Nasty medical students

[Tony35NYC]

We have a number of them on our floor since the past few weeks, and we can't wait for them to leave. Their clinical instructor is an abomination. She is very rude and disrespectful to the floor staff, and she encourages her students to do the same. You can't say anything at all to these people because they think they know everything and that they are God. Whenever they ask us anything, no matter what we say, their response is usually some rude or sarcastic remark. Also, they often take all the charts and clipboards into their conferences, and if the nurses need to make any references or do any charting its usually a hassle to get them even for a few minutes. Today I heard one of them telling one of the floor nurses that she is "only a nurse" just because she made a comment about the deteriorating status of one of her patients that he was assigned to. These people aren't even out of school yet and already thay have this bad attitude!

Later in the afternoon I was assisting a PCA with a totally dependent pt when a group of the med students came into the room. The pt was an adolescent with CP (quadriplegia case with severe joint contractures) who needed assistance with everything and the PCA was now trying to feed her. I was so shocked when the MD rudely shoved the PCA aside and said she and her students need to immediately access the patient to do an assessment. Never mind that there was no emergency and they were disrupting the patient's meal just so they could poke and stare at her and use high-sounding medical language to talk about her condition. There was something kinda surreal about the whole experience. Isn't medicine supposed to be all about dignified care of the patient? When did it become all about the egos of self-important physicians?

This MD and her students obviously feel they are better than the nursing staff but I wonder how much patient care they really think they could ever get done without us. I also wonder what kind of life these people go home to at the end of the day after being such total b*tches to everyone around them.

Sorry for the vent, but I just had to get that out! :)

[lpnstudentin2010, LPN]

he is not a medical student but my plastic surgeon...after my surgery my face was getting swollen my fluid accumulation and so after he asperated he had the nurse put a bandage on my face and the side of my face that had been operated on the skin broke down...he is blaming the nurse eventhough he had started bandaging and he had also told the nurse to do it. he wasnt doing it to her face but to us...I ALMOST said to him yesterday, "well you told her to".

[hrtprncss]

i think that med students well some of them get real ''attitudy'' because of the experience they get when they do clerkships in the icu. nurses can be mean to other nurses, but boy oh boy med students are a delicacy for breakfast. on our unit they come in and they dont talk, they listen. when we do rounds with the fellow and the attending, they present the case and the fellow and the nurses usually adds input, this is when the med student prays that nothing has changed sinced that morning or everything was written on the progress notes. i'm usually very nice to med students, well either i'm nice to them or if i'm having a bad day i just ignore them and dont talk to them, what ticks me off is when im inside my patients room and my stuff is outside on a terminal and a med student sits and uses the computer, i usually just sit right next to them sip my coffee till they're done and usually they'll leave right away, or if i'm in a bad mood and they're irritating then i go out of the room and tell them to go somewhere else. i mean really it goes both ways..

[boulergirl, CNA]

As I read this thread I couldn't help but think of an ER episode ("Dr. Carter, I Presume") in which Carter is a new doctor scheduled to work for two days straight--that's 5 AM one morning until at least 7 PM the next night. The nurses make a note of his "uppity" attitude that day and one of them (Haleh) takes on the challenge of giving him some much-needed "midnight potty training".

At 3 in the morning, she pesters Carter every five or ten minutes while he's on-call and trying to sleep. She keeps waking him up to ask if Patient X can have toast, or if Patient Y can get a Tylenol? Two Tylenols ok? Carter asks her if it's always this way when someone's trying to get a little sleep. Her answer was classic: "I wouldn't know, Doctor. Nurses aren't allowed to sleep on shift."

Later the nurses keep paging him to the ER and telling him it must have been a mistake. By dawn, the new doc has bought the nurses complimentary doughnuts and is very gracious to them. :rotfl:

[DLS_PMHNP, MSN, RN, NP]

I could not have said any of this better myself. The debate is not whether a BSN a better nurse makes. Of course it doesn't. The point is that every single other professions requires at least a bachelor's degree for entry-level practice and nursing will never be given the respect it deserves until it does the same.

-Julie in NYC

yes, I agree...

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

Oyur most recent resident left 2 weeks age. I was never so happy to see one leave. He took it upon himself to critique the whole staff on a daily basis, make smart orificed remarks and put-downs, and was just an overall weenie. Very arrogant, no personality. I feel very sorry for his pts., if he even makes it that far.

