Rectal Temperature by Home Health Care Nurse

I just wanted to share what a friend of mine told me and I wondered about it.

She said that her brother was recovering at home after some serious surgery and a home health care nurse came every day to check on him. Part of her checking was the standard "vitals" - BP, temperature, heart and she drew blood every week for the 4-weeks that she came.

Anyhow, he and his sister were talking one day and they wondered if the Home Health Care Nurse would take his temperature --- rectally. So, they devised a scheme with a letter and a form from some company saying that he was participating in a post-operative study, etc., etc., and they needed for his temperature to be taken RECTALLY every other day for 10 days.

Well , as it turned out, the nurse didn't care one way or the other and - sure enough - when she came, my friend's brother had to lie on his side and she lowered his pants/underwear and took his rectal temperature. The Nurse was a mature Asian nurse - do you think this made any difference?

Now - little does my friend know that I enjoyed this story -- to them it was just a "joke".

What do you think abut this?

In my opinion, a nurse is a nurse, regardless of race, as long as he/she is a real nurse. I suspect you would love being impaled by a nurse's rectal thermometer! Am I right?

It's getting harder and harder to have a professional do rectal temps because they take too much time, and then require certain thermometers which usually contain mercury and always must be cleaned. Time is money to the pros. They would much rather do a temporal scan and drop the scanner back into the bag, ready for their next visit.