Anna finished her check of the patient's vitals and turned to leave the room, glancing at the comatose man as she started to leave. The immense tent in the middle of the sheet covering him made her stop in her tracks and do a double-take.
She automatically glanced to the man's face, but he was still out. She glanced at the EEG readout- no movement there, or in any other metric being tracked.
Her eye's returned to the bulge. She had heard of the phenomenon of spontaneous erections in comatose patients before, but had never observed one, not in four years of ICU experience. She considered getting the attending: she could always page him back to the unit- but this was hardly an emergency.
She did a quick neurological exam and noted no new response- in all respects the patient remained catatonic. Her eyes drifted back down yet again to the erection, which remained standing tall.
The patient arrived on the unit only a few hours ago. He had been found naked and unresponsive in a vacant lot, but had no evident sign of trauma or injury. They had done a quick MRI and some other tests, but found no indication of internal injury or brain damage.
Anna had assisted in the general physical examination earlier, and had seen the man naked, just like thousands of others before him. She hadn't noted any remarkable penis size at the time, but then again, she had been operating in a detached, professional mode at the time, and then there was also the fact that she had sworn off men a couple of years earlier, so she had no innate interest in male genitalia in general.
But the size of the tent in front of her indicated a pretty impressive tool. She felt an almost overwhelming urge to lift the sheet and take a peek, and was absolutely shocked with herself. She jerked bolt upright, and expression of horror on her face as she realized her hand had already been creeping towards the edge of the sheet.
"I am a professional!" She said aloud in an indignant tone. She would walk out of the room and note the event in the patients chart in a strictly clinical manner and move on to the next patient, like she ought to be doing, she thought.
But her feet seemed to be rooted to the spot, and her eyes to the mound. The impulse was impulse was irresistible. She licked her lips and glanced quickly out towards the nursing station, the central hub of the ICU, and from which all rooms could be viewed. There were two nurses at the station, both busy with their computers and charts.
She reached out hesitantly with a trembling hand, and as she did, a part of her mind screaming in protest at the absurdity of it. It's not like this sort of thing didn't happen- this would hardly be the first time someone snuck a peek at a patients privates. Nor was it that she was some sort of prude or straight-arrow. But she did take an enormous amount of pride in her professionalism, and her clinical detachment. The notion that she suddenly couldn't control herself was far more disturbing than the thought of taking a peek at a patient's privates.