"Why don't you just be a doctor?"

Nurses General Nursing

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Last night, I was approached by a gentleman, and after a few minutes of small chat, he asked what I was in school for. Proudly, I said "nursing", and he gave me a not so nice look, and replied with "Why don't you be a doctor?". I was immediately thrown off, and very annoyed that this man viewed nurses as not being "good enough". Has anyone else ever been in this situation? Can you please tell me what you said back? I said "I admire the job of a nurse more than a doctor, and can't imagine doing anything else." I can't help but be annoyed by people that have NO idea what kind of work it is to be a nurse! :uhoh3:

Specializes in Med/Surg, Telemetry.

i'm sure most of the rn's here can agree with me.........

we are the backbone of patient care! i work at a teaching hospital and deal with new intern's every month. we know what needs to be done. we are with the patients for 13hrs/day. the doctors see them once, maybe twice/day unless something happens. if there is something that we think needs to be done, we are the ones who implements it! we are the patient advocates! i had a situation, numerous actually, where a patient declines and i make a suggestion as to what may be the cause. half the time, the md's don't want to hear my opinion. they should however! because what i suggest is usually correct. took them 24hrs to figure it out! couldn't believe it!

i haven't actually been asked this question before, but i would be extremely offended if someone did. i take pride in my career, as do most of you! keep up the good work!

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And I think this is the point I will check out. I came on this forums to understand more of the job duties of nurses but instead I read more about physicians. How nasty they are and how they don't know anything.

Now I understand that on an internet forum people are more ready to write about negative experiences then positive experiences. However when reading the post sometimes the writers have a tendency to paint all doctors with the same brush. I mean if you meet a bad or nasty doctor that is that doctor alone and this experience should not dictate your future experiences with other doctors.

And no I don't think nurses are the backbone to healthcare and I think the problem begins when one person believes their role is more important then another. Another poster wrote that without nurses a hospital would fail to run, this is very turn but at at the same time the same could be said for doctors, admin, volunteers, etc. Everyone has a role and if we learn to respect each others role it would make things easier.

Anyways before I step out of this thread and most likely this forum. I would like to say thanks to many of the older nurses who have actually taught me alot about the role of nurses. And allowing me to have a tiny peak in the life of a nurse.

And sorry to the OP for getting off topice :(.

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Specializes in home health care nursing.
Honestly, I think most people are ignorant of what nurses do, know, and are capable of. They don't know how involved our education is, they don't know that we are the ones who actually make the decisions about how patients are cared for in the hospital, they don't know that we will be there with them when they need to make some of the most serious decisions of their lives, they don't know that we will advocate for their optimum care.

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I am so glad you said this in your post.. This freed me because people really have no clue that nurses are capable of all of these things, especially when they only see the doctor for 15 minutes of their hospital stay.

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Specializes in home health care nursing.
Reading this thread I just had to share this one -- I'm a guy going into nursing -- when I told my mother of my plan to become a nurse she -- literally -- burst into tears :mad: Over the next few months I must have got the "why don't just be a doctor..." speech from her anytime i saw her. My retort was always "if it means that much to you why don't YOU apply to med school!"

I stopped getting the speech right after my grandmother ended up in the hospital for a few weeks (thankfully she pulled through and is doing great) -- after interacting with the nurses in the ICU my mother has developed a newfound respect for nurses :yeah:

Good for her. Many don't remeber the role of the nurse unless they stay in the hospital over a period of time and realize they see the RN more than anybody. :lol2:;)

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Specializes in Pediatric, Psych, School.

allthaticanbe, I hope you didn't misinterpret my posting of that article from another area of the site as "doctor bashing." If you look at my earlier post, my point was exactly the opposite: I find it discouraging to see/hear every discussion remotely related to both doctors and nurses turn into a doc-bashing-fest. We do not need to justify the validity of our profession or defend our intellect...period...and certainly not by lumping all physicians into a "rude, degrading, demeaning" bucket. We wind up presenting ourselves like the insecure person who is constantly trying to make him/herself feel better by making fun of others. There are a$$holes in every workplace and in every profession. By focusing more on the occasional a$$ docs we meet and constantly defending ourselves against silly ignorance, we only give them more power. As I'm always telling my kids: "It doesn't matter what anyone says. You know the truth."

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"It doesn't matter what anyone says. You know the truth."

I think I also need to learn this lesson and be less sensitive. Its great that I didn't fully check out yet as I learned another lesson.

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I was premed prior to nursing school. I generally like the way nurses care for patients, more so than doctors. I want to become a nurse practitioner, however, I highly respect physicians. They dedicate their lives to their patients! I think the general public has no idea what a nurses job entails, unless they have friends/family that are nurses. Ignorance is bliss, in some cases, I suppose. By the way, I am in my 2nd semester of an entry level BSN program and I was just wondering to all of the nurses out there.......is this overwhelming and exhausting feeling normal, and please tell me it does subside some??? :yawn:

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I completely understand the frustration you feel, as I have been asked the same thing many times by EVERYONE. Even other nurses have asked "why did you not just go to med school, you are young enough?" I refuse to let others ignorance, tell me what I should have done. I personally tell them that I prefer the scope of nursing to that of a doctor. I like getting my hands dirty so to speak, and spending time with the patients. Kudos to you for standing your ground!

It is not ignorance! It is a cultural difference. How can you be insulted, how can you be a succesful nurse if you are insulted by perspectives coming from a different culture. One of the first things you learn as a student nurse is there are differences of opinions based on cultural differences. As I read through this thread, I really hope these people that are insulted that people from different countries and periods of history( meaning old prople) are not already nurses but are just students that have not studie that subject. Get over it.

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It is not ignorance! It is a cultural difference. How can you be insulted, how can you be a succesful nurse if you are insulted by perspectives coming from a different culture. One of the first things you learn as a student nurse is there are differences of opinions based on cultural differences. As I read through this thread, I really hope these people that are insulted that people from different countries and periods of history( meaning old prople) are not already nurses but are just students that have not studie that subject. Get over it.

Huh? My physician is the same age, gender and race as me. She asked me why I wasn't in medical school. How is this a cultural issue?

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Huh? My physician is the same age, gender and race as me. She asked me why I wasn't in medical school. How is this a cultural issue?

Ask her why she isn't a vet. Or a structural engineer. Or a cashier at Wal-Mart.

The simple answer should be, "that's not what I want".

And there's YOUR answer.

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Honey, you might as well get used to it because it will happen a lot-I've probably heard that 2000 times in my career. After a while, you just laugh and walk away. I usually tell people that "I want to have a life outside of my job." Mostly what I hear is, "He's just a nurse." It's literally become the house hold joke to say, "I'm just a nurse!!!!" The irony is that very few people respect a nurse and nobody has a clue what you do. Doctor's don't respect you, management doesn't, patients don't, other services don't. Six long years of hard work to get an education and nobody wants to give you credit, especially doctors. I've literally heard quite a few MD's comment that "nurses are idiots." I don't want to be pessimistic but, "Get used to it."

The only idiot there is the MD who said that - and they better thank their lucky stars they never said it in my presence, because I can promise you they'd get an earful.

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Ask her why she isn't a vet. Or a structural engineer. Or a cashier at Wal-Mart.

The simple answer should be, "that's not what I want".

And there's YOUR answer.

I had no trouble answering her question....I was trying to figure out why nursenow thought this was a cultural issue.

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