[mattsmom81]

he is not a medical student but my plastic surgeon...after my surgery my face was getting swollen my fluid accumulation and so after he asperated he had the nurse put a bandage on my face and the side of my face that had been operated on the skin broke down...he is blaming the nurse eventhough he had started bandaging and he had also told the nurse to do it. he wasnt doing it to her face but to us...I ALMOST said to him yesterday, "well you told her to".

I know too many surgeons who tryto turf every bad outcome to the nurses...its their MO. I've had surgeons swear there were postop pulses in an operated extremity when there were ZERO. I know because I checked them preop AND immediately postop...and there were NO pulses. Oh yeah and the RR nurse said the doc told her the pulses were there so she didn't check either...just documented pulses present.... GRRR. and don't get me started on their dead patients who roll into ICU, because their patients never die on the table surgeons: they are the worst of the worst so far as bad attitudes and blame game in my experience. :angryfire

[Bicycleboy]

Excuse my ignorance as I am not a nurse yet. I thought nurses were pretty much on there own as Dr's go. Meaning that Doctors are not the nurses boss, and in a situation like is mentioned at the start of the thread, the doc could not just order a nurse around as if they were a common labourer in a warehouse or the like.

[mattsmom81]

Excuse my ignorance as I am not a nurse yet. I thought nurses were pretty much on there own as Dr's go. Meaning that Doctors are not the nurses boss, and in a situation like is mentioned at the start of the thread, the doc could not just order a nurse around as if they were a common labourer in a warehouse or the like.

Many of them try to boss us around. Many believe we exist simply to assist THEM. Many attempt to get us fired too...if we cross them. BUT there are also many GOOD docs out there who are a pleasure to work with. I try to focus on enjoying these (sometimes its hard)

[ShayRN]

I would say that 98% of the doctors I work with are wonderful, considerate people. But, that other 2% make it really hard somedays. As far as how I deal with difficult docs, one of two ways. The first is silence. If they start ranting or make a smark aleck comment, I don't reply. Usually, I get met with, Hello, are you there? To which I reply, yes, I am just waiting for a professional statement to respond to.... OR if it is verbally abusive or cursing, I say in a very calm voice, Dr. You have 2 seconds to stop being abusive OR I will document in the patients permanent medical record this conversation. Is that something you would want your patients to see if it ever came to light? Normally, they just hang up on me at that point.:rotfl:

[imenid37]

As for the argument that having the BSN be entry level for all RNs......

I have a an AA in nursing, a BSN, and am getting one day God willing an MSN. I also have 18 years experience as an RN. It has nothing to do w/ educational degree level of the nursing staff. The students and their instructor are also rude to pt's other inferior beings as well as the nursing staff. This problem has to do w/ the students and their instructor having no appreciation for the dignity and respect that should be accorded to all human beings. They need some "education", not another degree. This problem is not a lacking in the nursing staff or the pt's worthiness to be treated w/ respect. That is a given. The student docs and their instructor can think what they want. They can certainly feel they are better than everyone else. Good for them. You can not force them to change their attitude. They cannot be allowed to behave in such a rude fashion. The idea that a pt. can't even finish her meal because they have some non-emergency task to do is insane. I am sure they would not want their meal interrupted to answer a nurse's simple question. The physician in charge and her students are the ones w/ the problems. I would encourage pt's to complain to admin., if nurses' complaints would not be taken seriously.

[URO-RN]

I can say that the med students I have interacted with are nice and respectful. I believe the med school has done a good job with orientating them to the hospital. There has been one or two, who think they have attained a medical license already, and like to give/write orders to the nurses. Overall, they are an asset to the team.

[grentea]

Tony-Sorry about your awful experience. I have met many med students in my clinicals and thus far, I've found them to be nice, normal human beings. On occasion, one of them will even help me to read messy handwriting in the chart, and sometimes it's their own messy handwriting which has led me to bite my tongue in complaining about handwriting...but anyways. I feel like the students in med school now are more down-to-earth. There's something about the kind of student that schools have been accepting-more socially normal, well-rounded- and the fact that student have been getting a better education in how to work with others. Also, a lot of people in med school now have had previous careers, some them were even nurses, so I think this would lessen the attitude even more. I really like DOs (doctor of osteopathic medicine). For some reason, they are very nice, and they usually take a more holistic approach with their patients. Anyhow, I'm going to be working pretty soon on a Neuro floor on which I heard the physicians work very well with the RNs and they include the RNs in the educational activities like grand rounds, so I'm happy. I think all of us physicians and nurses can learn a lot from each other and we should. I mean we're all playing on the same team, right?