"But I hate seeing Nurses who will not touch a patient, ANY patient, unless they are wearing gloves. This defies science and common sense. Our patients NEED the healing of human touch. Not latex."
I can't agree more with you on this. Perhaps I should restate myself a bit.
I'm not afraid of touching patients without gloves. To be honest, the only time I DID use gloves when interacting with patients is if I was going to come into contact with bodily fluids. For general evaluations and even during bed baths, I didn't use gloves unless I was going to have to wash the naughty bits, so to speak. I also very strongly feelthat we should touch patients to comfort them. Therapeutic touch is a VERY powerful thing, and in my brief clinical experiences, I used it often. I think that you can show a patient that you aren't afraid of touching them, they feel much more comfortable. It makes them feel normal, as if someone seems them as something other than simply unclean.
My thing is, all I ever see on dcotor dama's and such is this constant love affair of anyone and everyone IN THE HOSPITAL. I don't know why it gets on my nerves the way it does, it honestly shouldn't. It just sets off this weird little tick.
You know the kind of stereotypes nurses encounter, Wanda. Or maybe it's not the same in your area, but where I'm studying and practicing, it's very prevalent, coming from both patients, and even more strongly, from doctors. So I'm dealing with that. I'm also dealing with the male-nurse stigmatism. I won't even begin to get into that.
I realize these messages make it sound as if I'm totally obsessing over these issues and going thermal-neuclear. I'm not, trust me. These little things don't run my life and make me rant off at anyone and everyone. I'm not trying to launch some kind of cruisade. And these things don't even really make me mad. They just annoy me. And I like to complain.
By the way, Wanda, I know it seems totally prying and everything, but I must say, I'm quite curious to hear about this little bout of oral healing. Was it an attraction thing? Or were you doing a nursing action?
Hmmm....I wonder how many such instances would have to occure before they give us a new nursing diagnosis to follow for that particular intervention...Ineffective Sexual Pattern just doesn't seem to do it justice
