First of all, the entire medical community should know that a rectal temp is the most accurate, but unfortunately, they do not. Why don't they? Well it's simple really, they have no critical thinking skills, or logic.
If you have taken a high school biology class you should have been taught basic concepts like fight or flight. If you took basic Chemistry you should have been taught basic concepts about core temps. Hell for that matter, if you took Earth Science which is required by law here in the state of Ohio in 7th grade, or at least it was when I was younger, then again, you should have been taught the concept of how things work around core structures. And I am so not wording that correctly, but you get my point.
Those concepts basically teach us that the closer you get to the core of something that is "alive" for lack of better terms, the more accurate, more concentrated, and more important things are located. The further out from the core you get, the cooler things get, less concentrated and so forth. This is one of the reasons people complain about cold fingers, feet, hands, and toes. They are the furthest from the core of the body. If you have ever watched a show like CSI or another forensic show you see the coroner sticking a temperature probe in the liver to get the most accurate temp they can to help determine an approximate time of death. It really is just plain common sense, and maybe a little bit of simple critical thinking.
If I have said this once I have said it a good thousand times here. In today's medical world getting a temp on a live person isn't as necessary, critical, or important as it was 50 years ago. Back in the day they didn't have the equipment, technology, ability, or medications even to trouble shoot a diagnosis like they can today. Yes accurate temps are still important and can be a vital tool when dealing with critically ill patients, but for the patient going to their doctors, it really isn't important.
A good medical professional can usually take one look at a patient and tell if they have a temp not within normal limits. Back in the day if you had a temp of 99 point something you got treated with something, usually a huge shot of Penicillin in your ass. But in today's medical world we do not treat temps until they reach 102. Medical advancements have proven over and over that your body often times can take care of itself, if it couldn't then we would have died off millions of years ago. Research has proven to us that having a low grade fever is your bodies way of fighting off the bug you have and even taking something like Tylenol is actually preventing your body from doing the job it was designed to do, or dragging out the healing process longer than it would be if you just left it alone.
All vital signs are important, but they are NOT critical and or as necessary like they were back in the day, and again for the reasons sited above. On critical patients vitals are just that, vital. Sometimes vitals are needed to figure out medication dosages. However for the normal everyday patient going to see the doctor, vitals just are not all that necessary anymore. Again, critical thinking skills and common sense play the most important roles here.
Think about it this way. As I said, a good medical professional can take one look at you and tell if you have a temp high enough to require taking a temp, or treating it. You probably drove to the doctors, you walked in and you walked back to the examining room, under your own power. So obviously you are breathing and your heart is beating or you would not be able to do those things. So, taking a pulse and counting your respirations are a total waste of time and bring absolutely nothing to the table to help form a diagnosis. So that pulls off a temp, pulse, respirations and the last thing is your blood pressure. Again, if you made it to the doctors office I can assure you you have a blood pressure. Out of the 4 vital signs that is the only one that might need to be assessed more frequently, but ONLY if you are having cardiac issues, generally speaking, or need meds that require a blood pressure to calculate a correct dosage or because of the effects some of these meds have. Half the time our patients blood pressure isn't even close to what it normally runs because of issues like white coat syndrome for example.
So please let me say again before I get plastered. Vital signs can be vital and very important, but they are not always necessary these days to form a diagnosis. So if you go to your doctor and they don't take a full set of vitals, please don't feel you are not getting the care you deserve, are paying for, your doctor doesn't care, quite the opposite in fact. Your doctor is putting his time on things that are important and on things that are going to help you the most.
And that is my nut for the day.
Mashie