Similarly to other students within this blog, I too have come across inappropriate patient behaviour which placed me in an uncomfortable position. This occured on my musculoskeletal outpatients placement in which I was assigned to the ongoing treatment of a male patient with lower back pain, aged early thirties. His treatment consisted initially of rotation PPIVMs, and following this it appeared he had devloped a state of arousal (there is no 'nice' way to put this!!) which was clealy evident.
At the time of treatment I found it fairly easy to ignore, and both the patient and myself pretended not to notice and the session was continued without pause. I did however find it uncomfortable and awkward to complete the rest of the PPIVMs sets, at the time I didn't hesitate long enough to realise that the close-body contact involved in this technique to stabilise the upper trunk may be influencing him. I did follow a hands-off approach for the rest of the treatment however, and following the session thought not much of it and wrote my notes as planned. I did however mention it over lunch to one of my friends, who in the following class jokingly said that she was going to inform our supervisor, and then actually did. Our supervisor was mortified and told me that this patient had expressed similar behaviour with the last female physiotherapy student he had, and that he was supposed to be assigned to a male student from now on but that she had forgotten. She apoligised to me immediately and assigned him to someone else, ensuring me that I had acted appropriately but that I should've told her straight away myself.
Although my behaviour was certainly professional in this situation, we must remember that we do not have to deal with situations such as this independently and that our desire to display professionalism should in no way put us in uncomfortable positions such as these. Our supervisors are their to assist us and I should've thought to tell mine rather than putting up with the problem myself, as in this case there was a much simpler solution - to transfer the patient to a male physiotherapist. Furthermore if ever placed in a similar situation I would think to leave the room immediately to allow the patient to compose himself and consider bringing someone else into the room, whether it be my supervisor or a fellow student (preferably male).
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2 comments:
Wow! what an experience to go through as a student! I guess there will always be awkward situations that we will all have to deal with and it's just a matter of remaining professional and knowing how to deal with it. In this case and for the rest of our pracs we're lucky to have our supervisors but when we've graduated it would be a good idea to know the channels to go through inorder to discuss or report any problems!
Ive had the opposite well kind of the opposite if I was male. I had to give a pectoralis release to a female patient and as I was doing it the patient told me that if I was male I would not be allowed anywhere near what I was doing. It makes you realise throughout physio the guys have to be really careful how they treat their patient with any hands on treatment just as much as the girls.
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