I just graduated from medical school. First off, I'd like to say that I've had many pleasant interactions with nurses. However, I would also like to say that I've had some very bad experiences with some nurses that seem to only pick on medical students. For example, on my emergency rotation, I had to do a 2 hour triage shift with the nurses. From the outset, I was told (rather rudely) by the nurse I was working with to bring the patient's chart up to the floor. I did this twice before I got fed up and told an attending emergency physician about this who then laid down the law. I would've let this pass, but many of my student colleagues and I have had many other interactions with nurses that have left a sour taste in my mouth. I realize that as a medical student I had very little experience compared with some of the nurses. But I still think that I should be treated like a human being. And these run-ins with nurses had nothing to do with my lack of knowledge or being an idiot on the floor--well except for the one time where I didn't know I had to pull my own glove and gown in the OR and got yelled at by the circulating nurse. Or the other time when I couldn't intubate this patient in the OR and the CRNA shoved me out of the way to intubate right in front of the attending anesthesiologist. This all seems to stem from the fact that I was wearing a short white coat. Heck, I think in the hospital hierarchy, we are the bottom of the barrel, below nursing students, PT students, etc.
The point of this post is to tell you guys to please be nice to medical students. We have it hard enough already from the constant pimping from our residents and attendings. Please be our friend on the floors.
Just to make you feel better, these same nurses are the same way to new nurses, new RT's , new CNA's etc..... It really does not matter, but I have seen med students get the most because of the attitude they come with. You really have to prove yourself as competent and intelligent.
If you get pushed aside when you are not performing a task correctly it is because pt safety is a higher priority than your experience!
And as for the nurse who yelled at you for the gown and mask....you will have learn to ignore people like that because you will probably meet a lot of them before you finish your training. And the next time when you pull your own stuff, another nurse may tell you to not touch anything in her OR!
Good point about the intubation-the patient is of the utmost priority in any given situation..As for the not getting your own gown and gloves...It seems as though med students aren't expected to do this anymore. I've worked at teaching hospitals where the med students were absolutely expected to pull their own gloves and gown. Now, what we are getting 9 times out of 10 is a student who doesn't introduce his or her self to the scrub or circulator and goes out to scrub, comes back in and wonders why the scrub isn't jumping to glove and gown them. If you feel like you're at the bottom of the totem pole, it's because you are...But that does change- it's just that traditionally, the scrub gowns and gloves the attending first, then the assistant and the med student is last. The med student is a guest really, much like any other student. I myself try to be good to the med students( giving them tips on how NOT to contaminate themselves etc) but this goes both ways. Respect is a two way street.
I do agree that medical students can have a tough road to hoe. So many hours and the 'pimping' tradition. That said, I did pick up on a couple of red flags in your post. First, there is nothing wrong with the CRNA briskly moving you out of the way when you could not intubate the patient. The CRNA is not the handmaiden of the anesthesiologist. Secondly, using the term "lay down the law" reveals that you lack an egalitarian perspective towards nurses. Frankly, I think many med schools do a poor job of teaching the students about the function of disciplines other than medicine.
Think about the fact that nurses with years of experience know more than you do about some things, watch out so the med students don't kill their patients, yet are the recipient of someone laying down the law? Think about that one.
Congrats on your recent graduation and good luck with your residency. If you have a someone egalitarian interaction with nurses you will find yourself to be a blessed resident. Nurses can make your life hell, or easier, and the other way around too.
Specializes in experienced in 11 areas of nursing.
i have always wondered why more than half of the nurses working on any shift were hostile to med-students, and fomenting on the rest of us to do the same. this type of activity is not particular of nurses only, i believe this is taking place all over, similar to the lack of respect towards a substitute teacher or an agency/traveling/ floating/ nurse or caregiver. months ago, while training for unit secretary, my preceptor said to me in front of couple of med-students, that they were not the ones i should be concern on helping by finding patients info/charts. with that said, she introduced me to a physician emphasizing "these are the ones we need to be kind and assist with anything, because thanks to them we have patients", and the team leader nurse knoded in agreement, it still gives me chills to remember that moment. some nurses don't even let the med-students use the phone, facilities or appliances, in the unit they are doing their rounds on, they are told to go back to their physicians lounge quarters and use what they have there. some other say that they are spoiled brats, which leads me to think that maybe med-students are mistreated to a certain point because of their access(at least at my facility) to a fancy coffee/cappuccino maker which can be freshly prepared by grinding the finest coffee grains and be enjoyed with the finest pastries baked everyday just for the medical staff. just kidding the truth is that the people acting up against anyone regardless of position and level of education should have no place in a field that asks for compassion, and patience.
I got the impression by the original poster's action of making an account on this NURSING website and giving us the business (us meaning the users, I am not a nurse or nursing student) that this person is pretty ballsy. If he/she is going to get all Huffy McGee on a nursing website complaining about nurses when not even a nurse, I get the undeniable feeling that he/she has attitude issues in real life, or at least insecurities with the need for frequent validation.
That being said, I do see the point and how it rings true. However, this whole thread reeks of perpetuating preconceptions and it gave me a little laugh of sorts.
