Do medical interns learn to insert foleys?

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

I just rented the first disc of the first season of Scrubbs from Netflix, which probably most everyone here knows is a humourous show about some medical interns. (I don't have cable nor do I watch TV) The show was recommended by one of our hospitalists as being hilarious.

I just watched one episode where the star intern walks into a room, and his rival is putting in a foley cath. He asks the star for help, and the star (forget his name) hands him the foley with unsterile hands. First of all, I've never heard of a doctor putting in foleys at the bedside of a hospital patient. Do they even learn how to do this? Also, don't they have a medical consultent help them with the show?

Also, do interns really hang IVs and do other mundane nursing tasks? I've never seen that.

[fgoff]

In the hospital that I worked at yes to both proceedures. Theywould have covered how to do the procedure as med students & practice more as interns. I think that is how it worked????? As for the bad tech. shown on the show I put particle blame on the medical/nurse tech advisiors.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

Thanks for the info. I've never worked with interns. In the show they do a lot of things that nurses normally do. Now, do medical interns really have that much control over orders? In one episode the intern was independently making a decision whether to give a thrombolytic to a patient. Aside from the fact that the whole thing seemed to be not medically explained very well (the woman was a lupus patient with SOB who had been put on a heparin gtt, they didn't explain why), I thought interns had more oversight by experienced doctors and didn't begin to operate more independently until they were residents. I have worked with residents and even they seem to be having some oversight by the docs they work with.

[Crux1024]

jlsRN said:

I just watched one episode where the star intern walks into a room, and his rival is putting in a foley cath. He asks the star for help, and the star (forget his name) hands him the foley with unsterile hands.

Well, if you ever watch Greys Anatomy, E.R or Scrubs even, they also scrub for OR with their masks untied (they must magically tie themselves) They also dont wear shield masks while operating and have people in street clothes right outside the room. Take about keeping a sterile enviornment!!

LOL..Scrubs is a hilarious show. I would recommend it to anyone who likes to laugh;)

[woody62, RN]

I remember one summer, when working in ICU, we had third year med students, who took vital signs, inserted foleys, hung IVs. But that was during the summer of 1970. I haven't seen any med student do any nursing skills since.

Woody

[truern]

Scrubs is entertainment, not a documentary..hehe

Btw, I LOVE Scrubs! I think it's hilarious.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

Crux1024 said:

Well, if you ever watch Greys Anatomy, E.R or Scrubs even, they also scrub for OR with their masks untied (they must magically tie themselves) They also dont wear shield masks while operating and have people in street clothes right outside the room. Take about keeping a sterile enviornment!!

LOL..Scrubs is a hilarious show. I would recommend it to anyone who likes to laugh;)

Spoke with the doctor who recommended the show yesterday. Thanked him and I asked him how accurate it is as far as doing one's internship. I'm only on the first season, I mentioned that I assumed that the show progressed with the doctors moving through their residency and so forth. He said that the show is very accurate as far as how interns feel and amazingly accurate in how they are treated. I had mentioned how exaggerated the Chief of Staff seemed, and he said that I would be surprised how accurate it was. He said Scrubbs is more accurate than the other doctor shows.

He said that he did do mundane things like learn to hang IVs during his internship. Another nurse chimed in that urologists actually say that there is no way that we are maintaining sterile anything during foley insertions.