I wonder if any of you other medical professionals see this where you work or if it’s just peculiar to the Southeast?
Every now and then I get called to do an ECG (Electrocardiogram), and more often than not, I find my patient in jeans and shirt, or sweatpants and sweatshirt instead of a gown of PJ’s.
This makes it kinda tough to do an ECG, since I have to pretty much unbutton things to get the elctrode pads where they need to go. Sometimes I have to call for a nurse to help with a lady’s very tight fitting jeans, if I put the electrode pads on the calves.
I guess they think if they keep their clothes on, they might get to go home quicker and/or save a little time? I’ve never asked.
How about it? Does this happen at your hospital too?
has it never occurred to you that those exam gowns are f*ing cold ?!?!
You want people undressed? Fine. Buy one of those safe, convient, ceramic room heaters for each exam room, make those rooms 10[sup]0[/sup] hotter than the rest of the office.
If we don’t freeze our tuckas’s off, we’ll get undressed! :mad:
Reminds me of when I went in for my vasectomy, the nurse says to get nekked and kick back and relax ( yeh RIGHT!) on the exam table. I’m already more than a little bit nervous, so probably not looking “at my best” down there, and the nurse comes in and opens the window. Did I mention this was February in Northern Michigan?? :eek: !! I could have happily killed her on the spot. Not being a sumo wrestler I am not accustomed to fighting in my birthday suit, so I let her live.
Quasimodem are you talking about patients in the hospital or patients in the out patient? My last stay in a hospital, I wore sweatpants and sweat shirts the whole time because the room was for some reason kept at the temperature of absolute zero. And I ain’t putting on one of those gowns for nobody, so don’t even ask.
Okay, here’s the weird fact about me. For as long as I can remember, I sleep in my clothes. It is not at all unusual - in fact, it’s pretty much usual - for me to go to sleep wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Ocassionally I’ll change into shorts, and I’ll usually ditch my socks.
Yes, I know it’s weird. Between that and the fact that I snap my fingers with my thumb and index finger instead of thumb and middle finger, I’m pretty much from Jupiter.
If I wasn’t told specifically to put on a gown, I most definitely wouldn’t, feeling relieved. Not saying that is definitely what happened, but it’s a possibility.
And Legomancer, I snap my fingers with my thumb and ring finger. Am I from Jupiter, or Saturn?
Maybe this is a good example of how medical professionals sometimes underestimate how uncomfortable and intimate it is to visit the doctor. I’ve stopped mindlessly complying with the order to undress, because I think too often it’s given without any thought to whether it’s really necessary or how it affects the patient.
Think about it from the patient’s perspective: You’re there among strangers, in an environment that’s usually not very comforting, maybe apprehensive about the upcoming test and results, still waiting for the doctor, and now to make things worse you’re supposed to lie there naked or nearly naked. Isn’t that a great recipe for making you uncomfortable?
Add to that the fact that you usually have to wait quite a while longer for the doctor, and half the time it turns out you didn’t really need to get undressed anyway.
And the gown is a moot point. I might as well lie there buck naked for all the dignity and modesty that gown provides.
I might go ahead and take off my shirt or something like that if it seems reasonable, but it’s likely you’ll find me fully dressed when you show up. If I wore sweats, it probably was intentional because they’re easy to work around or take off as necessary. Even if I truly need to undress completely, I might wait until you show up. I’m not going to lie around feeling awkward for half an hour just to shave a few seconds off of the doctor’s few minutes with me.
(I feel like starting a new movement: Patients, rise up and be heard! We will not be naked sheep! Rebuke the flimsy gown!)
I’m talking about that room (that bed) that’s costing you more money per day than a decent-priced hotel room. Ours are well-heated (or cooled) year-round whether you come in as a “short-stay” outpatient or whether you’re gonna be with us a while.
A patient doesn’t have to sleep in their clothes, but we don’t insist otherwise. Personally I would find it a bit confining to sleep fully clothed (okay, I’ll allow that sweats give a bit more room, but a shirt tucked into jeans that are belted?) and it would make it easier for the admitting physician to listen for breath sounds if the patient at least wore a t-shirt and briefs, not to mention for me to do an ECG.
Diff strokages, I guess. Still waiting for some of my fellow health pros to check in, though I appreciate the comments both pro and con from all of you.
For those of you who are limiting my question to the exam room, I have no problem there. I don’t consider you an in-patient in that regard.
Sorry to gender-generalize the “t-shirt and briefs” comment up there! I should have included the fact that it sometimes necessary for me to do an ECG on a lady, and in order for me to afford her the modesty she deserves, a gown drapes things quite nicely without embarrassing anyone, whereas if she’s wearing just a t-shirt and nothing else underneath,it becomes neccessary for me to enlist the services of a female nurse. (And yes, I realize that that’s a whole different area than the one I set out describing, but it bears mention. And no double e’s on the word “bears” please!:D)
Look Quasimodem, I respect all of the long hours and other crap you MDs have to go through to practice medicine and save lives.
But for CHRIST’s sake, WHY DO YOU GUYS NEED EASY ACCESS TO MY ASS!
Story time!
I was having some bones fused and a tendon lengthened and relocated in my foot. I go in to have the outpatient surgery done. After giving me the demerol (and waiting about 10 min for me to go to happy land) they had me change into my gown and robe.
Picture this: I’m getting my FOOT worked on. Yet they need to me to be in an ASS-LESS gown for the procedure.
