Author:
Richard
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Date Posted: Wednesday, October 05, 2011, 06:44: pm
I was in a relationship with a student nurse some years back. This was in the late 70s. This was well before the concerns about mercury in fever thermometers became an issue. Also, well before the ear thermometers, electronic units and the forehead strip "thermometers" became popular.
During illnesses regardless whether I was sick or she was, the rectal temperature method was what we used when taking each other's temperature. She had at least two of the rectal glass-mercury thermometers. I think, if memory serves me, they were the B-D Red Flash glass-mercury thermometers.
Initially when I met her and we discussed various issues, the matter of illness and RTs did come up. She told me that this was not an issue for her and had no problem with using the rectal method on someone needing their temperature taken,providing they were not objecting, otherwise she'd have used the oral or underarm method; nor was it an issue if her temperature was taken rectally. And itwasn't an issue for me. I'd had too many "invasive" procedures done to worry or be embarrassed by having my temperature taken rectally.
I suppose anymore with all the ear thermometers and forehead strips and scanner thermometers,that the rectal temperature method, whether being taken with a glass-mercury thermometer, Geratherm, digital or electronic probe, has pretty much fallen out of favor.
But then too, I'm sure that even in 2011, nursing students are taught that the rectal method is still employed for various reasons, and no doubt, there are those nursing students, and no doubt nurses who stll believe in this method and use it when necessary.
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