Why is it... (nurses constantly throw jabs at physicans)

gypsyatheart · May 22, 2004

Awesome, awesome post, moia! I mean really, isn't this what it's all about?? Student nurses would run screaming from the room if they knew the real truth of the matter/the "reality" of nursing! Well, at least half of them would! LOL

Thing is, you really can't impress upon someone the "reality" of a situation, when it's something they have to "live" for themselves.....

I think the problem here is because you are a student you have yet to come into contact with a doctor as one professional to another.
In school your teachers are your superiors, you are following a completely different chain of command and I think you may be projecting a bit...you are regimented quite tightly as a student and you feel subordinate to everyone right now because you have no power.
Once you complete your training and pass your exam and get your licence you will begin to realize you don't have the luxury of thinking like this anymore.
Yes...I said LUXURY...as a student your responsibilites and commitments are nominal...once you get a job this all will become clear.
Right now it's comforting to think that you are just a cog in the wheel and that all you need to do is follow the orders of the doc and you will be fine.
This is why so many talk about culture or reality shock...when you become a real nurse with a real job it will become terrifyingly real that your job is your own...you can't hide behind a doctor, it's all up to you to make life and death decisions.
We complain about doctors because they don't carry half the responsibilty we do...I know that seems wrong and you still think the doctor is running the show...but they don't.
A doctor may see a patient for 5 minutes on a morning round...they may not even do a cursory assessment...the nurse is the ONLY one with complete responsibility 24 hours a day...every choice we make every minute of the day impacts our patients,
The doctor relies totally on the nurse.....if we miss something, if we forget something ,if we make a mistake it's all our responsibilty.
I cannot use words to make you understand, you must live it yourself to understand what being a nurse means...your teachers aren't going to tell you...you would run screaming from the room.
You will remember this conversation on the day when you are suddenly overwhelmed with the realization all these lives are in your hands and it will take more time than your patient has to call a doctor and have him lift this responsibility.
You are clinging tightly to the idea you won't be alone, that someone smarter or more responsible will be there..you may want to start letting go of that idea soon.
We complain about doctors because they have the luxury of relying totally on us and they don't give us the respect that reliance should command.
We complain because that reliance has given alot of doctors a strange sense of complacency...they have had it too good for too long and some don't respond with the urgency necessary. We complain because our patients are on the ward when 10 years ago they would be in the ICU...we complain because new mothers are discharged too soon, we are doing surgery in outpatient clinics that 10 years ago would be a 2 week hospital stay.
Doctors aren't seeing the acuity because we are damn good at what we have had to do and sometimes it makes us crazy that alot of doctors are now expecting us to just do more and more with less and less.
Acuity has become so high doctors don't even see it any more..they just expect us to suck it up and handle it without bothering them.
You have nothing to compare your practice to..for you as a student all your resposibilty lies with making your clinical instructor happy...soon you will have a really tough boss...patients and families..they don't care if you know the patho or can a write a care plan...you wont care about a care plan either..you will be way to busy.
And yes you will be complaining about the doctors too because you will understand we aren't a team no matter what it says in the books or the philosophy of your hospital...those patients are yours and anyone who is making it harder for you to carry that load is going to be on your s**t list.

BeenThereDoneThat74, MSN, RN · May 23, 2004

Moia, you said it so well. You should have that published. :) :) :) :)

SmilingBluEyes · May 23, 2004

I agree, Moia, your post really does "tell it like it is". Nursing wannabees, wannabe docs, and students should all be required to read it!!!! Good job!