I sympathize with you because I completely understand where you're coming from. I am a nursing student and I had a nurse who absolutely thought I was joke just because I asked her if I could give a certain patient, who was dx with failure to thrive, a bed bath. She laughed in my face! I just had to laugh because she laughed and almost made me feel like an idiot, but I didn't let it bother me. You have to understand that some nurses really do like to teach, but there are others who don't want to be bothered, or are simply too busy to take the time to teach, which I completely understand. Should some nurses be nicer? Yeah, but I understand if they're not. Sometimes nurses are stretched to such a limit that it's amazing that they keep coming back in to work! You gotta be able to take some of this with a thickened skin and keep going. Good luck in your medical career!
Why would s/he not feel the need to gown and glove themselves? After all, they need to learn that skill and this is the time to do so. I have worked at several top teaching facilities (including two consistantly rated the top in the nation) and that is one of the skills that they are expected to learn and do routinely on their own on the Floors. The other day, a fellow was assisting a resident in learning this skill before an LP.
Second, what was the problem with transporting the chart? The chart needs to go with the patient. If it is ready when the patient is moved, transport takes it. If the nurse has data to finish, she arranges for it to go there. If the Intern notes/orders are the cause of the delay, s/he handles getting it up there in a timely fashion. It's called manners with a dose of common sense.
It may also do with the fact that generally the triage nurse is not to leave triage unattended. Med Students often permitted more mobility in the facility than Charge/triage nurses, etc.
And did you think to ASK a nurse to help with gowning, gloving, how to get the chart to the appropriate place or if s/he could take it. And say thank you for their assistance.
These are things you should be doing with EVERYONE in the hospital, from the dietary staff, the janitors, on up to highest in the chain.
Nurses are not your subordinates, they are professionals of a separate department. You have a problem, you speak to them. You continue to have a problem, you speak to their supervisor....which is a Nurse Manager.....NOT the attending who is YOUR supervisor. Or you have your attending speak to her nurse manager. 95% of the time, you will just need to speak (professional to professional) the nurse and the problem will be solved.
They other 5% are the people that not even the other nurses like, and they rarely last long. Or it is a really crappy facility where nobody else will work..because of oh, dictatorial attendings, incompetent management, and rude students of all ilk.
Most of us do not mean to be rude. But frequently students (of all types) have really silly outdated notions of Nursing and what it does vs. Medicine and what it does. These are born of novels ("The House of God", "Cherry Ames", "Mount Misery"), bad TV ("Chicago Hope", "General Hospital", "Grey's Anatomy" and "House") and bear no resemblance to real life. And in the long term, you will be there for a short time, s/he was there before you came and will be there when you are but a memory.
About 10 monthes ago, in the charming month of July, during annual "changing of the 'terns", I was working in a Teaching hospital assoc. w/Harvard. A new group of brand fresh 'terns flocked in, in their pristene white coats. Most were lovely, some were jerks.
The internns used a specific template for their daily chart notes. This was not a regular hospital form, but one created by the interns and passed down for several years. Routinely, some intern would use up the last copy without making a copy. One morning at the nurse's station, Dr. Jerk, loudly starts in on the, "I don't know WHY SOMEONE doesn't make more copies - I didn't go to MEDICAL SCHOOL to do secretarial work". He didn't have the guts to ask someone to make copies, nor did he bother to say anything to the SECRETARY (I didn't go to Nursing school to do secretarial work either, duh). No he merely decided to be a idiot all on his own. He also ignored the fact that this was not a hospital form, that it was stored in their paperwork cubby not ours, and as nursing does not use the form, why should we be ordering it. He behaved repeatedly like we were his personal lackies, with psychic abilities and the desire to obey his every whim.
After a week or two of this, Dr. Jerk makes an error that would get his butt kicked. He neglected to reorder labs/tests on a postop patient and of course had not checked the computer. I managed to order for him and get a MD to cover the sig so he would not get in trouble. This took time. However the next week, he did the same thing and the nurse was unwilling to cover for him. Which got him chewed on by the Attending in the AM.
He also never thanked me for going to the trouble to cover his mistakes. And from what I understand, he had difficulties with nurses on other rotations.
I'm somewhat bothered by your reference to telling the emergency physician who "then laid down the law." Your post made no reference to having first tried discussing the matter with the nurse in question to see if you could work things out with her.
I agree completely.
Maybe you should use this experience as an opportunity to remember how to treat others.
The more doctors I am around the more entitlement, apathy, attitude and complacency I see.
This is so very true. You(cantor2537) have only a taste of what nurses around the world have to deal with on a daily basis.
The bottom line is this: if you be nice to me, I'll be nice to you.
Cantor, I am so sorry to hear about your experience, but I also know how you feel, when I was a nursing student I had clinicals at this one hospital and the nurses where crappy toward the nursing students, acted like we were in there way, ect...So when I became a nurse I had more patients with the nursing students under me, but I can see how you can become impatient with them, sometimes they are in our way, when we need to see a chart, pass meds and they have the book, ect...it just takes a little patience with the students and remember we were in their shoes once!
