Nothing upsets me more when a pre-meds bashes the nursing profession. After hovering over the SDN site (student doctor network) I find that a lot of pre-meds thinks that nurses are below them when they are not even in med school yet! I just don't understand their mentality of why they can sit on their high horses all day and talk about nurses because they're "aspiring doctors". And it is not even the SDN site, it is also the pre-meds at my university that made me want to check out the site anyway.
They tried to talk me out of being a nurse because some thing called the nursing module is stupid and take a thousand year for a nursing to do any obvious diagnosing and it should be only up to the doctors to that. So nothing gets my blood boiling when people think they are better than you then actually worrying about being a considerate, capable doctor w/o bashing the nurses!
Rant over. I was going to rant on the SDN forum but I'm not a pre-med and I don't think they care much.
The problem is that this attitude doesn't stop when they get into medical school. We get med students at my hospital and they can be seriously obnoxious. They expect us nurses to give them a full report at 6am when we are trying to get our last tasks done before day shift arrives, they simply sit down and take our computers even when all our stuff is clearly set out around it, one even had the audacity to pull down a complex dressing on a patient of mine about 20 minutes after I had done my dressing change AND left it off and sitting in the bed with them. When I was in nursing school we got read the riot act about how we were guests at our clinical facilities, how we would be respectful of those working there and that we should consider it a privilege to be there. Guess that shows you the difference in education.
Thankfully our Medical team very much believes in a team effort between nurses and physicians, one student got reemed out by the head of our Trauma team. He made the mistake of saying "Well they did that" and pointed at the nurses, she was not impressed. Also after 2 days of this jerk student pulling down my dressing each morning, after I had told him I do my dressing changes at 530 and he could meet me then to look at the wound, I finally was done. Day 3, I watched him go into my room and pull down the dressing and when he was all done I was standing there with a bucket full of wound care supplies and handed it to him. When he looked at me funny I told him that if he was taking it off he was going to put it back on, properly. He whinned about having a lot more research to do on the patient and I told him if he felt he was above putting that dressing back on I'd be happy to let the our Head of Trauma know about that (she's a huge stickler for wound care). He put that dressing back on AND began showing up at 530 to meet me for dressing changes.
My mom was a LONG time RN Diploma school. Dad was a lab tech before they even had certifications. He ran the night lab and blood bank at a moderately large Midwest city hospital. They used to come in with humorous horror stories about the new crop of interns every June 1st. They called them puppies because they fell all over themselves and left little piddling messes wherever they went. You had to walk behind them with a dust pan and broom and try not to let them break anything that couldn't be fixed. The best ones learned quickly to respect the nurses and techs. The ones that didn't? let's just say nurses send an awful lot of patients to a doctors way. If they respect them. Not so many to an idiot.
All my friends were Pre med in college. As the years went on people dropped that idea quick and realized they couldn't handle it. Long story short I graduated with my BSN in 4 short years and started working right after graduation while most my pre med friends were either still in school figuring out another major or dropped the pre med status and graduated without a primary focus on what type of career they will have after school. Out of most of the people I knew who were pre med I know maybe a handful of people who took it all the way and are now doctors. Don't fret!
Oh you bet I did and stood over his shoulder to make sure he did it right. I was nice after and told him what a great job he did, I think it dawned on him then what kind of work we do.
only 40% of pre meds get to med school there really is no second chance besides reapplying and retaking it, so the fact that 60% of pre meds don't matriculate should speak enough that all of them aren't the cream of the crop.
Nursing school is more lenient with grades definitely but comparing med school which is an M.D. with a BSN are two very different things, but a pre med is an undergrad concentration.
I'm confused. What does this have to do with my post?
So, in general... the original post and some of the responses demonstrate the out dated mentality of nurses VS doctors... Everything circles around. They can't do it without us, we can't do it without them. I'm sure at one pount we have all been arrogant or cocky regarding something until we get knocked off our high horses. It's also interesting to see some of the comments posted... in response to the original post. Admittedly it is very difficult to convey emotion over texts, e-mails, posts... but some responses sound a little... charged. Why can't we support each other, respect opinions, rants etc?
My first thought here was the cattiness that comes out between CNA'S and Nurses, and how nurses have said this exact thing. "We can do your job, but you cannot do ours." (Guilty)
While this is true, it still stings to the 'lower man on the totem pole'.
I have a lot of empathy for med students and residents, especially the PGY1s. I go out of my way to be helpful to them and help them relax, make suggestions, watch out for problems, etc. I think it's a win-win-win.
1) It's better for the patient
2) It's better for the doc (I'm the one who's chosen to work in a teaching hospital, after all)
3) It's better for all the nurses in the future who will work with this doc who, hopefully, has learned that nurses are friends, not food.
Some of my colleagues are downright awful to the residents and med students.[/QUO
Yes we do ALL have to start somewhere. Being gracious and teaching the newbies will bless both of you lives...and the patient's life.
*runs and hides*
auntEgogo
38 Posts
I was hoping you'd make him redress it.