Truly_Blessed · May 23, 2004

I think the problem here is because you are a student you have yet to come into contact with a doctor as one professional to another.
In school your teachers are your superiors, you are following a completely different chain of command and I think you may be projecting a bit...you are regimented quite tightly as a student and you feel subordinate to everyone right now because you have no power.
Once you complete your training and pass your exam and get your licence you will begin to realize you don't have the luxury of thinking like this anymore.
Yes...I said LUXURY...as a student your responsibilites and commitments are nominal...once you get a job this all will become clear.
Right now it's comforting to think that you are just a cog in the wheel and that all you need to do is follow the orders of the doc and you will be fine.
This is why so many talk about culture or reality shock...when you become a real nurse with a real job it will become terrifyingly real that your job is your own...you can't hide behind a doctor, it's all up to you to make life and death decisions.
We complain about doctors because they don't carry half the responsibilty we do...I know that seems wrong and you still think the doctor is running the show...but they don't.
A doctor may see a patient for 5 minutes on a morning round...they may not even do a cursory assessment...the nurse is the ONLY one with complete responsibility 24 hours a day...every choice we make every minute of the day impacts our patients,
The doctor relies totally on the nurse.....if we miss something, if we forget something ,if we make a mistake it's all our responsibilty.
I cannot use words to make you understand, you must live it yourself to understand what being a nurse means...your teachers aren't going to tell you...you would run screaming from the room.
You will remember this conversation on the day when you are suddenly overwhelmed with the realization all these lives are in your hands and it will take more time than your patient has to call a doctor and have him lift this responsibility.
You are clinging tightly to the idea you won't be alone, that someone smarter or more responsible will be there..you may want to start letting go of that idea soon.
We complain about doctors because they have the luxury of relying totally on us and they don't give us the respect that reliance should command.
We complain because that reliance has given alot of doctors a strange sense of complacency...they have had it too good for too long and some don't respond with the urgency necessary. We complain because our patients are on the ward when 10 years ago they would be in the ICU...we complain because new mothers are discharged too soon, we are doing surgery in outpatient clinics that 10 years ago would be a 2 week hospital stay.
Doctors aren't seeing the acuity because we are damn good at what we have had to do and sometimes it makes us crazy that alot of doctors are now expecting us to just do more and more with less and less.
Acuity has become so high doctors don't even see it any more..they just expect us to suck it up and handle it without bothering them.
You have nothing to compare your practice to..for you as a student all your resposibilty lies with making your clinical instructor happy...soon you will have a really tough boss...patients and families..they don't care if you know the patho or can a write a care plan...you wont care about a care plan either..you will be way to busy.
And yes you will be complaining about the doctors too because you will understand we aren't a team no matter what it says in the books or the philosophy of your hospital...those patients are yours and anyone who is making it harder for you to carry that load is going to be on your s**t list.

Wow, Wow, Wow! I am saving this one. Good post!

lady_jezebel · May 23, 2004

Generalised griping, b****ing and moaning isn't professional behaviour, true, but I think a better reason not to do it is that it's not productive.

We do this to protect ourselves, I think (though sometimes just to moan with frustration). I and my co-workers share info about which docs are helpful & skilled, vs. those who are simply arrogant/unhelpful or incompetent. This information guides the nurse in his/her approach to the doc -- practically, we know whom to call when we need particular orders, whom would appreciate a call regarding pt status, whom rejects every request or assessment finding by a nurse, etc...

Frankly, many docs openly do not respect nursing judgement and input. Some docs are unbelievably arrogant or oblivious about their patients' feelings and needs. Many nurses leave their positions b/c docs can be such a pain in the rump to work with, for they can make our jobs more difficult and depressing. There is an equal lack of professionalism on the side of the docs many times. It's juvenile, but reality.

And by the way, this discovery is part of the "reality shock" that faces all nurses who leave school and begin their first jobs. I'm sure it affects NPs too, for NPs/PAs are dumped upon by docs -- they get a lot of the grunt work, from what some NPs in practice have told me. Just suspend your judgement until you actually begin working. It may be a real eye opener.

allnurses Guide · May 23, 2004

I work at a teaching hospital with a resident program and see resident bashing occasionally. I think that is so hypocritical and doesn't start the MD's off on a good relationship with us. The residents bend over backwards to be nice and profressional to us, at least at this facility.

Tweety, thanks for this. I've been reading this thread for a few days and I have to finally say that what I think the OP was talking about was what I noticed in nursing school and when I became a nurse and what I still see and that is an attitude of bashing other folks as a whole. There are jerks everywhere, in every profession and to catagorize all people in a profession in a negative manner is unfair and unproductive.

My work experience is like Tweety's . . . . the docs I work with are professional with the nursing staff, appreciate our work and say so. Sometimes one will have a bad day for who knows what reason and be grumpy but then so are some of the nurses grumpy sometimes and can act a little short with co-workers.

Guess what, I've met nurses with superiorty complexes but that doesn't mean all nurses feel that way. I had a colleague come to me stunned because she had been berated by a RN who told her that "I'm a RN, I didn't go to school to copy some D$%!N form and hand it over to you". Since when is copying something beneath anyone or just being polite to another co-worker so hard?

I guess what I've come away with in this conversation is the OP found all the comments about docs to be unprofessional and I have to agree. It is like man-bashing . . . all men are supposedly male chauvinist pigs who beat their wives during the SuperBowl.

Stereotypes get us nowhere.

And I like Marie's quote "Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent"---Eleanor Roosevelt.

steph

MaryPush · May 24, 2004

Just a few thoughts...

1. Resident doctors HAVE graduated from medical school and are therefore, no longer students.

2. Why wouldn't someone want to be judged on their spelling (among other things, of course)? I am an educated, professional individual and inattention to proper spelling does nothing to promote that. I'm not referring the occasional typo, I'm referring to consistent misspellings of common words.

becca.utns · May 24, 2004

Just a few thoughts...
1. Resident doctors HAVE graduated from medical school and are therefore, no longer students.
2. Why wouldn't someone want to be judged on their spelling (among other things, of course)? I am an educated, professional individual and inattention to proper spelling does nothing to promote that. I'm not referring the occasional typo, I'm referring to consistent misspellings of common words.

