With the rise of smartphones, it is increasingly common for caregivers to find themselves filmed or recorded by their patients in consultation or during treatment. Doctors, nurses, caregivers and patients testify to BFMTV.com about this trend which is beginning to invade their practice.
What was Céline Epsie’s surprise 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 is performing an ultrasound on a pregnant woman, while the spouse is filming.
“You see me from behind, in profile, up close… They recognize me well, especially since I’m wearing a jacket that I’m the only one to have since it was I who made it”, laments this wise – 48-year-old woman who practices in Morteau (Doubs), who has never been able to identify who the patients behind this video were.
At Céline Epsie’s office, the situation presents itself “easy two to three times a week, whereas before it was on the order of the exceptional”. So much so that in mid-March, she decided to affix a poster to warn that it was “PROHIBITED to film or record it without her permission during the consultation”. That same morning, she had just surprised a woman who had put her handbag on her desk, in which her mobile phone was hidden so as to record it. When she pointed out to him her lack of discretion, the angry patient slammed the cabinet door.
“Everyone dreams of being an influencer”
“It has become absurd, indecent”, gets angry Céline Epsie. “Today, everyone dreams of being an influencer and films their life to share it on social networks, even in medical offices! They take selfies, photos of the office, videos during the consultation in complete relaxation and it’s over on social networks. (…) Some film when they wait too long, others look for mistakes. It has become a way of displaying people”.
Asked by BFMTV.com, the midwife considers that this practice “poses a problem in several respects”. “First, there is the right to the image which concerns me. In addition, when we touch on the medical field, there are several questions which arise, in particular that of the violation of medical secrecy. What is – what will be done with the data that is captured? Will it be broadcast 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 as to say everything and its opposite to images”.
“The worst thing is that people often think that we don’t see them”, mocks Marie Duchon kindly. In the medical analysis laboratory, this nurse from Dijon no longer hesitates to ask young people who brandish their telephones to film her to put it down during blood tests.
“It happens at least once a week”, annoys the caregiver.
Live care sharing with family
And for good reason, the young woman has the memory of a very unpleasant consultation at the beginning of her career, during which she had to infuse an infant while she was filmed in FaceTime by her mother. At the other end of the line, the child’s father was watching and threatening her with the slightest faux pas. “He was yelling at me: ‘You had better succeed the first time, otherwise you’ll see'”, says the one who regrets not “having had the presence of mind to ask him to stop filming” at the era.
In the pediatric department of Metz hospital, Axel Gross says he is used to this type of situation. From now on, when the childcare nurse enters the rooms to provide care, parents and teenagers are no longer embarrassed to continue filming with their phones, often to share these moments with their loved ones:
“‘Here, look they’re going to wash his nose'”, throw the mothers to their husband, a sister, an aunt or a grandmother, while among teenagers, it’s rather ‘oh look today he’s the one who’s going to take care of me!'”
“Oh dear he sucks! Can’t you ask for another?” that they were on a video call. “It’s extremely unpleasant”, recalls the nurse, who is “not very comfortable with it”. “We hear all the comments from people who are not there and to whom we cannot respond. But I do not necessarily want people to identify me, to hear everything I say”. Now, when the screen is turned towards the child, Axel says “be careful to turn or not to be 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 first “destabilized” when she discovered that her patient – who had kept an earphone in full consultation – was actually recording her unwitting voice during a gynecological examination at the Bluets hospital in Paris.
“When I noticed it, I immediately asked her to get dressed and stop recording me, then delete the audio file”, says the gynecologist, who then realized that this patient had already registered other colleagues in consultation. What the patient, sheepish, immediately accepted.
Dr. Marmousset admits to having been “offended”, at first, that the bond of trust between her and her patient had been broken. But with hindsight, the caregiver realized that this patient, stuck in a complicated PMA course, was “hyper distressed”.
“She explained to me that she recorded because she could not follow what was explained to her during the consultations and that she never remembered anything. in the aftermath“, says the gynecologist. Today, she understands the approach of this patient, even if she regrets that she did not dare to ask her if she could register it – which she would have gladly accepted.
This is what Sandra did five years ago, before meeting the surgeon who was perhaps about to operate on her again for her breast cancer. “These are heavy and very complex care paths. Each time, it was very intense 15-20 minute appointments and everything that can be said is very important”, recalls this 53-year-old woman, living in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Reminder records
Until then, she had taken the habit of taking notes on post-its to be sure not to miss any information. But that day, the friend who accompanied 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 calmly. in the aftermath if necessary. What he accepted without flinching. “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 confides, a few years later.
“The act of recording or filming is not embarrassing in itself”, for the gynecologist-obstetrician Yves Ville, aware that most patients who record do not do so “in 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 they can be a little lost, mix up terms or information and prefer to keep track 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 belong to the patients. Personally, I assume the words that I can make and if people want to disseminate this information on social networks, that is up to them”.
“It’s the fact that it’s done under the table that I find disturbing and particularly ill-mannered”, nuances the head of the obstetrics department at the Necker hospital in Paris. “We can still wonder about what it reflects of our time. Culturally, it is undeniable that some people can no longer live without the prism of their telephone”.
