. Without my personal opinion - doesn't this bring up the controversy about assisting with abortions, yes ,and pharmacy's and birth control, Catholic hospitals not offering certain procedures, Muslim cab drivers not picking up women (remember that story, it's unclear in this old brain this beautiful Sunday morning).
Could this be a religious rights discrimination debate? Or the rights of an employer to hire staff who will do the job at hand - special circumstances.

Again, interesting. I'd love to read more opinions here.

RyanRN, Thank you for bringing this to our attention! I feel this could be a religious rights discrimination debate. As you know, there are not many nurses who have this conviction. I really don't think it is a big deal for one nurse on a hospital floor with about 5 to 10 other nurses who will not do any intimate procedures on the opposite sex. It is not like she/he is the only nurse. I think that every hospital floor except for OB/GYN floor should have both male and female nurses because there are some men who only want male nurses for intimate procedures. I think pharmacists who have convictions about morning after and abortion pills have the right to not dispense them. In fact, some pharmacists have been successful in keeping their jobs and not compromising their convictions.

[peady2]

If a patient has modesty issues and requests a same gender care giver, every effort should be made to accomodate that patient's request.

However, you are speaking about a caregiver picking and choosing which patients she will care for. That is discrimination and I would venture to say it could be illegal. A professional can not refuse care to a patient based on that patient's gender, any more than they could refuse care based on race, culture, religion, etc.

You say there are other nurses on the floor? Suppose all of them decided that they would only care for same gender patients? Then what?

Since the vast majority of nurses are female and the general patient population is about 50/50, how can you expect to be accomodated? Suppose you hear a thud in a room not assigned to you and investigate, only to find a confused. elderly and naked man lying on the floor. What would you do? Run out and wait for someone else to assist him? Suppose your colleague is assigned to a very large male patient and needs assistance with turning him, and you are the only staff person nearby. Do you say no, go find someone else, and expect that nurse to do so or to wait while you find someone who is free? And since men are on average bigger and heavier than women, how is it fair to your colleagues that they get all the physically challenging men, while you get all the lighter and smaller women?

I think it is unreasonable and unethical (and probably illegal) for a healthcare professional to pick and choose which patients she will give care to. I would not allow such a student to pass my class, and I hope that anyone who is so ''convicted" would be unable to be accomodated.

[peady2]

Ok, I go to the website and the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH is asking for donations for her "cause." Is this poster coming here with a thinly veiled attempt to advertise her "product" and make a little cash?

[reesern1963]

Agreed. I wouldn't want to work with such a person. I can think of a dozen situation in a cardiac floor that would make it nearly impossible to accommodate a request like this. Too modest to check a cardiac cath site? Please. What if the patient starts to bleed? You're going to be too modest to hold groin pressure? "Excuse me, you're going to have to bleed out until I can find a nurse who's a tramp and doesn't mind looking at your groin. I'm too pure."

Asking for donations/solicitation here is a violation of TOS.

[peady2]

I do agree with the poster's feelings that more could be done to preserve modesty in healthcare settings. It is true that most nurses-myself included-look on "intimate" body areas as just another anatomical area and feel that "seen one seen them all." I have heard of anecdotes where medical personnel inappropriately look at intimate areas of a person's body with lewdness, such as where a woman has extremely large breasts or a man a very large penis. However, I think most professionals would look upon uch actions with disgust at their juvenile and inappropriate behavior. Most of us do our best to preserve patient modesty.

[peady2]

guy tries to jack off on me while getting personal care I'm outa there. I am not his sex object. I rather doubt he woulda got it up had it been a burly man giving him care

,

This poster is inferring that a man who gets an erection during intimate care is actively encouraging it, when in fact, it is often an involuntary response in this situation. It could just as easily occur if it were a "burly man" giving the care, since involuntary means the patient can not prevent it. When an erection occurs during such care, it is usually not sexual in nature. I don't know too many men who are sick enough to require a bedbath, that would have any interest at all in a sexual encounter. They are usually mortified and the best way to handle it is to immediately cover the man up and continue with the bath.

Does it ever happen that the man actually does get an erection due to sexual excitement during a bath? It does, but often these men are intellectually disabled in some way.

I agree that Gona has a lot to learn.

[modestwoman]

I am not asking anyone here to donate at all. This is not why I mentioned this web site at all on nurse.com. Ignore the part about donations. I will not ask for donations on nurse.com. I just want nurses to use this web site for educational purposes. The donations are for other people/businesses who are passionate about modesty. Most non-profit organizations mention something about donations on their web sites. I hope you all will take time to look under the button that says for medical professionals and some modesty violation cases people have submitted. I hope that nurses can use this web site as a resource to get idea of why modesty is important for certain patients and some tips you can use to ensure modesty for those patients are respected. I have passion in helping patients who are very modest to get their wishes for modesty and same gender care and for medical professionals to understand the seriousness of medical patient modesty. Again, every patient is unique. I desire to start a national discussion about medical patient modesty.

