Inappropriate patient

I’m sure many of us have had an expience of some kind with a patient behaving inappropriately at some point in our pracs this year. My first encounter happened recently on my musculoskeletal prac. We were made aware at many times during the year that it does happen, especially to students. I thought I was prepared to deal with it if it was ever to happen. (especially since working in aged care for three years I’ve had my fare share of inappropriate comments and have learnt to deal with them well!!) The patient in question was 35 years old and within the first minute of my sebjective assessment he had told me his expectations of physiotherapy was to take me out to lunch, dinner, then live happily ever after! (WHAT?!!!) I felt incredibly uncomfortable from then on as the comments got more and more inappropriate. I was very concious of not giving him any hint of encouragement throughout the assessment, I became quite closed in my body language, didn’t smile and made my questions as specific as I could (not the best thing to get info out I know!) Once the Subjective examination was over (very relieved) I went to talk to my supervisor. He was in the middle of an assessment himself and so I was only able to alert him to the sleazy patient. I tried to find another student or physio that was free to sit in with me on the session...there was none! I went back in for the objective and the treatment and did that as quickly as I could. I was surprised and a bit frustrated that I didn’t have the guts to say somethig to the patient during the session – I felt quite threathened and uncomfortable because his attitude just took me totally by surprise. After the patyient had left, I told my supervisor. We have organised for him to sit in with me when I see this patient next as we know this will solve the problem. I am still quite nervous and uncomfortable about seeing this patient again but there are no other physios to transfer him over to. I know other people will have had similar experiences...how did you deal with it? I think one of the reasons why I didn’t stand up to him in the first place was the fact that I still feel like a student! (and that I don’t necessarily have the authority of another Physio)