For some in the field of medicine, TikTok fun trumps the Hippocratic Oath.
A couple of medical workers in Indonesia found themselves facing serious public scrutiny for oversharing on TikTok after they exhibited or implied inappropriate behavior towards people under their care.
Yesterday, viral content aggregator account Area Julid (@AREAJULID) posted a screenshot of a TikTok video depicting a masked nurse and the caption, “The time when I had to insert a urinary catheter into a male patient. He’s attractive, and we’re the same age too.”
The nurse never showed the actual medical procedure in the video. However, her creepy video attracted equally disturbing comments with heavy sexual connotations, including one by the nurse herself in which she implied she wouldn’t mind having amnesia just so she can be lovestruck by the patient again.
Amid intense public backlash after the video went viral, the nurse insisted that she still maintains professionalism at work and that having the kind of fun that she did is normal within the profession.
The nurse’s so-called justification was not supported by the Wonosari Regional General Hospital, where the TikTok video was taken. The hospital soon posted a clarification on Instagram saying the nurse is not a full-time employee at the facility.
“[She] is a student who is practicing at the Wonosari Regional General Hospital. Management will take the appropriate action [towards her],” the post reads.
The student is reportedly enrolled at Aisyiyah University in Yogyakarta. The university has apologized for the incident and said it has pulled the student from her work experience program at the hospital.
Today, another TikTok is making the rounds and triggering yet another public outrage toward health workers. A female medical worker has posted a video of herself playfully (some might argue aggressively) pinching the cheeks of newborns under her watch, deliberately making them cry, as well as disturbing them from their sleep to play with them.
“They think the little babies are safe with me,” the caption in her video reads.
The identity of the woman, or where she works, is not yet known.
As it were, medical professionals posting their inappropriate behavior online actually predates TikTok. In 2015, a photo went viral as it showed medical workers all smiles as they inappropriately posed behind a bleeding patient in Sulawesi.
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