Do drs really look down on nurses?

Published

I am thinking of changing my career as an engineer to a nurse. I am used to people looking up to me and being part of a team. We are all equals and we work together to get things done. What is the mentality in the medical field, do drs work with or against nurses? To me they couldnt do anything without us and it would be in their best interest for us to work as a team.

Specializes in Peds Cardiology,Peds Neuro,Pedi ER,PICU, IV Jedi.

:gandalf: It is a wise person who knows this...

So true, and yet so often ignored.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about nursing is this continual need to wring our hands about how others perceive us.

If only we do this, people will respect us.

If only we do that, people will respect us.

etc. etc. :barf01:

Respect starts at home. If we respect each other, and respect ourselves, the attitude WILL convey.

Most docs are great. Some are jerks. Like every group of professionals, they are composed of INDIVIDUALS - who all put their pants on one leg at a time and who experience the same gamet of emotions and bad character traits as us other humans.

My take: go into nursing, be the best professional you can be, hold your head up high, and command the respect you deserve. And, that respect from others will rise to the occasion.

With repeated exposure to YOU, most of your allied health peers, dr. et. al. will respect or not respect YOU based on YOU.

~faith,

Timothy.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med-Surg.
I think one of the biggest misconceptions about nursing is this continual need to wring our hands about how others perceive us.

If only we do this, people will respect us.

If only we do that, people will respect us.

etc. etc. :barf01:

Respect starts at home. If we respect each other, and respect ourselves, the attitude WILL convey.

Most docs are great. Some are jerks. Like every group of professionals, they are composed of INDIVIDUALS - who all put their pants on one leg at a time and who experience the same gamet of emotions and bad character traits as us other humans.

My take: go into nursing, be the best professional you can be, hold your head up high, and command the respect you deserve. And, that respect from others will rise to the occasion.

With repeated exposure to YOU, most of your allied health peers, dr. et. al. will respect or not respect YOU based on YOU.

~faith,

Timothy.

Very good Timothy. After I posted above I went to read the thread. You said what I was thinking so much better.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

The winds of change... and all that. The era ia over where doctors saw nurses as their handmaidens/servants. We are professionals in our own right and proud of it! Maybe I'm putting it a bit harsh but I had some unpleasant experiences with old fashioned doctors who believe that nurse ia only there to follow orders. There is nothing worse than babysitting a doctor!But hey, we nurses love a challenge!Changing a doctors mind about the role of nurses is a fine challenge. So go for it guys!! :yelclap:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in oncology.

You just have to consider the source when it comes to docs, the smart ones listen to you and value you as a team member, and the mediocore doctors don't listen to anyone but themselves and they stagnate and learn nothing. You cant help but to feel sorry for these docs patients. \

But at the end of the day nursing is such a rewarding field if the only thanks you get is from your patients, it makes it all so worth it.

It's not important to me and how I conduct myself whether a doctor looks down on me or not. That's there stuff, not mine. If I conduct myself professionally in a manner that allows me to sleep at night that's all that matters.

As a gay man, I've long had to come to terms with the fact that what others think of me is not really my business.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ED, ICU, MS/MT, PCU, CM, House Sup, Frontline mgr.

Respect starts at home. If we respect each other, and respect ourselves, the attitude WILL convey.

My take: go into nursing, be the best professional you can be, hold your head up high, and command the respect you deserve. And, that respect from others will rise to the occasion.

With repeated exposure to YOU, most of your allied health peers, dr. et. al. will respect or not respect YOU based on YOU.

~faith,

Timothy.

I have to agree with this!!! I am not a Nurse yet, but I worked closely with Doctors as a Social Worker (at the time only had a BA degree) and I found the above to be true in my profession too! Most of the doctors had little to no respect for me or my opinion when I started working in the field. However, it changed over time!

I was outstanding at in-take assessments. I was outstanding at asking the right questions and knowing what was going on in the lives of my patients. I also was outstanding at following through on treatment and assisting patients with being compliant or determining when compliance did not occur and alerting the doctor and Nurses before appointments. I could go on about my experience both in-patient and out patient...

Anyway, I respected myself and my intelligence and soon got respect in turn. Attitude is everything! I do not expect Nursing to be any different.

Therefore I am not concerned with doctor's opinions. I am concerned with the POOR working conditions often found in th civilian world. That is why I give myself 6 months to 1 year Bedside.

