austingirl,
The rod is called the ‘indifferent bar’ and is used in two ways -both of which require a damp contact pad around it and both of which are completely safe.
The first is for galvanic current circuit completion - so it is required in order to complete the circuit for galvanic aka direct current.
The reason the rod needs to be covered is that a good contact has to be established for the current to be complete and a damp, absorbent, flexible medium like a spontex pad or thickish wad of paper does that.
The second use of the rod involves the electrolysist’s use of an auto mode on the epilator. This time, the rod is used for detection of current as opposed to completion of current circuit. In this case minimal contact of the skin with the rod is enough to do the job.
There are rules governing use of this bar and it is completely safe.
The rules are about establishing whether there are any ‘obstacles’ in the path of the current and removing or avoiding them if possible. These could be as simple as jewellery or they could be slightly more of a challenge like a metal hip replacement or they could be a contraindication to galvanic treatment altogether eg a cardiac pacemaker.
The more I think about your 2 practitioners not wrapping the bar for you, the more I think that they were not following best practice.
Other professionals will hopefully help me out here. Maybe there’s a tip i’ve missed about the indifferent bar.
Hope this answers your question at least partly.
June x