Nasty medical students

Nurses General Nursing

Published

We have a number of them on our floor since the past few weeks, and we can't wait for them to leave. Their clinical instructor is an abomination. She is very rude and disrespectful to the floor staff, and she encourages her students to do the same. You can't say anything at all to these people because they think they know everything and that they are God. Whenever they ask us anything, no matter what we say, their response is usually some rude or sarcastic remark. Also, they often take all the charts and clipboards into their conferences, and if the nurses need to make any references or do any charting its usually a hassle to get them even for a few minutes. Today I heard one of them telling one of the floor nurses that she is "only a nurse" just because she made a comment about the deteriorating status of one of her patients that he was assigned to. These people aren't even out of school yet and already thay have this bad attitude!

Later in the afternoon I was assisting a PCA with a totally dependent pt when a group of the med students came into the room. The pt was an adolescent with CP (quadriplegia case with severe joint contractures) who needed assistance with everything and the PCA was now trying to feed her. I was so shocked when the MD rudely shoved the PCA aside and said she and her students need to immediately access the patient to do an assessment. Never mind that there was no emergency and they were disrupting the patient's meal just so they could poke and stare at her and use high-sounding medical language to talk about her condition. There was something kinda surreal about the whole experience. Isn't medicine supposed to be all about dignified care of the patient? When did it become all about the egos of self-important physicians?

This MD and her students obviously feel they are better than the nursing staff but I wonder how much patient care they really think they could ever get done without us. I also wonder what kind of life these people go home to at the end of the day after being such total b*tches to everyone around them.

Sorry for the vent, but I just had to get that out! :)

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Specializes in Critical Care/ICU.

This group and their leader would get kicked out of my room the minute they showed any disrespect to any patient or nurse. My nurse manager would back me to the hilt.

I had this experience as a family member. The jacka**s didn't realize I was a nurse until I "reprimanded" them for charging in on my dad and completely disrespecting him, my mom and myself by flinging back blankets and not even telling us who they were.

Rude, rude, rude. This stuff needs to be nipped in the bud. The clinical instructor can be dealt with.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

Begalli....you said something that matters a lot here...your manager would back you. So many won't. Glad to see SOME will cause that is what it takes to get these kinds off our backs.....

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Specializes in Critical Care/ICU.
Begalli....you said something that matters a lot here...your manager would back you.

And believe me, after reading these boards, I realize every single day how lucky I am to be working in such a great unit with an incredbile nurse manager.

Believe it or not, the ICU RNs at my hospital are regarded with great respect by the docs. We are a team. I genuinely don't think I could work as a nurse if I didn't get the respect I've earned with my education and experience. I wouldn't be able to tolerate it. This is a teaching hospital. The docs learn a lot from us and they know and appreciate it.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I have found that to be true w/many ICU/CCU nurses. They work in close contact, as if in CONCERT with the docs. That is something to behold.......and I think wonderful. Too bad it's not like that everywhere....

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They don't teach bedside manners in medical school, I see. Patients are not animals in a cage.....in fact most people wouldn't treat an animal like that.

Why is it that hospitals put up with and allow this kind of crap?

All they gotta do is notify the instructors and residents that no rude, disrespectful behaviour will be tolerated, of any kind, enforce the rules, make em stick, and any complaints substantiated will result in privleges being revoked, or dismissal from the school.

These problems could be taken care of, but it will take some substantiated complaints, and administration backing you up.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Why is it that hospitals put up with and allow this kind of crap?

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why? well it would have something to do with the bottom line and how little value nurses have in the hospital food chain. We are seen as an expense, NOT an asset. That is why.

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Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.

Med students can be taught to be nice. And their instructor needs to be taken aside by your units attending and given an attitude adjustment.

If that doesn't happen, start documenting. Take the documentation to your nurse manager or higher till something does happen. You don't have tolerate that behavior.

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I remember when I first became an LPN, that nurses used to have to stand up when a doctor entered the nurse's station, give him her chair, etc. Nurses don't do that nowadays.

I have a problem with one doctor that I have to call occassionally, he always talks down to me. I finally got fed up with him, and twice now, I've gotten back at him. I told my NM about it, so she'd hear it from me first. She knows how he is, and she won't reprimand us if we get back at him.

But I'm just fed up with that kind of crap. I'm getting old...and nearing retirment, and I just don't care anymore. I'm not going to be treated like s*** the rest of my years in nursing. I'm too old for that.

That particular doctor that I have trouble with will always contradict anything a nurse says...if she told him the patient vomited while standing on his feet, he would say the patient was standing on his head. Doesn't matter what the nurse says, he's going to contradict and talk down to you while saying it. After I retire and no longer work there, if I ever meet up with him on the street I think I'll tell him what an A$$ he is.

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I am also lucky to work on a unit where our NM backs us 110%. New med students that show up on our floor with a bad attitude don't last long before getting put back in their place. Our fellows and attendings are wonderful about keeping them in line and respecting the pt and the nurses.

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Remind them, in no uncertain terms, that you and fellow nurse collegues have a license and they do not. So, until they graduate medical school, & get some experience under their belts, they need to keep their nasty,outdated attitudes about our profession out of your unit. Period.

Confront them on their sarcasm + rudeness. Call a meeting with the unit supervisor,nursing director, and whoever is in charge of these snotty brats.

You, your patients deserve better.

Keep us posted.

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Unbelievable! I am currently working on my prereqs to hopefully get into medical school one of these days. After reading this post, I am even more determined to get in. NOT so I can be one of them Nasty Wanna Be Docs, but so that there will be one more doctor out there who ABSOLUTELY values all you wonderful nurses. :specs:

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You can judge a person's character by how he treats someone who can't do anything for him and by how he treats someone who can't defend himself.

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