As a nurse, how do you perceive that physicians feel toward you?

[jaimeandjules]

First of all, please forgive my naivety if I am totally off the mark here. I am beginning a nursing program in August, so I have no experience and not much knowledge on this issue.

So, I was googling some info for my research project (which is about the career of nursing) and came across a post on another forum.

WOW, was I shocked to read post after post belittling, degrading, insulting nurses, calling them whiners and even making sexist remarks such as, "they're women, they just need to be affirmed"

This was all in response to a comment made by President Obama back in 2009. This is a student doctor forum, so I am not sure if doctors who do graduate often feel this disrespect and disgust toward nurses.

Is there some sort of competition going on here? It seems like all of these student doctors possess a lot of bitterness and hatred toward nurses. Is this what is really going on in the professional health care setting? Again, please forgive me if this is totally distorted, but since I am going into the field, I would like to know what to expect.

Thanks in advance!

[nursel56]

but then you'll always see the infamous debate about how a nurse is a nurse. it doesn't matter if they're a LPN, an ADN RN, or a BSN/MSN for that matter bc "they all take the same test."

but when you're speaking of doctors thinking nurses are undereducated - if that is true - how are they to distinguish. it's taboo to dare put BSN or MSN on your name badge to signify your education, of course. just a thought.

Doctors are very practical in my experience. They rarely will scrutinize a nametag to see what letters are after a nurse's name. If anything, the younger doctors tend to disparage advanced practice nurses more than they do nurses with less education. It isn't fair, but I guess they feel their education is far more comprehensive and time consuming, which would translate into better patient outcomes. They may have studies that purport to prove that to be the case, in fact.

The older doctors tend to pick a few "favorites" on their specialty units, and those are usually nurses who have been there working side by side with them for years on end. The one who knows exactly how to re-dress his incisions the way he likes it done. The nurse who knows which "abnormal lab results" are worth a phone call or not. Or that anomaly they know the doctor would not mind being roused from a dead sleep about. They want a nurse who enhances what he or she does as a doctor and who will have his back if something looks wonky, even if it's based on a hunch.

They don't know about or care about nursing diagnoses. When they were formulated, it was done without any collaboration with the medical community that I know of.