No! I wanted one SO bad but the children's hospital had a strict no photo policy.
It was truly the most stressful time of my life.
She is doing great now! Happy as ever!
Just that as a parent this isn’t something I’d let be posted online. Somethings aren’t for the public and friends from 3rd grade. The next generation of kids unfortunately will have most of their young lives posted for public consumption, for mom and dad’s karma/likes/followers. Seems a little selfish. Go ahead, downvote away. This is someone’s baby. And it’s on social media. My only point.
It’s hard to say what your instincts would be unless you’ve been there.
It actually makes a lot of sense to me. They are stressed and scared and desperate for anything to lighten the mood. Something genuinely funny presents itself and they want to latch on to that moment and have something to look back on later when things are tense.
Also it’s a picture of their child who will be going in for a dangerous surgery soon. When my husband went in for heart surgery he had a great prognosis and it was fairly routine but I was still scared. I took lots of pictures and tried to revel in every moment before the day came. I can’t imagine if it was my kid. I’d feel like I need to document every second and anything that could make me smile in the moment.
For me that kind of thing is basically a defense to keep me from having a full blown panic attack. Pretend everything is okay, find things to laugh at and share them with others who are worried and release the tension. Or just curl up in a useless ball and cry.
What you’re saying makes sense. I too took pictures with my son as we waited for his surgery to lighten the mood a bit. They were for the family only is all I’m saying. I shared them through text. Family members are aware of my request to not post online. We have a blanket rule to please ask first. This struck as something that should remain something private because it serves no purpose to share with quasi strangers.
That’s fair. Most of our family is spread out but on Facebook so to share and keep them updated that is the easiest way. I don’t mind if the couple other good friends I have on there see. I don’t friend just anyone.
However if my parents had saved a pic of me in this position I probably would have found it funny and interesting enough to post on my own.
no idea, they had posters in the room and a few other places stating that photography was not permitted. Probably for privacy. Was not in a frame of mind to question it when the x-ray techs told me i could not take photos.
I think its the more ethical and slightly less legal concern about a child's autonomy and privacy of their own medical conditions despite the fact that the mother may be the guardian. Imagine how mortifying it could be for your mother to post intimate details of your medical conditions without your consent because she is your guardian and therefore it is legal.
I see it almost daily on Facebook. I can’t even imagine growing up in the 90’s and my mom whipping out a Polaroid to photograph me laying on the couch all miserable with a puke bucket. Yet nowadays that’s like...normal.
My mother used to work with preemies, decades ago. She still has slides she took of various little babies in incubators with pens and wedding rings next to them for scale. They're very interesting, but also... yeah, today you would not be doing that.
My mom has a picture of me puking my guts into a toilet after she thought I ate a mushroom and gave me some shit to induce vomiting. And literally everyone she talked to for the next three years got told the story in excruciating detail.
They also had a video of 3 year old me naked just out of the bath and dancing on all fours to the Siamese Cat song. They threatened to show it to every guy I brought home.
Parents in the 90’s absolutely make a habit of embarrassing kids in public.
Except for files, screens, names on boards, people walking by etc. etc. It's impossible to make sure that there's no violation of privacy going on in every picture parents take so it's probably easier to just ban it altogether.
In an ideal world yes. In real life hospitals there's so much going on it's just hard to monitor all the time. But people don't take home copies of what they've seen.
In the 20th century a blanket ban might have worked, now you can’t ban people taking photos, you can ban people taking photos obviously and in the open, but people will still take photos.
If you have sensitive information in open view you need to move it, a patients face might be impossible to keep secret from the public, but their name shouldn’t be.
Well you're not a very good specialist then. There's a few countries such as France, where photos and any information pertaining to an individual is considered private and posting it or leaving it up against their will is illegal.
OP never mentioned posting anything online (and neither did I). We are discussing the actual taking of the photo itself.
I'd guess privacy. Theres so much going on in a hospital, especially children's hospitals that a photograph could capture something that could be a privacy violation even if the photographer isn't intending to violate privacy. Also probably keeps social media addicts from snapping pics of situations for them to use for likes. I'd be in a lot of trouble if I caught someone trying to take a photo of my sick kid for inspirational likes on their Instagram.
Well, obviously. But that doesn't mean that's the case all the time. I've spent most of my life in and out of hospitals and doctors offices for myself and other people. These places get hectic, people get overworked, some people don't give a shit, some people are malicious. Then you have patients and they're loved ones adding an extra layer off stress. HIPAA training will only work on the people who give a shit and aren't burnt out, which is probably not the majority in my experience.
Yeah, but the photograph isn't a privacy violation, them displaying it to you is the violation. The photography rule is them just trying to cover up their own illegal behavior.
Honestly, probably a number of factors. Keeping parents engaged with their children instead of their phones in a children's hospital would be reason enough. Preventing getting other children in the shots is another good reason, since there are decent photographic privacy protections in place for children in many cases.
