When I first began my internship at St. John’s Regional Medical Center Oxnard Pacific Ocean oscillating just outside my passenger window. College was all about seizing opportunities, gaining experience, and making contacts that would lead to a successful career, and I was sure that this internship was just what I needed to get an edge on the competition when it came time to apply to med school. Unfortunately this period of optimism didn’t last very long. I soon became disenchanted and grew to dread my time at the hospital, seeking out excuses to skip my shift any chance I got—homework, illness, beer. It wasn’t the subject itself that turned me off—I still find medical science incredibly interesting—but the tired, frustrated staff (doctors and nurses alike) who advised me not to go into medicine, and most significantly, the onerous, demanding, and just plain crazy patients who I was forced to contend with each week. Perhaps the biggest problem was that I was more interested in the patients’ illnesses than in the patients themselves. I’d find myself saying things like “you have multi-resistant staphylococcus, awesome!” which is not really an appropriate comment to make to an anxious patient. I lacked what you would call “a good bedside manner”. As a result, I often found myself in terribly awkward situations that I didn’t know how to respond to.
On one of those early days of idealism and enthusiasm I made way to the medical-surgical unit on the third floor and checked in with the head nurse. She greeted me gratefully and informed me that there was a patient on the unit requiring a sitter. I made my way to his room convinced that I was in for a relatively easy, unexciting 4 hour shift. Time on the med-surge unit was often filled with undesirable tasks such as changing the diapers of bed-ridden patients, sponge-bathing a morbidly obese man, or feeding elderly invalids who lacked the motor ability to lift a fork to their mouths. Being a sitter usually just involved sitting in the room with a sleeping patient making sure that she didn’t stop breathing and reminding her of who and where she was when she woke up disoriented. The white board across from the bed displayed a name and condition and you simply had to repeat it: your name is Mrs. Jones, you’re at St. John’s Hospital
That was the sort of thing I was expecting my day to consist of, so imagine my surprise when I entered the room that I was sent to and saw that the patient was wide awake, sitting up on his bed with his legs hanging over the side, the way you would sit when hanging out in a friend’s bedroom. He was an extremely thin man probably somewhere in his fifties (I’m really bad at determining age), dressed in green hospital scrub pants and a white t-shirt. He had shaggy brown hair with a full beard; he looked like Jesus. I introduced myself and took a seat in the chair opposite his bed. I had never sat for such an alert patient before (eyes open, sitting up) and wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. In attempt to break the ice I asked, “So how are you doing today?” Which is really a terrible question to ask someone confined to a hospital room, but where else could I start? The man made no acknowledgement that he had heard me, just continued staring down at his bed. I looked to the white board hanging above me for some indication of who he was and what he was in for but it provided no such information, just a greenish blur left behind after a half-assed erasure. And so we sat in a cloud of silence for several long minutes. Shortly thereafter he began grabbing at his bed sheets and mumbling incoherently. I rose from my chair to see if I could assist him in some way. Once I reached him I realized that he was attempting to pick the design, some sort of diamond or flower or other typical hospital linen pattern, off of the sheet. Apparently this man wasn’t as “there” as I had originally believed. At a loss I stood watching him as he put his thumb and index finger to the shape and squeezed them together just above it lifting an empty hand to his face, then repeating the process trying desperately to grab hold of the impression. I felt bad for the guy and wished that there was something I could do for him, but I didn’t know what that was.
Eventually he got bored doing this and his next move shocked me beyond all else. He stood up, looked me straight in the eyes, and proceeded to pull down his pants. Horrified I grabbed his hands as they approached the tops of his thighs, just before he revealed his genitals, and began to pull his pants back up again.
“No, what are you doing? Don’t do that!” I demanded.
There was a brief struggle, me trying desperately to keep his pants up and he fighting against me to pull them down. He was surprisingly strong for being so frail looking, but lacked endurance and soon gave up releasing his grip on the pants and allowing me to return them to their original position. I was relieved, but it turned out that he actually hadn’t given up quite so easily. As I returned the top of his pants to the top of his waist he lifted his shirt over his head and cast it onto the bed. Frustrated I picked up his shirt and began to force it back over his head. While I did this he dropped his pants to his ankles so that once his shirt was on he was completely naked from the waist down. Then I pulled his pants back up as he pulled his shirt back off.
Why was this man undressing before me? I was nervous, I was confused, I was uncomfortable. I tried to talk to him, to instruct him that he needed to stay clothed but he seemed unable to comprehend my speech and was angry that I wouldn’t allow him to get naked. He was intent on removing his clothing and I was baffled by his actions. I was also scared that a nurse or doctor would walk in to find me standing in the room with a disoriented, bare-skinned patient. Such a situation would definitely raise some eyebrows and I didn’t want anyone accusing me of taking advantage of the patient or acting inappropriate or any of the other things you might think upon entering a room to find an exposed incoherent person in the care of a competent other. Once again I quickly pulled his pants back up so that he was fully dressed. I rushed out into the hallway to seek help as he began to remove his shirt yet again. A nurse was passing by as I exited the room and must have noticed the anguish on my face because right away she asked, “Is everything alright?”
“No, this man keeps trying to take his clothes off!” I informed her.
“Oh yeah, he does that,” she answered matter-of-factly, “He likes to get naked and then wander into other patients’ rooms. That’s why he needs a sitter.” She chuckled, “just make sure he doesn’t leave the room like that.” Then she walked off down the hall to tend to her other charges offering no further explanation or advice.
I headed back into the chamber, annoyance now added to the panic and discomfort I had heretofore been experiencing. I would have liked to have had some sort of forewarning so that I could have prepared myself for this man’s nudity. Perhaps I would have handled the situation better had I not been so startled by his propensity to undress.
The man was standing exactly where I had left him but was now completely naked. I picked his pants up off of the floor and instructed him to lift his feet and step back into them. Astonishingly, he obeyed allowing me to cover up his bottom half. However, when I grabbed the shirt and made to put it over his head, he once again removed his pants. And so it continued for the next 3 hours, he undressing himself and me frantically trying to redress him—hoping to avoid full-scale nudity for as long as possible. I did consider giving up my effort all together as it was futile, but I felt it would have been more awkward to sit idly in a room with a completely nude man than to at least try to keep him covered as much as I could. Plus it gave me something to do—sitting in a chair staring at a strange naked man would have been quite boring.
