What was the surprise of Céline Epsie when one day, her high school daughter told her that she had seen her on Tiktok. In this short video, published in mid-March on the social network, the midwife performs an ultrasound on a pregnant woman, while the spouse films.
“You see me from behind, in profile, up close… They recognize me well, especially because I’m wearing a jacket that I’m the only one I have because I made it”, laments this wise man – 48-year-old woman who works in Morteau (Doubs), that he has never been able to identify who the patients behind this video were.
In Céline Epsie’s office, the situation is “easy two or three times a week, whereas before it was of the order of the exceptional.” So much so that in mid-March she decided to get high a sign to warn that it was “PROHIBITED to film or record it without your permission during the consultation.” That same morning, he had just surprised a woman who had put her bag on her desk, in which she was hiding her mobile phone to record it. When she pointed out her lack of discretion, the patient angrily closed the cabinet door.
“Everyone dreams of being an influencer”
“It has become absurd, indecent,” Céline Epsie gets angry. “Today everyone dreams of being an influencer and films their life to share it on social networks, even in doctor’s offices! Selfies, photos of the office, videos are taken during the consultation in complete relaxation and it ends on social networks. (…) Some film when they wait too long, others look for mistakes. It has become a way of showing people.”
Asked by BFMTV.com, the midwife considers that this practice “poses a problem in several aspects.” “First, there is the right to the image that worries me. In addition, when we touch the medical field, several issues arise, in particular that of the violation of medical confidentiality. What is it, what will be done with What is the data that is captured? Will they spread online? For what purpose?” asks Céline Epsie, who is aware that today “it is possible to cut and modify photos and videos in such a way that they say everything and its opposite to images”.
“The worst thing is that people often think we don’t see them,” Marie Duchon gently scoffs. In the medical analysis laboratory, this Dijon nurse no longer hesitates to ask young people who brandish her phones to film her to leave him during blood tests.
“It happens at least once a week,” the caretaker annoys.
Share live care with family
And for good reason, the young woman has memories of a very unpleasant consultation early in her career, during which she had to infuse a baby while her mother was filming her on FaceTime. At the other end of the line, the girl’s father was watching her and threatening her with the slightest misstep. “She was yelling at me: ‘You better get it right the first time, otherwise you’ll see,'” she says, lamenting that she did not “have the presence of mind to ask him to stop filming” at the time.
In the pediatric department of the Metz hospital, Axel Gross says he is used to this kind of situation. From now on, when the childcare nurse enters the rooms to provide care, parents and adolescents no longer feel ashamed to continue filming with their phones, often to share these moments with their loved ones:
“‘Look here, they are going to wash his nose'”, the mothers throw at their husband, a sister, an aunt or a grandmother, while among adolescents it is rather ‘oh look, today is the one who leaves to take care of’. from my!'”
“Oh, God, he sucks! Can’t you ask for another one?”, who were on a video call. “It’s extremely unpleasant,” recalls the nurse, who “doesn’t feel very comfortable.” “We listen to all the comments from people who are not there and to whom we cannot respond. But I don’t necessarily want people to identify me, to listen to everything I say.” Now when the screen is turned towards the boy, Axel says “be careful turning or not being too visible”.
Distrust of the medical profession?
If they can be unpleasant, these untimely recordings are not all malicious. Two months ago, Dr. Manon Marmousset De La Taille was “unbalanced” for the first time when she discovered that her patient, who had been wearing an earpiece in the middle of the office, was actually recording her involuntary voice during a gynecological examination at the Bluets hospital in Paris.
“When I realized it, I immediately asked her to get dressed and stop recording me, then delete the audio file,” says the gynecologist, who later realized that this patient had already registered other colleagues in the consultation. Which the embarrassed patient immediately accepted.
Dr. Marmousset admits to being “offended”, at first, that the bond of trust between her and her patient had been broken. But in retrospect, the caregiver realized that this patient, caught up in a complicated course of PMA, was “hyper distressed.”
“He explained to me that he recorded because he could not follow what was explained to him in the consultations and that he never remembered anything. a posteriori“, says the gynecologist, who today understands the approach to this patient, although she regrets that she did not dare to ask if she could record it, which she would have gladly accepted.
This is what Sandra did five years ago, before she met the surgeon who was perhaps about to operate again on her breast cancer. “They are heavy and very complex care routes. Each time, they were very intense appointments of 15 to 20 minutes and everything that can be said is very important,” recalls this 53-year-old woman who lives in Seine-Saint-Denis.
reminder records
Until then, she had made a habit of taking notes on post-it notes to make sure she didn’t miss any information. But that day, her friend who was with her offered to ask the surgeon if she could put her mobile phone on the surgeon’s desk to record it and be able to listen to it again with peace of mind. a posteriori if required. Which she accepted without blinking. “It allowed me to listen to him again after the fact, and to realize that I had not paid attention to some small details that he had told me,” she confesses, a few years later.
“The act of recording or filming is not shameful in itself”, for the gynecologist-obstetrician Yves Ville, aware that the majority of patients who record do not do so “with a logic of espionage”. “Many come to see me for a 2nd or 3rd medical opinion, having seen many colleagues before me. I understand that you may be a bit lost, confuse terms or information and prefer to be aware of what I say.
“If it goes in the direction of being better understood, that’s fine with me,” says Dr. Yves Ville. In the end, “the consultations and what is said there belongs to the patients. I personally assume the words I can do and if people want to spread this information on social media, that’s up to them.”
“It is the fact that it is done under the table that I find disturbing and especially rude,” qualifies the head of the obstetrics department at the Necker hospital in Paris. “We can still ask ourselves what it reflects on our time. Culturally, it is undeniable that some people can no longer live without the prism of their phone.
Source: BFM TV
