An ER nurse has revealed how one of her patients put in an unusual request after seeing her tattoos and piercings.
Tattoos are a common sight among Americans today. A Pew Research Center survey estimates 32 percent of U.S. adults have a tattoo and that 22 percent have more than one.
There does appear to be a stigma attached to having tattoos though, particularly if you are a woman. That was highlighted in a 2017 research paper published in the Journal of Social Psychology.
The study saw participants presented with a selection of images of the same men and women presented either with or without tattoos.
Participants were asked to rate the individuals in these images on things like character, drinking behavior, cognitive ability and personality traits.
In each category, the images of the people with tattoos scored worse, with the images of women wearing tattoos garnering the lowest ratings. The only categories this particular group fared better in were strength and independence.
The results suggest many still prejudge people with body art, particularly women. It’s an assertion that is backed up by the recent experience of an ER nurse who requested to Newsweek that her name, location and place of work be omitted from our story.
In a video posted to her TikTok channel, @dawntodusk9, the nurse, who asked to be referred to simply as Dawn, explained how she “just had an ER patient request a different nurse because he didn’t want a nurse covered in tattoos and piercings.”
In the video, Dawn addressed the unnamed male patient telling him he would have better luck finding a “pot of gold” and that her tattoos were her way of finding an outlet for the “trauma” she faces in her job every day.
At the time of writing the video has been watched over 400,000 times, with Dawn explaining that she created the clip because she “needed to vent” after a “crazy shift.”
“I just thought it was a very odd request to make,” Dawn told Newsweek. “If you come to the emergency department, but then provide stipulations to the care that you receive, maybe it’s not an actual emergency.”
She continued: “There are healthcare professionals that you can pick; your primary care provider, your obstetrician. But the emergency department is staffed by different doctors and nurses and technicians each day. We rotate out…. we are all highly skilled and trained providers, so we know how to handle emergencies.”
Though Dawn was frustrated at the request, she said it didn’t hurt her feelings. “I’ve been doing this for over a decade now,” she said. “I don’t take anything patients say personally. They don’t know me at all, and I do know my own worth. So it’s not like this bizarre behavior affects me at the end of the day. I know that I provide care to the best of my abilities to all my patients every shift and I have multiple patients a day thank me.”
Ultimately, she said she created the video to try and connect with other people that work in her profession who might have faced similar problems.
“If you see a lot of the comments, they are from other first responders, fire/EMT, other Emergency Department staff/nurses,” she said. “They get it.”
“Tats, piercings and sick sense of humor, run by lots of caffeine, that’s us nurses,” one user commented. Another wrote: “I work ED and 90 percent of my coworkers are so delightfully ratchety.” A third simply said: “ER doc here covered in tattoos and piercings.”
A small fraction of those commenting appeared to back the patient. “The golden rule of no piercings, and covering the tattoos in the workplace has gone out the window,” one complained.
However, most were stunned at Dawn’s story. “Tell me that’s not true. What is wrong with people? Love tattoos,” one said, with another writing: “This is just mind blowing. I have been in more hospitals lately caring for my dad who had a kidney transplant. Fairly certain none of us even noticed tattoos or piercings.”
Though the patient request might have caught her off-guard, Dawn has taken some heart from the positive responses her video has garnered from fellow professionals and members of the public alike.
“Healthcare as a whole is very difficult, but the emergency department and EMS is soooo much more difficult and stressful,” she said. “We see people at their most vulnerable moments. Sick, injured or dying. And it takes a toll on us. So bringing just this little story of like ‘can you believe this happened’ with a little bit of dark humor added to it just lightens it up some.”
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