[Gona_bea_nurse]

Most modesty goes out the window in the nursing home tho we try to provide for it the best we can with drawn curtains/closed doors. I've found old people to be far less modest by and large, most have lived, learned, and got over it though those older females still in their mind still prefered females for their care which was accomadated. I prefer female gynos but besides that. Would you refuse life saving surgery from a male surgeon to protect your modesty. I know they saw everything when I had my appendix out consider the low local to avoid seeing the scare in shorts and cath.

[reesern1963]

I have serious doubts that the site was constructed by a medical professional. Read the part "For Hospitals" if you want to see where I see huge red flags regarding basic knowledge.

I agree that we can all be more sensitive, but I can cite examples of patients crashing in the OR during seemingly benign procedures. Try explaining to anesthesia afterward why you didn't have the patient in a gown only--it can be pretty ugly.

[Gona_bea_nurse]

You are very passionate about your cause modestwoman and I think that's a good thing. I just don't think nurses refusing opposite sex patients is practical.

[peady2]

First line of "Tips for Hospitals" from the OP's website:

Tips For Hospitals

We encourage you to hire a good number of male nurses for all shifts so you all can have enough male nurses do intimate procedures on male patients.

Are you at all aware that the percentage of men in nursing is in the single digits? Where do you propose that the hospitals find these male nurses?

[modestwoman]

First line of "Tips for Hospitals" from the OP's website:

Tips For Hospitals

We encourage you to hire a good number of male nurses for all shifts so you all can have enough male nurses do intimate procedures on male patients.

Are you at all aware that the percentage of men in nursing is in the single digits? Where do you propose that the hospitals find these male nurses?

You are right. Hospitals do need to hire more male nurses. I hope to see a change in that in the future. The hospital that is about 30 minutes away from my house seems to have a good number of nurses. I think that the number of male nurses will increase in the future. More men seem to be interested in nursing so that's good news. The hospital could check out different nursing schools where male students are about to graduate and offer them jobs. I think hospitals definitely should continue to hire female nurses too of course. We need both female and male nurses. I know that some urologists over the US are working to hire only male nurses because some male patients want only male nurses. I saw a web site a few months ago about a doctor who did vasectomies and how he only had male nurses. I have heard of some men backing out of having a vasectomy because they could not be guaranteed an all male team.

[Gona_bea_nurse]

glass escalators and one sided benifits/recruiting. We have about 9 males in a 300 person a&p 2 class.

[peady2]

More "Tips for Hospitals"

For unconscious patients who are transported to the hospital, please don't take their clothes off if it is unnecessary. For those that must be stripped, please try to accommodate an all same gender team for this patient if possible and do whatever to protect their modesty. Don't throw modesty out for unconscious patients because you think they may never find out or don't care.

If an unconscious person is transported to an ED it is always necessay to remove ALL of their clothes in order to conduct a complete and thorough physical exam. Any one who thinks otherwise has no idea what they are talking about.

Be sensitive to patients who come to the Emergency Room and don't wish to have certain examinations. For example, if a woman suspects she may be having appendicitis and she doesn't wish to have a pelvic exam or rectal exam, don't give her a hard time and just do a CT Scan. If appendicitis is ruled out, then a rectal exam or pelvic exam can be considered, but with the lady's permission.

It would be the height of fiscal irresponsibility (not to mention possible malpractice as well as fraud) to do an expensive procedure such as a CT scan w/o first conducting a thorough physical exam on a patient presenting with belly pain. A simple rectal exam might determine the cause to be a fecal impaction as opposed to appendicitis.

"If your hospital cannot accommodate an all same gender team for intimate procedures or surgeries, we recommend that you be willing to refer the patient to another hospital that can accommodate their wishes."

I am curious as to where one might find such hospitals-not to mention that in the case of an emergency or impending childbirth, such a "referral" could be seen as "dumping" at best and malpractice at worst, since such patients have neither the time nor the physiological stability to be moved.

The whole concept presented here is so completely impractical, that it makes one wonder what kind of research the OP has done, and what kind of background she has.

[Gona_bea_nurse]

,

This poster is inferring that a man who gets an erection during intimate care is actively encouraging it, when in fact, it is often an involuntary response in this situation. It could just as easily occur if it were a "burly man" giving the care, since involuntary means the patient can not prevent it. When an erection occurs during such care, it is usually not sexual in nature. I don't know too many men who are sick enough to require a bedbath, that would have any interest at all in a sexual encounter. They are usually mortified and the best way to handle it is to immediately cover the man up and continue with the bath.

Does it ever happen that the man actually does get an erection due to sexual excitement during a bath? It does, but often these men are intellectually disabled in some way.

I agree that Gona has a lot to learn.

he had ivs in his inner elbows and couldn't readily bend his arms. True it's not always voluntary and I shall try to be more forgiving in future. I'm dont's ask don't tell and really not that found of male sexuality tho.