Classism in the Hospital-MD vs. RN

[paramedic-RN]

This is not at all meat to be a rant about doctors, I have a ton of respect for doctors and love the doctors I work with but my boyfriend made a recent observation about how hospitals play into the classist separation of nurses and doctors I thought it was an interesting point that I just wanted to share.

At my hospital all the ER nurses have to park in the garage then walk to the hospital but the ER physicians have premium spots right next to the ambulance bay. Why can’t they park in the garage with the rest of us?

Our “doctor’s lounge” is fully stocked with free snacks and a mini buffet all the time. There’s no “nurse lounge” just break rooms.

At many free standing ER’s and small ER’s there is a “sleeping room” for the doctors and I’m not talking about an “on call” room I’m talking about the doctors who are like on the clock working that shift. Why don’t nurses get to nap on night shift? Sure someone has to stay awake but the nurses could take turns napping.

Why are physicians formally addressed as Dr..(last name) but nurses aren’t formally addressed as Nurse (last name). Why is it blasphemy to call a physician by their first name but not a nurse by their first name?

All these little details add up and subconsciously play on the psychology of nurses and doctors so it’s not surprise when you hear a near who’s hesitant to page a physician because she doesn’t want to “bother” them with an order they forgot to put in! Or nurses that are scared to question physicians over an order.

Do you guys see any other examples of this in your hospital?

[murseman24, MSN, CRNA]

It's just a very old and outdated hierarchical system that brings one profession up at the expense of the rest. Most of ya'll sound like you've drank the Koolaid and are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. The nursing profession will continue to garner little respect when you can't even respect yourself.

[Guest219794]

50 minutes ago, murseman24 said:

It's just a very old and outdated hierarchical system that brings one profession up at the expense of the rest. Most of ya'll sound like you've drank the Koolaid and are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. The nursing profession will continue to garner little respect when you can't even respect yourself.

Nope.

What I call a doctor, and whether or not she has a Keurig in her break room has nothing to do with my self respect.

I have self respect, and am respected by doctors regardless of whether I use their title to address them. I get respect because of my abilities and professionalism. I give respect for the same.

I don't even like Koolaid.

[Mini2544, ASN, RN]

It’s called production and revenue. Also I’m guessing you or your SJW boyfriend didn’t go to med school for 4 years, another 4 years of residency then another 4 years of fellowship. OH! All while their student loans rack up a ton of interest (since med school is like 300k.) If docs need sleeping rooms for 24 hours shifts, or cheap snacks or if they want to be called Dr... than that’s just fine. RNs don’t have a job, without a doctor.

[TheDudeWithTheBigDog, ADN, RN]

It's actually more simple than money. Most physicians don't actually work for the hospital, but because of working in the hospital system, they have to have days that they work there. While they're on call, they live in that hospital. They can't decide to go drive across the city to get food. Sometimes, their on-call time is more than one day. It seems like they get treated better because while they're on the hospital's clock, they don't have a home to go to. For parking, usually the outside physicians are allowed to use it, the hospitalists very commonly have to park with everyone else or they have their own lot near where they'd be while they're working on-call.

As for naming: Dr is just a title that you get when you get your doctorate. Someone with a DNP or a PhD in nursing has the right to expect to be called doctor. It's just standard that that's how we acknowledge someone with a doctorate.

And Mini, physicians don't really go to school any longer than any other doctorate. We like to attribute it to being this insanely time consuming thing, but that's just standard, with some classroom time being replaced as clinical time. No matter which direction you take, it's 8 years of school. That fellowship is just to specialize, which there's options to do in nursing. A doctorate degree is a doctorate degree. We need to stop feeding into egos for physicians. Their degree holds the same weight as college professors.

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

16 hours ago, murseman24 said:

It's just a very old and outdated hierarchical system that brings one profession up at the expense of the rest. Most of ya'll sound like you've drank the Koolaid and are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. The nursing profession will continue to garner little respect when you can't even respect yourself.

