Do drs really look down on nurses?

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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 ICU, ER, Hemodialysis.

i think it is VERY important that nurses are not in awe of doctors. nurses are the pt advocates! it's hard to advocate when you are scared of the doctors.

are you not going to question his high dose of a med because you are afraid of "questioning" him? i would hope not. nurses are there to care and PROTECT their pts. i think some people get caught up in the whole, follow drs "orders" thing. it's kind of hard for pts to understand that we do not belong to doctors, but if they want to take a shower, we have to say, "oh, we have to get a doctor's order for you to take a shower first." anyway, when i graduate, i will be there for my pts and not for the doctors. i view doctors as COworkers! they write certain orders that i must carry out, but i have a duty to question those that could endanger the pt.

jay

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Specializes in ER, ICU, Education.

Tim and Tweety, very well said. I think a few of the other posts verbalize the problem with nursing. You quys know the solution. My question is, as long as the demographics of nursing remains what it is today, will the hand wringing insecurity ever change?

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if doctors and nurses will be given a day to switch jobs, i think the doctors will be able to appreciate the nurses more and not look down on us

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Specializes in ICU, telemetry, LTAC.
if doctors and nurses will be given a day to switch jobs, i think the doctors will be able to appreciate the nurses more and not look down on us

Hm. With various jobs that relate to nursing, the RN could theoretically say to, (but probably won't as it's pretty confrontational) a nursing assistant, an LPN, or possibly a secretary, "I can do your job, but you can't do mine."

Now with comparing a doctor and a nurse... neither can do the other's job. Seriously. A doc may do an assorted nursing task now and then but won't be around for 12 hours with one patient unless it's some godawful 12 hour surgery. I don't know a physician with the patience to sit down and hold a drunk's hands after the ativan, haldol, and tranxene didn't touch his shaking, for an hour at a time. Instead I picture someone who comes in and says "nah call me if he seizes" or spits out a change in med orders.

So I don't buy that doctors and nurses can switch jobs. I don't want to do a physician's job. I'm pretty sure they don't want to do mine. We can't get along without each other, for the most part. Each type of "care" that I think of has a whole slew of things in it, that I do for a patient that no one has to "order" me to do. Palliative care, for example. The doctor orders the meds. We do mouth care, turning, family counseling, (psych care) hygiene, etc. We call the doc if: med orders aren't adequate or the patient dies. You couldn't pay me to do a different job.

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i'd love to do a doctor's job if given the chance but i think i'd rather be a nurse.

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Specializes in cardiac/education.
Well in the hospital, Doctors look down on registered nurses..Registered nurses look down on licenced practical nurses..Licenced practical nurses look down on nursing assistants..

This is sooo true. Hospitals definitly have politics, that is for sure. Kinda sad.:confused:

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Geriatrics.
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.

I must agree. And I would like to add, let's begin with less posts about doctors: what they think, how they act, how they perceive us, etc.

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Specializes in Pediatric ER.
depends. most of the docs i work with and have worked with in the past are great, but i have run across a few whose orifices i could cheerfully ram a fiery pole up! in my experience the problem docs were the older ones who still operated in the era when nurses stood in the doctor's presences, etc.....thankfully a dying breed.

lol, my thoughts exaclty, only phrased so much more eloquently!!

but seriously, i have found that the majority of docs do respect nurses, at least once you've shown them you deserve it. you're always going to run across the occasional one who thinks his/her shitola doesn't stink, but jerks come in just about any profession. work hard, know your stuff, and conduct yourself in a professional manner and you should be treated appropriately.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
In my experience the problem docs were the older ones who still operated in the era when nurses stood in the doctor's presences, etc.....thankfully a dying breed.

My experience has been opposite. So far, we've had a few brand new ones that are completely cokcy in more ways than one.

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Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

Interesting thread. It's their loss if they look down on you. For example the doc that refused a request for breathing treatments.......I would and have done write a verbal order eg: "No respiratory treatment ordered, though patient is congested, showing sx of atalectasis ie shallow inspiration, increased temperature, rales and ronchi. "

And then I HAND the order to him/her to sign........If they won't then I make a note and have it witnessed that doctor refused to sign his verbal order to this effect and Nursing supervisor and administrator on call notified.

I can play real dirty, but it only takes once for most to begin to take nurses at face value.

Now that being said, don't let the concept of a doc looking down on you stop your entering the field. It is not usually adversarial, but can be.

As a Nurse you are the one the patient relies on to catch those tiny symptoms, small changes, and nurses' intuition that leads you to call that MD at whatever time and NEVER be afraid. You are right a whole lot more than you are wrong.

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OMG, did this bring back a really funny memory. When I was 21 years old I was a new RN and worked as the charge nurse in Labor and delivery in a big teaching hospital. One evening all the residents and interns went to the OR to perform a C section and left a medical student in L&D with me. This was his first time in L&D and he was totally green to say the least. There was a young patient in labor with her first baby, and when the crew left for the OR she was only dilated 2cms. Of course, we L&D's know this is subject to change, and FAST. The student proceeded to tell me that he was sure he could manage the patient if he needed to. After all, he said, "Nurses don't know anything." I asked him where he heard that, and he said that they taught them that in medical school. I said, "Well, I guess you'll see." In less than 30 minutes the patient was becoming significantly more uncomfortable and I went in to assess her progress. She was fully dilated and crowning and pushing as hard as she could with this medical student standing there and watching. I grabbed the precipitation tray, opened it, and placed it on the bedside table while I told him to get his gloves on so he could deliver the baby. He was shaking he was so scared and kept saying, "I don't know what to do, I've never seen a delivery." After he stood there for what seemed like an eternity, I knew the delivery was impending with one more push, so I put on gloves and proceeded to deliver the baby for him. Once the baby was born and the placenta delivered, I showed him how to examine the patient for any lacerations. (She had none by the way, of which I was proud). About 10 minutes later the OR bunch returned and found their patient already delivered and in post partum recovery. Naturally the med student never told them what had happened. I could not resist saying to him as I clocked out that night, "Nurses don't know anything do they????" All I got was a blank stare, LOL. They soon learn that we save their butts more times than they can count, and then they cease to look down on us.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
if doctors and nurses will be given a day to switch jobs, i think the doctors will be able to appreciate the nurses more and not look down on us

I doubt there are very many doctors - at all - that COULD do my job, for even a day.

And that's not putting docs down. They are trained differently. It's not like medical school just expands upon nursing school. Or, to be sure, like the whole body of nursing knowledge is a subset of medical knowledge. Neither of these perceptions even approach fact.

My job is a different job than being a doc. Period. Just like their job is different than being a nurse.

I'll go so far to say that I can do a better job of impersonating a doc than vice versa. I, at least, have SOME idea about what a doc does (but don't ask me about the business end of it.)

~faith,

Timothy.

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