Rude Medical Interns

allnurses Guide · Mar 14, 2009

Speak to her boss.

My_brain_hurts · Mar 14, 2009

I also work at a teaching hospital, and for the most part our residents and interns are very nice. Everybody has a bad day, and of course there are some that every body just gets along with better than others, but we have really good relationships with everybody. Once in a while we will have an intern or resident who is just really difficult to deal with, or maybe is rude in the way the talk to us. That doesn't last very long. Either a nurse will kindly point out why they called the doctor and that it is his/her responsibility to respond (I work in ICU so when we call we expect a prompt response). Usually it turns out that the intern/resident thought we were calling for something petty and then it turns out they were REALLY glad we called when we did because pt was not looking good at all. Very very rarely do we have on-going difficutly with our docs. And when we do, our charge nurse gets involved and lets the attending know. Usually though it just takes a little time with them on our unit and then they get to know us and we them and it all works out okay.

Sometimes you do have to transfer pt as is, especially if they are really critical. We get lot's of bloody, vomit-covered pt's transfered to use from ER. That's just the way it is sometimes. But it is greatly appreciate when we get a clean one and we definitely try and have pts clean when we transfer out to the floor. However, sometimes pts decide to poo en route which means there ain't much you can do about it. Ah, nursing. . . what a job!

LilyBlue · Mar 14, 2009

I love the residents/med students - most are willing to do the dirty work and some actually follow me around like a puppy dog :). This intern sounds half a bubble off. I'd deal with her the same way i deal with anyone rude - professionally and matter-of-factly, going about my business and leaving her to hang herself. They always do in the end.

pagandeva2000, LPN · Mar 14, 2009

I have had the same...some interns in my clinic are so afraid that they are happy to see a nurse smile at them...poor things. Then, there are the monsters...

emily5547 · Mar 14, 2009

I laugh internally. The interns are near the bottom of their pecking order, but they've worked hard to get there... it takes time, I think, for them to soothe their tired egos enough to understand the value and role of all members of the health care team.

What could possibly more amusing than witnessing a blatant ego-crisis? It's funny!

Pfiesty · Mar 14, 2009

2 Comments:

First, smart interns learn quickly that nurses will help them succeed, or can make their learning experiences really, really bad - their choice. Help them learn that important lesson. Nurses are in a position to save their bottoms or expose their ignorance. Getting along with colleagues is a primary skill.

Second comment:

Interdisciplinary respect is essential to patient safety. All members of the team must feel safe to discuss patient needs. If there exists no atmosphere where dialogue is welcomed and respected, patient care standards decrease. Therefore, their attitudes can be a REGULATORY and ACCREDITATION issue. Discuss the bad attitude with nursing management, hospital management and Risk Management.

Did you know that Medicare, Medicaid and most payor payments require accreditation status? If a facility loses accreditation, ALL payments stop as of that moment. I know one nurse who's complaints resulted in a facility losing accreditation status. Payments stopped and the facility started addressing their deficits STAT!

Quotes:

"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than everyone else." - Albert Einstein

platon20 · Mar 14, 2009

Medical students, medical interns, residents, and attendings are just like everybody else.... most of them are OK but there are always a few idiots in teh crowd (just like the nursing staff).

Dalzac, LPN, LVN, RN · Mar 14, 2009

I have more stories about these interns. But my question is how do you respond to people who act this way? Somebody needs to put this people in place

Usually I love them like they were my own kids. But when their ego rears is ugly head and they become abusive. I go up one side and down the other and talk to them like they were misbehaving little kids. I don't allow them to ever talk to me like that. Their attending and their residents know it too. One Intern in ER was a really bad jerk one night to me and I mean rotten. I have too say, now , it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. He had already yelled at me once and I told him then to watch his mouth. Then I was standing in the hallway It was busy, lots of goings on. He called me a stupid cow because I didn't run when he called. Everyone heard him and it became dead quiet The attending Doc said "UH OH" and backed away from the intern. The nurse that was helping him started laughing and backed away from him

I am short and round btw, I pulled a stool up and stood on it and stuck my finger in his face. I did not touch him but by the end of his manners lessons he was bright red. No one came to his aid. From then on I made him call me Ms. so-n-so.

Later I heard he went to his boss cuz he wanted me fired. I had worked at that facility for 25 yrs. I knew his boss when he was in highschool. He was told I would never be fired that I would likely die working in that hospital and if any of his family needed nursing care he wanted me to take care of them. In fact I did take care of his mother when she died.

Later on in the year the intern was fired, for many reasons concerning nurses and then a couple of patients. This guy was a really bad apple. Do you know how hard it is to get fired from an internship?

Moral of the story is that these guys go thru several years of internship and residiency to learn medicine but also to weed out the reallys bad eggs. if they are just nasty characters or if it is just a bad day, it is going to show eventually. Don't let anyone treat you in a way you don't want. Be it verbal,mental or even physical.

allnurses Guide · Mar 15, 2009

Oh Dalzac, I love it. How did you get him to stand still long enough to get the stool?

Dalzac, LPN, LVN, RN · Mar 15, 2009

I was close to the desk and just walked over picked up the stool and walked back to him. He had no clue as to what was going on, except that everyone was standing still and watching him.

Prosobee · May 8, 2009

Having a wife that is a nurse and being a resident its fun to see both sides on this subject.

My wife admitted that most nurses did not know interns work up to 120+ hours per week and that the accidental page at 2am can be going to an intern that has been working at the hospital for 30+ hours without sleep or food. So forgive the occasional crabby intern, most of us are nice people put in a bad situation that can stress us to the point of snapping! Also some nurses do not know the difference between a medical student and a resident, which can be quite annoying. One nurse questioned me on orders and stated that I had not even graduated from college yet! Little did she know I graduated with my BS in Biochem, had a PhD in Particle Physics and graduated from medical school, hence the "MD" on my white coat, but to her I was just some college student!?!? Most interns realize that nurses have more hospital experience than they do, and treat most RN's with respect. As stated earlier, there are bad apples in every walk of life too.

Now I am in my anesthesiology residency training and my wife is an srna. The opposing viewpoints from my peers and her's are still prevalent. Some SRNA's think they have equivalent training to the MD's without realizing that anesthesiology residents have performed many surgeries, delivered babies, mastered skills on both sides of the curtain, worked as intensiveists, in addition to 3 years of 80+hrs/week in anesthesiology training alone. Likewise many MD's think CRNA's do 10% of the training and get 90% of the salary of the doc's. Of course I know otherwise as my wife has critical care experence, taken organic chem and some of the courses that pre-med's take, done well on her GRE and was an excellent student. I think we all benefit from seeing the other side's viewpoints and taking it all in stride.