If you read Dear Prudence on Slate.

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in Urology, ENT.

Here's the link to the source:

Dear Prudence: Miserable Doc

Click the link and scroll down to the letter from the "Miserable Doc." The letter writer is a new pedi resident who is having issues with the nursing staff she works with. I think the comments to her letter are more interesting than the letter itself -- what she's writing sounds a lot like the fact that she's new, and she doesn't know how to interact with anyone yet.

So in your experience, when (or if) you've had to deal with a resident rather than the attending, when did you start "respecting" the resident's decisions? I put it in quotation marks because I'm not sure what the appropriate word would be. We're always taught to ask questions, especially when our nursing judgment/gut/whatever says, "Something is wrong." If you were a new grad working a new resident, was that like the blind leading the blind?

By the way, the comments at the bottom of the page, some are neutral and some defend the doctor. My take on it was it sounded like me the first time I talked to the doctor (and sounded like an idiot), or really, the first day of clinical when I didn't know heads or tails of anything. Granted, obviously, my experiences are definitely different from a doctor's.

Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

When they ask what I would do. Then we can be friends :)

Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.

I actually liked Prudence's advice. Ask the nurse's about how the patient is doing. Try to seem helpful.

Based on the attitude of the resident she comes off as a know it all. I have dealt with female AND male new residents that act like this, and I question their orders and put them in their place unbiasedly. To think she is being picked on just because she is a woman is silly

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