Thank you MaryPush, I'm not going to take someone seriously when their spelling and/or grammar is a nightmare.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · May 24, 2004

2. Why wouldn't someone want to be judged on their spelling (among other things, of course)? I am an educated, professional individual and inattention to proper spelling does nothing to promote that. I'm not referring the occasional typo, I'm referring to consistent misspellings of common words.

Because there's bigger **** in life to worry about than THAT :rolleyes: . But if you've got the time and the interest to critique someone's grammar and spelling, then to each their own, just do not judge.

Dayray, RN · May 25, 2004

Only read the first page so far so some of this may be repeat but I have to respond.

1 nurses are not really subordinate to doctors. doctors also are not more highly trained. doctors have more time spent in some fundamentals like chemistry and bio then they have a very broad training as generalists then they have training to do some tasks that nurses don't ie surgery and other things you need to call a doctor for. Nurses are with patients for 8 -12 hours a day we watch them and know things a doctor never could because we observe constantly. If you want to talk about extensive training think about how many hours a nurse spends at the bedside. Yes doctors spend more time in school but nurses spend more time with patients.

Good examples of this are: As a nurse you will know what a patient looks like just before they die, you'll know what the death rattle is, you will talk about "the look" and understand completely when another nurse tells you this. You will know what is going on with your patient just by walking in the room. doctors will never know theses things. As a nurse you'll do CPR so many times you'll lose count, your hands will know exactly where every med is on your cart, You'll spend 2 hours working a code and walk out of the room beaten and battered to see the family showering thanks over the doctor who just walked in after playing 9 holes.

As a nurse you will do all you can to protect your patient from impatient and uncaring doctors who care more about their dinner arrangements then they do about their patients. You will have doctors scream at you, or abuse you for no reason and then watch as nothing is done about this by management.

The reason nurses complain about doctors is that our medical system is flawed. It is flawed because legally the doctor is the one that makes decisions However my young friend this is not the case in reality.

In reality the nurse calls the doctor and tells them what to do. This will get the nurse one of 2 responses 1 the doc says ok and the nurse writes the order and then does it. 2 the doctor fights with the nurse (too feed their own ego) and then the patient go's without. In either scenario if something goes wrong the doctor blames it on the nurse and everyone is quick to agree because we all want to believe that doctors are infallible and everyone has a financial interest in keeping the doctor from losing their license but nurses are expendable.

This is a generalization but Doctors are not usually very caring, they are more scientists then care providers. They solve problems and match up assessment data with diagnosis then diagnosis with treatments and write orders. It's up to nurses to do all those things and the doctor won't even be around so the nurse has to watch and then call the doctor with the results.

Now thats all fine and well except that when ever their is a problem the nurse is blamed and when ever their is success the doctor is thanked. The reason for this is that even though the nurse may have been the one to recommend a treatment the doctors name is on the order and the nurse is seen as an overpaid waitress who mindlessly implements a doctors brilliant orders.

I am going to tell you a secret that only doctors and nurse know.... we don't really need them. That is to say their are a few that are good and that make patients lives better (that is after all what all this is supposed to be about) However their are many more who went to med school because they wanted to be Known as a Doctor not because they actually wanted to be one. They went into it for themselves not to help people.

Now the good doctors out there actually care and they realize that nurses are important and treat them that way. the majority couldent care less and treat nurses like trash.

Tweety, BSN, RN · May 25, 2004

Just a few thoughts...
I'm not referring the occasional typo, I'm referring to consistent misspellings of common words.

Guilty as charged, but read my disclaimer. I apologize in advance. I will not be judged. LOL

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · May 25, 2004

How funny..... Touch a nerve here? This is my point, what is wrong with working under phsyicians??? Its reality, no matter how you cut it. But you can try to convince everyone and anyone all day long that its your decision if it makes you feel better. You can suggest treatments for the patients and I am sure the docs take them in many cases, but it is their decision as to what treatment the patient willl receive.

I would find it difficult to work under "phsyicians" as I rarely if ever see any.

The doctor can write down all the treatments that he wants, but unless I do them and correctly, what good is it? And I have to make sure it is the right thing for the patient first, too. Not to mention decipher the hand writing/spelling.

Carolina (the traveler on assignment in Manhattan who had to to teach a intern - take that NY Post - where the foley goes on a woman........and feeling really sorry for any woman that sleeps with him, given his knowledge of anatomy)