What ever happened to Patient modesty?
Take it all off? Why?
Here is a nice article "Keep Your Pants, and Your Dignity, at the Hospital" Seems like something a service industry (medical) should strive for.
"Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a professor of medicine and public health at Yale School of Medicine, has suggested patients may suffer from a period of vulnerability, which he called the "post-hospital syndrome." The combination of a recovering body and a stressful hospital experience could make people less able to fend off new diseases,"
And beyond contracting new diseases it can make patients not seek medical treatment. And once sedated most hospitals treat every person like a piece of meat and do nothing to protect their dignity. They do not ask the patient if it ok to expose their privates or remove their gown prior to sedating them and doing just that. They don't because they don't have to. Sedated and anesthetized patients aren't able to speak for themselves. And if the hospital doesn't tell the patient details of what they did to them in surgery how will they will ever know. The hospitals ensure that no family or advocate is around to know either. And what the patient doesn't know won't hurt them, right? So the medical staff can do as they please.
Much of this nudity is totally unnecessary. I can hear you now. What's the big deal. They are "out" so it's not hurting the patient. They can't be embarrassed. Well some people have religious beliefs that go beyond if they are embarrassed or not. And some have personal beliefs. Is it ok for a hospital to give a sedated vegetarian meat? They won't know they ate it. Or a Jew pork? But somehow it's ok to strip them of their clothes and dignity regardless of what the patient believes and regardless of their desires. There are also people who have had terrifying sexual assaults in their past.
So many times "take it all off" is said when it is completely unnecessary. Remember the anesthesiologist that got a big fine for making fun of a patients genitals while getting a colonoscopy? Article Should have never happened. But you say you have to be naked for a colonoscopy. Um... no. Ever hear of Colonoscopy pants? See some here Your doctor didn't mention that? Yes they only need access to the anus. Not the genitals. The rest of you could still be covered and the pants allow access to the part that is needed. I am betting that anesthesiologist, Tiffany M. Ingham, is wishing now that her hospital had used colonoscopy pants. If the hospital had used them they would have avoided traumatizing a patient, a lawsuit, bad press, loss of a employee, etc. All for a few $ in clothing? Was that bad situation caused by the negligence of the hospital? Hummm...
Another good article "The dreaded hospital gown, described as health care's prison jumpsuit, often imposed on patients needlessly"
"Researchers in Montreal and Toronto surveyed patients at five hospitals, finding that almost 60% could have worn clothes that covered their whole bodies, but that barely one in 10 had on more than a gown."
So many surgeries are done where they remove part or all of the patient's gown and leave them totally naked. A helpless, unconscious person laying totally naked in a room full of people. What does this sound like? And there are so many times when this is not necessary. Heck many states require strippers to cover their nipples. Patients don't even get as much dignity as a stripper
Here is another time that "take it all off" really hurt the hospital. In trying to catch an employee stealing drugs, the hospital videotaped the operating room. In doing so captured the patients that had, out of routine, been stripped totally naked by the medical staff. Eventually the videos got out and were viewed by many people that were not even medical personnel. And now the hospital has a big lawsuit. Read more details article. If the patients even had even the most minimal covering there would have been NO lawsuit. None. When will hospitals learn? Protecting patients protects the hospital, too.
.... Come home from the hospital with something "fixed" only to suffer from emotional trauma from being put on display naked for a crowd in the surgery. Seriously, when did this start being ok to everyone? It is not ok to me.
Apparently I'm not the only one:
Medical Patient Modesty
Read the comments section
Another article: "What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Surgery"
written by a doctor where he states "We all see you naked". He admits
"When I had my appendectomy in college, I was absolutely mortified when I discovered the next day that the surgeon, residents, nurses, assistants, techs, aides, and probably several dozen other people all saw me au naturel".
Now that he's a Doctor and is the one with his clothes on his story changes....... :-( Apparently his own experience with his appendectomy taught him nothing! What's so hard about letting people stay modest. When going for a surgery on a limb (not the torso) there is NO reason to have ones' genitals exposed. None. Period. Medical professionals when will you get a clue?
Even very simple changes would greatly improve patient comfort. Nurses at LDS hospital fought to make some changes to their outpatient surgery procedures. One of these, was to allow patients to wear underwear.
"SOME PATIENTS were especially bothered to spend half the day without underwear -- for shoulder surgery, say. Ms. Lelis was convinced this longstanding practice was meaningless as a guard against infection, persisting only as the legacy of a culture that deprived patients of control. "If you're practically naked on a stretcher on your back," she says, "you're pretty subservient." The nurses persuaded an infection-control committee to scrap the no-underwear policy unless the data exposed a problem; they have not. " source
And there we have a key problem, most of the time there isn't a medical need for the patient to be naked. It is just "how it's always been done" or it is more convenient for the medical staff. Patient dignity should be more important than the staffs convenience. Patients should not be put unnecessarily in a degrading and demoralizing situation that leaves them feeling vulnerable and powerless.
I think this blogger says it well (and the rest of his article is good too),
I have always stated: "Medical treatments and procedures would be radically different if the providers had to be in the same state of exposure as the patients."
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