By the way, I know what you mean by being a respected member of a team. Before I entered Social Work I worked in IT. Our society views Engineers as smart. That is not the same view of bedside Nurses. Good luck. ;)

Up Vote Up Vote ×

anyone can look down on you. I had a friend (ex friend now) who looked down on me. She was a housewife and I was a professional. She lived in a 700k house and I lived in a 100k house. Did it bother me--NO. The person who looks down on you is the idiot, however, it took me 40 years to learn this :)

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, ER, Hemodialysis.

first, i'd just like to say that i hope you are not going to base whether you become a nurse on "do drs really look down on nurses?".

second, as a nursing student, i really don't know, but i would assume some do, some don't. i blame society for this attitude that docs have. WE make them out to be more than they are...they are smart, have great jobs, are paid well, but they are not infallible! they make mistakes, they test and retest because they are not GODS they don't automatically know what is wrong with you! they say it's a 24 hour bug or some syndrome when they are not sure of what it is.

when i worked as a unit clerk, i heard several nurses clamoring behind me saying, "what are we going to do?", "who ordered it."...well i did i am the unit secretary...so i asked "what's wrong?" they said dr so-and-so ordered a chest xray on this pt and she only got a pa. i said "yes because that is what he ordered." she said "but when dr so-and-so orders a cxray, he wants a pa and lat"...to this i said "look tell him to come see me and I will tell him that if he wants a pa & lat he must order a pa & lat...otherwise i could get in trouble for ordering a test without an order" and continued with "it's that simple, if he wants a certain test then he needs to write the order for it, why can't you just tell him that?" well, you see, even these nurses got worked up with the "oh,no's" because they felt the big bad dr was coming. again, society needs to realize that they are people that went to med school as oppose to nursing school or art school..it doesn't make them amazing it just makes them doctors.

good luck with whatever you decide,

jay

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency.

Wow, as you can tell from the replies, this is a huge subject. My personal take is that when I first got into medical work 25+ years ago, doctors were the elite, the ones who would decide for everyone else by virtue of their superior education and intelligence. Nurses were taught to stand when doctors entered the room, fluff pillows and generally be quiet. Over the last couple decades, both professions are changing. Medicine has become a team endeavor with the proliferation of disciplines such as PA's, NP's, therapists and technicians. Nurses have become much more technically trained. Doctors, in turn, have become more and more specialized so that you'll run into a brilliant cardiologist who wouldn't know a fractured knee from a broken carburator. When you mix all this up, you find some docs who have figured it out and recognize the value of a team. They are the ones who stop and ask your opinion, who listen to your assessments. There are others who view any non-doctor, especially nurses, as well-meaning, not-very-smart helpers, mostly suitable for fetching things. This attitude is not related to age or gender. Among the most arrogant, rude docs I've met are some females right out of school; some of the finest are "old white guys", and there are plenty who are just the reverse. You can't control them, you can only control yourself and the attitude you have. Just as the writer above said, command respect. Treat others well (arrogance toward other team members is not confined to docs.) and remember that the only person in the rooms whose feelings count is the patient.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Psych.

As a second-career person, I have to be honest. You will not be respected as a nurse as you were as an engineer by Dr.s or by others. I say this based on a 20-year career in IT, then decided I wanted to do something more meaningful so went to nursing school (& more interesting to me - like humans more than computers). I graduate in May and have worked as a nurse tech and as in a summer "residency" program as they call it. So I have seen how nurses are treated in a hospital setting. It won't be the same as you were in engineering. Bedside nursing is viewed as a trade - some hate that, but that's my opinion and observation. The routes to practice that don't require a degree add to that. I think it's different when you work in non-bedside areas but don't have enough data to state with confidence yet. Hopefully your ego can handle that, and it won't stop you if you truly think nursing will be right for you. But I wanted to be honest with you.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I think you have the solution!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, telemetry, LTAC.

"Can your ego handle it" is a good question to ask. The face-off that ensued this week between me and a physician was a case in point. Neither one of us said unprofessional things, but oh my god, my body language was interesting. I stood less than a foot from him with my hands on my hips. Right UP in his face, no ifs ands or buts about it. Once I made myself relax and back off (literally), we both were able to solve the problem.

I noticed that I really don't like being talked down to, but after consideration of the content of what was being said, it was good advice. My ego wasn't taking the tone very well, is all. It isn't just ego, it's temperament. Can you take someone that you perceive as having power over you, criticizing your work, or venting frustration that things aren't going well? I can only hope I'll do a better job of it next time... and I thought I had good interactions with physicians up to this point. Hmm.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in MICU.

I have really enjoyed working with most of the docs I've been around. Individually, they have been fine (for the most part;there are always a few oddballs).

However, what I've noticed during rounds and such (like consults), is they way nurses are seperated (conversationally and physically) from a group of doctors. Like, individually they want/need to talk to you, but once there is a group of them, some group mentality takes over and nurses are ignored.

It's like having a friend who ignores you when all his/her "other" friends come over- that's the only way I can describe it.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion