Originally Posted by
Murmer
SoldierNurse:
Your distinction between the socially acceptable and the professionally acceptable is interesting. I'm not sure what you mean, but here's how I read it.
The social sphere involveds what may or may not be acceptable to individual patients in a culture of society. This sphere recognizes that there may be differences in how people respond to intimate care. This sphere also recognizes individual atonomy in this area.
The professional sphere refers specifically to a profession, i.e. the medical profession. The patient really has no say in this sphere. If the profession says it's acceptable for opposite genders to do intimate care, then it's okay, regardless of how the patient feels. I must say that this attitude is too common within our healthcare culture. And when you enter a hospital, you do enter a unique culture, an institutuional culture that looks inward toward what's best for itself, inward to what will preserve it's existance, inward to it's own feelings.
Secondly, it isn't a question of whether this activity has any sexual connotations for the nurse. Who knows? We can't get into people's heads. I hope we can assume the professionalism of medical people and that, even if they do occasionally have these feelings, they can control them. But to make an out right statement that there are never any sexual feelings involved is to completely erase the sexual nature of who we are as human beings. That doesn't make sense. We have a sexual nature and we don't drop that -- nurse or patient -- when we enter a hospital.
Thirdly, too many medical people look inward at how they feel and not outward enough about how the patient feels. Just because you do this kind of work all the time and it's routine for you, doesn't make it routine for the patient. Just because you've gained controled over your feelings with expereince, that doesn't mean the patient, who may have had little hospital experiences, has control over his or her feelings. Just because gender doesn't matter to you, that doesn't mean it doesn't matter to the patient. Really, this isn't about you. It's about the patient and the patients feelings, comfort and emotional health.
I'm sure you're a wonderful nurse and most patietns of both genders are comfortable around you. But your notion of what's "professional acceptable" doesn't sit well with me, unless I'm reading your thoughts wrong. If I am, please correct me.