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.