I respect all my coworkers regardless of their degree or title. From the cleaning staff to the CEO, I'm going to treat my coworkers the same. I do not fawn mindlessly over doctors because they're doctors, I treat them as professionals and for the most part that is reciprocated on their part. No Koolaid here. And some of the inequalities pointed out in this thread are not even initiated by the doctors themselves. I will continue to refer to them as doctor because that is a title they earned, and that comes with far more responsibility and serious risk of adverse outcomes than my role. For example, our facility has a family that is suing the hospital. Neither myself nor any of my nurse colleagues are being individually named in the suit- the doctors in the unit are out there by name. Referring to someone else as doctor is hardly degrading my own self worth.

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

1 hour ago, tonyl1234 said:

As for naming: Dr is just a title that you get when you get your doctorate. Someone with a DNP or a PhD in nursing has the right to expect to be called doctor. It's just standard that that's how we acknowledge someone with a doctorate.

And Mini, physicians don't really go to school any longer than any other doctorate. We like to attribute it to being this insanely time consuming thing, but that's just standard, with some classroom time being replaced as clinical time. No matter which direction you take, it's 8 years of school. That fellowship is just to specialize, which there's options to do in nursing. A doctorate degree is a doctorate degree. We need to stop feeding into egos for physicians. Their degree holds the same weight as college professors. 

I was in a PhD program at one time, but decided not to finish it. I would have been done in just over three years (after college) and then I would have been qualified to teach and do research, and be called doctor. No additional training required. That role would NOT have put me in the position to diagnose, treat and potentially kill people. Yes, we attribute the title doctor to anyone with a PhD or a MD, but those are not nearly the same. And I have two MD-PhD friends that totally agree that the PhD part of their degree was practically an afterthought compared with their MD training.

[paramedic-RN]

On 10/3/2019 at 9:37 AM, rn1965 said:

Times are changing, but, I feel if they went to school THAT long and take on that kind of responsibility, I will call them doctor.

Interesting and to be clear I have no problem calling any Doctor...doctor. As I said in my post I have great respect for doctors but there's definitely a psychological component at play in the nurse doctor interaction and I'm curious what kind of things feed into that.

[paramedic-RN]

On 10/3/2019 at 4:00 AM, Horseshoe said:

I've noticed that a lot of nurses on AN display a strong disdain for advanced education. Most don't seem to have a clue what it takes to get to the doctorate level and beyond. I can only conclude that this represents an inner insecurity.

I hear ya and I hope that's not the impression I gave off. I'm currently working on my masters and agree with you to an extent but in a different way. I haven't really noticed that among nurses but I have among just regular people (that haven't gone to college) who downplay how much work is involved in just getting a bachelors (especially one in health science, biology, chemistry, etc.)

[paramedic-RN]

21 hours ago, Mini2544 said:

It’s called production and revenue. Also I’m guessing you or your SJW boyfriend didn’t go to med school for 4 years, another 4 years of residency then another 4 years of fellowship. OH! All while their student loans rack up a ton of interest (since med school is like 300k.) If docs need sleeping rooms for 24 hours shifts, or cheap snacks or if they want to be called Dr... than that’s just fine. RNs don’t have a job, without a doctor.

Whoa whoa whoa, you're totally missing my point which I why I said in my post, but I'll reiterate here, I don't have any problem calling a doctor 'doctor', and I have a ton of respect for doctors and love the doctors I work with. But you're just blind if you can't see the subtle classism that exists in the hospital, why do you think that's there?! Why is the average nurse hesitant to page a physician sometimes? Are you even familiar with 'to err is human' where this exact problem was identified? There was one hospital which was so bad (in this area) that nurses in the OR were afraid to speak up during time out if a problem was identified during time out and that hospital had many 'wrong limb' errors in their operations. My goal here is to open the discussion on the psychology of this issue.

And again where I discuss sleeping rooms and parking spots it's in regard to MD's on 12 hour shifts and MD's working at that hospital not MD's that are moving around to different facilities all day.

Mini I see that you've been a nurse for one year so perhaps you haven't been exposed to this yet.

Also what is "SJW"?

[allnurses Admin Team]

Posts have been edited/removed.

This is not an ADN vs BSN or PhD vs MD debate.

Topic closed for a "time-out".