"Just a Med/Surg Nurse"

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Specializes in Community Health, Med/Surg, ICU Stepdown.

Rant: I work at a county hospital with many wonderful doctors, but a few are condescending and dismissive to our population of lower income patients. One of those doctors had my patient. Pt's daughter is a Med-tele/Oncology nurse at Kaiser. She and I were concerned that the doctors were discharging the pt too soon. I let the resident and attending know about daughter's concerns. I overheard the attending tell the resident: "Well, she is just a Med/Surg nurse so she doesn't know much, just overreacting."

When pt was getting dressed to go home he got short of breath. I put monitor back on, oxygen sat 83% on room air. He got to stay and got set up with home O2. Daughter overheard doctor's little comment. She is writing a letter to administration about how wonderful all the nurses were but also about the doctor's attitude and attempt to d/c her dad too early. I would love to see this doctor work one shift as a Med/Surg nurse, especially on a day with minimum staffing, no clerk and no CNAs! Guess he finally insulted someone who has the education and confidence to stand up for herself. We'll see what happens!

P.S. He was annoyed that I re-checked the pt's O2. Guess he thinks Stepdown nurses are dumb too...

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Specializes in ED, med-surg, peri op.

Unfortunately it’s not just doctors. A lot of nurses have These opinions on floor nurses. But yet most of them wouldn’t have a clue what we do. And a lot of them wouldn’t cope working on the floor too!!

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14 minutes ago, nznurse93 said:

Unfortunately it’s not just doctors. A lot of nurses have These opinions on floor nurses. But yet most of them wouldn’t have a clue what we do. And a lot of them wouldn’t cope working on the floor too!!

ER nurse here. I definitely could not cope with working on the floor.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med/Surg, ICU Stepdown.

Definitely! Med/Surg is the hardest job I’ve ever had. High ratios, patients are not monitored so your assessment has to be so good to catch any changes in condition. I find stepdown easier to be honest. I really admire med/surg nurses. I’m ashamed that I only lasted 2 years.

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I completely agree with our community members, Med/Surg nurses have entirely different monsters to deal with, so I don't think it's fair for people (including our nursing community) to be belittling in any way! Med/Surg nurses have to be amazingly detail-oriented and have great time-management skills with the amount of patients they get. This physician clearly didn't know what he was talking about, and I hope that he learns (the hard way through administration) that he can't be saying things like that. Props to you for re-checking the O2 sat and advocating for your patient, who cares if the doctor was annoyed, he should have been more annoyed at his loud mouth. ?

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I love your story. So great the Kaiser RN was there. I wish the Kaiser nurses's letter could be posted on every staff bulletin board. And all doctors should not be able to ??? use the hospital computer ??? admit patients ?? until they sign a copy of the letter!

I worked 17 years in a county hospital, five years of it was med/surg. I could not do med/surg again. ICU/CCU and every other nursing job I had was so much easier.

Not to hijack your post but about county hospitals! My ****** brother, and a co-worker, CNA, "have to" use the county hospital. I am so sick of hearing their complaints. "Oh, that county hospital..you know how the nurses are...you know the treatment there isn't very good....you know they don't treat you well"....etc.

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Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.

That is sad. Our Drs are wonderful and rely on the nurses. I work at a teaching hospital and the residents learn very early on to rely on the nurse's input. The attending docs will point blank tell them, this "Mary" she is a great nurse and knows her stuff.

We have a communication thing (It was a class and many of you might know it) where we have key words to communicate that are designed to convey our feelings: "CUS" words. I am "concerned" about the pt. Means please listen to my concerns-something is not right. I am "uncomfortable". Means, if you don't listen to me, I am going to push back (and if it is a resident, I'm going over your head). Last is, this is a "Safety" issue, meaning, if something goes wrong, very wrong, I have raised my concerns and it will all be your fault.

Once everyone understands these words and the meaning behind them, it is much easier.

The doc who said "It's just a med/surg nurse" doesn't have a clue and that will come back to bite his butt.

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