My first prac this semester was a Musculo outpatient prac, and whilst there I encountered a difficult situation with a male patient which made me feel very uncomfortable and embarrassed. The situation occurred whilst I was performing the subjective examination, and from the very start of the treatment session I had an uneasy feeling about this particular patient, who was in his early thirties. He was making inappropriate comments right from the start, just not the sort of thing you say to someone you have just met, let alone a young female. Anyway, I had come to part of the questioning which involved asking about morning pain and stiffness, and to this question I got the most inappropriate and embarrassing sexual comment I could have imagined. I realise I may have worded the question entirely wrong, but I still thought it was highly inappropriate for him to react the way he did. It took me a few moments to compose myself, but then he just carried on making smart comments.
So eventually I just excused myself and went to my supervisor and told him what had happened. And although we both then saw a funny side to the situation, he also reassured me that I had done nothing wrong and that this man was acting in an unacceptable way. He made me realise that I should never turn the blame on myself and make excuses for people who act this way, and that even if I had worded things wrong, that was no excuse for him to react like that.
I had to continue seeing this patient for another few sessions. My supervisor did ask if I wanted to hand him over, but I felt like I would just be running away from the situation instead of learning to stick up for myself. So on the next session, my supervisor got one of my classmates to come in the cubicle with me, and he also sat outside the curtain the whole time. This gave me a huge amount of confidence and I was able to be firm with the patient and he soon realised I would not stand for any more jokes.
So I guess what I have learned from this is that communication is such a huge part of physio, and we get so used to just asking all the questions we ask in parrot fashion, that sometimes we don’t pay attention to what comes out our mouths. Also, he could probably tell from my initial reaction that I was not going to put him in his place straight away. In future, and especially with male patients, I will be very careful how I word such questions. But saying that, I will also have more confidence in telling any inappropriate patients that their behaviour is not acceptable, now that I know it is well within my rights to say this straight away. And also knowing that hospitals have such strict laws on sexual harassment is a help, and that you have the right to pass such patients on to someone else.
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2 comments:
This must have been an awkward situation for you and one that we should all be aware of regardless of our gender. Like you said, it's important that we think about how we word certain questions but it presents further dilemmas in terms of knowing how far things should go before they need to be mentioned to someone else.
Similarly, we need to have the confidence in knowing how to respond to the patient if that were to happen to us.
I agree- this must have been an extremely challenging situation for you- especially on a first prac!
I think you handled the situation well- knowing when to go to a higher level (supervisor) is really important to help sort out these situations. I think you did really well to be able to take the higher ground, and decide to continue treating this patient with another student present.
It can be extremely intimidating as a female physio student when dealing with an older male patient, but I think being confident in yourself and your skills and knowing when to seek help is extremely important and a skill we all need to work on.
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