Foot
Ass
Foot
Ass
They are seperated by a SOLID 2 and a half feet! (maybe a bit more)
Now you can understand my concern, I know I’m going to be knocked out cold for this. Since I don’t really want to be awake when they use the medical equivelent of a drill press and a disk sander on my bones. I’m going to be knocked out, surrounded by a bunch of doctors and nurses who NEED ACCESS TO MY ASS TO WORK ON MY FOOT!
I am fully aware that my ass isn’t the object of worship or wonder. I know people do not travel for days on end, braving extreme conditions to gaze at the wonder of my ass. If they did, I’d be wealthier, 'cause they’d get charged per view. But somehow, the medical profession requires easy access to my ass.
End story time.
What I’m trying to get at Quasimodem: You’ve invading my ass space.
But honestly, I think it has to do with how more often than not the clothing suggest for patients to wear has more to do with utilitarian access to various parts of the body than modesty. And it’s all of the one type for all eventualities.
I think the answer’s obvious. Being in an institution like a hospital is a dehumanizing experience. Clothes are part of a person’s identity. By wearing their street clothes a person is asserting their identity.
They may be saying that they don’t belong here and affirming the idea that they’re going to be leaving, by being ready for it.
When I was hospitalized as a kid, I didn’t want to wear that gown. I wanted my clothes. I wanted to wear them to say that I am me, and I wanted to be dealt with like I was me. I didn’t want to have my ass hanging out in some dehumanizing smock for somebody else’s convenience.
I felt a lot better in my clothes, and by wearing them I was also saying that I was ready to leave.
CRorex, you are paying me a compliment I didn’t earn nor deserve: I’m a respiratory therapist, not an MD. I very rarely enter the surgical suite, and I don’t need access to your ass, but the surgeon may need access to your bare body. In the rare instance that you have a complication on the OR table, it may be necessary to catheterize you, or to do some other life-saving things which someone other than me may be better-equipped to address. See, it’s not about robbing you of your dignity, but simply a matter of expediency and possibly saving your life. Speaking for myself, I could care less what you look like underneath that gown, but I can certainly see your point and can empathize. As I stated, we don’t insist on the gown in an inpatient, non-surgical setting, I was just curious if any other of our Doper’s patients get in bed fully clothed.
Scylla, your point is well-taken. I remember as a child not wanting to stay in the confines of the scary hospital as well, and yes, it can de-humanizing to some folks. As a matter of fact, I have seen some patients double-gowned: i.e. The gown that opens in back is put on properly while another gown is put on the other way, and tied in front. I may smile inwardly, but I respect that person’s need for dignity and modesty.
Again, my intent was not to critisize y’all, just asking if this is as common-place as it is in my little Dallas hospital. Apparently it is.
Sorry, I’m still a little miffed about why they needed access to my ass. Even though it was… 7 years ago? 6 years?
I’m a little scared that you’re allowed patients when you say, “it may be necessary to catheterize you, or to do some other life-saving things”.
:eek:
I don’t ever want to be in a situation where I’m in the ER badly injured and the doc asks me, “The only way to save your life is to put a cathader in you. May I shove a plastic tube in your urethra?”
Hospital gowns are immodest, no warth or comfort, they smell strange, they are wrinkled and unattractive, and they make you look and feel vulnerable.
When my young son was in the hospital for a twelve weeks, he was in the gown thingy the evening and night he checked in, by the next evening we had asked someone to deliver his own jammies from home. He was admitted for severe chicken pox and then stayed when diagnosed with a sub acute leukemia. On days when he was ambulatory, he wanted to wear his own shirts and shorts and even shoes to the playroom - not jammies.
It’s interesting to note that the when he wore his own jammies or play clothes, doctors, nurses, phlebotomists and respiratory therapists, were more likely to speak to him. To say hello and tell him what they were doing. On those occasions (like admitting and ultrasounds or mri’s and such) when a gown was required, the staff tended to talk past him to each other or to us. Additionally we found they were more likely to just move aside or slip a hand inside a hospital gown, whereas if it was his clothing they might say something like " Hey little guy, will you hold your shirt up so I can listen to your heart?" Which do you think we preferred to happen?
I guess it’s the dehumanizing the others mentioned above.
The bottom line is that in addition to him feeling more comfortable and safe in his own things, we noticed he received more compassionate, and attentive care when wearing his own jammies and play clothes.
Like lesa, I just do what I’m told. But I’ve suffered many an hour dressed in a paper gown perched on a cold paper-covered table in a walk-in freezer decorated like an examining room. When I went for my post-gallbladder surgery checkup, I was in said paper gown with my sweater wrapped around me thinking warm thoughts. Dr entered with a brilliant “Oh, are you cold?” :rolleyes:
Its terrible … just terrible. You know you are in trouble when the nurse doesn’t say “you may feel some pain" but “This is going to hurt and I’m sorry.”
I recently had to take my 1 year old to the hosp for sever upper resp. infection. I got to hang out with the pediatric RT a lot during all of that. He was a really nice fellow who took the time to explain what he was doing, and I found myself quite interested in what you folks do for people.
And I sleep in my clothes, too. Don’t know why, I’m just not as warm in a nightie as I am in something with a “leg” on it. It’s either soft elastic-waist pants or sweats with a t-shirt. Heck, it’s my uniform. And I wear it proudly. Heh.