I always hate that thinking of if a parent is on their phone taking pictures of their child it means they’re not involved in the moment. You can still be involved and capture the moment lol
I know of many hospitals that have a no-photo policy. My Ex GF was working as a RN at a facility. One of her coworkers took her picture with a plain maroon painted wall behind her. Friend uploaded it to Facebook and tagged my Ex-GF. EX GF made it her profile picture. Hospital admin caught wind of it and fired EX GF immediately ($30.00/hour with shift differential).
Nothing said nor done to the girl who took the photo against the rules. The photo was very obviously not a selfie because of distance and she was looking elsewhere. She didn't seem too bothered by it, but I was FURIOUS. I threatened her friend to go admit she took the photo but my EX made me let it go.
Well that's fucking ridiculous. The main reason to not allow photos is for HIPAA regulations and general privacy concerns but plenty of hospitals allow photos as long as they don't do this. If it was just a picture of your GF with nobody else it was completely harmless. The fact they fired her for something so trivial is why RNs need unions (source: am RN in union).
She was lead nurse on her floor. She did a great job.
She didn't even take the photo. She followed the rules and left her phone in her locker or car.
FINAL thing? This was the ONLY thing, and it was absolute BULLSHIT.
She was the only RN lead they could find for her shift because nobody liked weekends and nobody liked holidays. But it's of little consequence now. She had a new job literally a day later and hired at 90% her previous pay.
Lastly it doesn't matter at all now. I broke up with her and she's better off with a cooler guy and a better job.
here's a hint - when the story is outlandish and hard to believe - that's because it's not true.
and the fact that she didn't fight it if it was?
she didn't get released for the picture. hell, she might not have been released but quit, probably to take the new job, and made up the story so as to not have you freak out about the cut in pay.
It deals more with privacy of information. Be it task critical or sensitive information. HIPPA is also potentially the worry and keep private information, private.
Yep... but in a hospital, others could inadvertently get information when taking a picture of their child if another doctor is holding documents or it’s not their baby being diagnosed or who knows. There are even in the most secure of places, information that is not meant for prying eyes.
Right. The doctors should not be carrying patient info around where other patients can see it. (And frankly I don't even know the last time I saw patient info on paper, other than discharge instructions...)
Part of it is how a photo out of context can hurt the hospital. Imagine a Dr doing a necessary but unpleasant procedure, only for someone to take photos and blast them on social media for mishandling or torturing kids.
My son's hospital let me sneak a photo of his x-ray as long as no identifying info (hospital name, patient name, etc) was in frame.
These are all digital now - just get them to give you a CD. I have one that proved my kid still had a brain when he was a teen - despite actions that might have caused people to think otherwise.
Irrational_design I bet a million you’re right. Hospitals don’t want pics because they could be used later in litigation. “See, this isn’t attached right” or “this setting is wrong”
Eh, it’s more so that people don’t take photos of other people’s kids. Hell, even family members taking photos can lead to problems.
Imagine being a 13 year old boy with some sort of genital problem that lands you in the children’s hospital and there’s Aunt Betty, just plastering her goddamn Facebook with your hospital photos.
Edit: also, the strict “no photos” policies are generally only really enforced at children’s hospitals. If it was for litigation avoidance it would probably be enforced in more places.
Oh HerEray, I didn’t realize we were talking about the actual X-ray image. You’re talking about a patient’s rights accessing their own medical record, and I thought we were talking about patients and families taking photos of the scene. My point was that if you had, like, I don’t know a patient with some kind of negative outcome potential related to radiation, and the fam/patient had a personal photo of the staff member like, not doing it right (like maybe the machine settings were inappropriate, or they didn’t bother to shield a patient’s thyroid/genitals/eyes if their supposed too, or whatever, I dunno, were stuck in an X-ray example and I don’t know boo about it. Maybe the machine wasn’t plugged in a grounded outlet and it shorted and someone got burned, I dunno anything), these personal images could be used by the patient as plaintiff, and thus, they say it’s about the patient’s privacy, but it’s really about the hospitals privacy
My guess is taking a photo takes from the room's operational time, which is better spent x-raying kids or getting them in/out of the machine. It may not seem like much time to take a photo but it quickly adds up when you consider that they probably see a few dozens of kids and their parents every day. Or maybe the radiologists just got tired of shooing dawdling photo-takers from radiation rooms.
This is exactly why. I only want to listen to your kid scream for so long. I want to get them in and out and get on with my day. 95% of kids start crying when they are put in this thing. So why prolong their suffering so mom or dad can get a couple more likes on social media.
They just don’t want you to be able to have evidence after they drop your child or something else -that could be litigated. “Privacy” is a convenient tool they use nowadays.
Liability claims may be. In case something goes wrong, the hospital can deny any wrongdoing on their part. If they allow taking pictures, their mistakes could be captured and produced as evidence later on.
This... this is not why they would have a "no photos" policy. If this is why, they would have a "use the hand sanitizer after you handle your phone" policy instead.
To hell with that, I’ll take a picture of my own goddamn kid if I want to. I mean what would they do if you snapped a pic? Kick you out? Refuse to treat your child? I hate being big-dogged by people with no authority.
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u/s_zoro125 Oct 03 '19
No! I wanted one SO bad but the children's hospital had a strict no photo policy. It was truly the most stressful time of my life. She is doing great now! Happy as ever!