Hope it gets better! But if it helps, I love med students, some still have a sense of humor!
From the outset, I was told (rather rudely) by the nurse I was working with to bring the patient's chart up to the floor. I did this twice before I got fed up and told an attending emergency physician about this who then laid down the law.
Seems like the issue you had with tthis situation was getting the chart, i picked that up from the "laid down the law" remark. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I would've let this pass, but many of my student colleagues and I have had many other interactions with nurses that have left a sour taste in my mouth.
The 'let this pass' remark's rubbing me the wrong way. I think it's because it's sounding elitist.
But I still think that I should be treated like a human being.
It goes both ways.
And these run-ins with nurses had nothing to do with my lack of knowledge or being an idiot on the floor--well except for the one time where I didn't know I had to pull my own glove and gown in the OR and got yelled at by the circulating nurse.
We're there for the pt. first. Heck even our surgeons will pull their own gown and gloves, open up the gown, even dress themselves. IF i have the time i'll pull the stuff for our resident, BUT, other things DO come first.
Even our surgeons can pick up the idea that if the scrub nurse is busy, they can try to glove and gown themselves if it's not a breech of technique, instead of standing there waiting.
Or the other time when I couldn't intubate this patient in the OR and the CRNA shoved me out of the way to intubate right in front of the attending anesthesiologist. This all seems to stem from the fact that I was wearing a short white coat. Heck, I think in the hospital hierarchy, we are the bottom of the barrel, below nursing students, PT students, etc.
Yeah i'm sure that had nothing to do with the maintenance of an airway. Besides that, the nursing students and PT students are not below OR above you (and to be quite blunt, the "hierarchy" attitude that's being displayed in your post is a put-off.)
The point of this post is to tell you guys to please be nice to medical students. We have it hard enough already from the constant pimping from our residents and attendings. Please be our friend on the floors.
I'm respectful to those that are respectful to me. This is common sense. In no way shape or form am i bending over for a butt smooch to anyone. I don't ask for it, i certainly won't give it.
I'm always nice to medical students. I don't like it when they start drilling me with questions about the patient without at least INTRODUCING themselves, but that being said, I don't have an issue with medical students in general, and some of them have been really cool.
About the CRNA pushing you out of the way...Well, we all learn quickly to not take things personally in emergency situations. If someone is snapping at you during a code...well, that's what adrenaline does sometimes. They're worried about a LIFE. As a student, I know it's embarassing when we can't get a skill right away, and worse when it's such an important thing that we have to be shoved out of the way! Geez. But I don't think you can fault the CRNA. Chalk it up to a learning experience. We've all been in similar situations. Keeps you humble. :)
I just read the new posts since yesterday, and something in the post above this caught my eye. Regarding being shoved out of the way when you couldn't intubate a pt: in many OR's the pt is paralyzed after sedation but before intubation........if this is true in that OR, then I would have done the same thing as the CRNA, regardless of how I felt about you as a med student. Paralytics freeze EVERYTHING, including the muscles that operate the lungs. No muscles = no breathing= no oxygen = hypoxia = death. Gettin' the picture yet?
Try to look at your situation these ways cantor; the nurse you are talking about did not pick on you because you are a med. student. This nurse could have treated anybody the same way she treated you, so you become more emotionally or "egotistically" affected when you magnify the situation in your mind by focusing on yourself --nothing wrong with that; just the frame of mind you were in could break you or make you stronger.
Nedless to say, working in a hospital can be very stressful because people's lives depend on your skills and quick thinking. Therefore, when you couldn't intubate a patient, the CRNA had to take over. If you felt humiliated, try to use it as your motivation to master that clinical skill instead of focusing on the attitude of the nurse - someday this nurse will encounter another fellow with the same attitude as her or his.
The point is your life as a medical student is stressful enough; don't let your frame of mind adds to this stress. These people will come and go in your life just like you are driving on a road with other drivers who take over your lane and piss you off in different ways. In the end, when you exercise your patience and professionalism, you will reach your destination armed with wisdom from these experiences.
Finally, try to be assertive instead of passive aggressive. Remember that personal relationship is different than professional relationship. If you are the kind of person who are sensitive in your personal relationships, you have to develop enough layer of good toughness in your professional relationships to withstand the attitude of people your work with and the pressure of the job itself.
I am speaking from my humble personal experience from being a kickboxer (prize fighter) to EMT to a just graduated from nursing school.
I will surely be good to med. students I will come across to with my nursing practice. In fact, I might buy them beers after work
I just had to laugh because she laughed and almost made me feel like an idiot, but I didn't let it bother me. You have to understand that some nurses really do like to teach, but there are others who don't want to be bothered, or are simply too busy to take the time to teach, which I completely understand. Should some nurses be nicer? Yeah, but I understand if they're not. Sometimes nurses are stretched to such a limit that it's amazing that they keep coming back in to work! You gotta be able to take some of this with a thickened skin and keep going. Good luck in your medical career!
Besides that, the nursing students and PT students are not below OR above you (and to be quite blunt, the "hierarchy" attitude that's being displayed in your post is a put-off.)
ortess1971
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