young female docs

[usmc94201]

Originally posted by Shotzie

I used to work with a male nurse...big guy...had been a medic in the marines and then went to nusing school...he dressed in all whites from head to toe and always had big red words stitched on his shirt that said XXX(NAME) NURSE, RN,BS, RNC,

and when people would call him doctor or ask him if he was a doctor he would always say.

"NOT A DOC, EVEN BETTER, I'M A NURSE!!!"

I wanted to applaud everytime I heard him do this!!

Ummmmm the Marines do not have medics, must have been Army or Navy, but I liked the story just the same.....

[bluesky, BSN, RN]

If your problem is with societal gender biases, how come you're posting to to a nursing blackboard and not to some other, more generalized public forum? Clearly we who are nurses are intimately aware of the difference. If you have gone to the trouble of finding this forum, reading the threads, and creating an account - you must be *really* bothered.

[OldNewbie]

Youngfemaledoc,

I'm new here, and just embarking on schooling to hopefully become an RN. I just lost my job in aviation after 23 yrs at one company, and 26 yrs in the business.

I feel a need to chime in about your comments because I was (still am) a pilot and aircraft mechanic AND female. I spent A LOT of wasted negative emotion about nearly everyone mistaking me for a flight attendant. If I told someone I worked for an airline they automatically assumed I was a stewardess...this was a lot of times while I was standing in front of them with shiny gold bars on my shoulders and wings on my chest. For many years (recently) I was denied necessary flight ppwk and access to "flight crew only" areas because no one believed I was actually a pilot - I was escorted off more than one airport ramp area with tools in my hands, grease on my face, and ID's out the ying yang while working on an airplane (big jet)....

I FINALLY got sick of myself and all the WASTED negative emotions and constantly having to scream to the moon that I was a REAL pilot or a REAL mechanic....

When I stopped reacting to the "flight attendant" assumption, it was like magic - I was unspokenly accepted and respected...

When the people that were denying me realized that the aircraft wasn't going to go anywhere without me, they catered to me like I was the Queen of England (without me having had said a word)

The comment I used most when someone would apologize for not believing/recognizing that I was a REAL pilot and/or mechanic, I would just say with empathy and a smile - "Geez, they even let girls drive cars now..."

My point to all this is, when you realize that EVERYONE in your profession is a critical part of the process, and deserves respect and dignity, you start getting it back for yourself.

The airplane wasn't going to go anywhere without the mechanics and flight attendants either - they are just as important and educated about the process as me the pilot...once I got it in my head that it was not an insult to be mistaken for a flt attendant, I was a much happier more focused person...

I've heard a lot of horror stories about doctor/nurse relationships...I'm hoping that it isn't as bad as I'm hearing...if you remember that you as a doctor, that has earned your place in the medical world - and I'm sure being female, had to do and be more than your male counterparts (I experienced the same thing getting my licenses) that the nurse and other health care workers had to work just as hard to be in their place - you might feel less hostility/frustration....

I read a poem many years ago entitled "The Forgotten Mechanic" that is very to the point - EVERYONE can remember Limberg, Earhart, etc. - but can anyone remember the name of the mechanic that put them there??

It's not easy being a "hero" (remember I was one) - but it's the real "hero" that always remembers the people (nurses/therapists, etc) that "put them there" i.e. makes them look like heros/makes their jobs easy....

No one person can be the whole chain - it takes MANY links....

Just my opinion - I could be wrong.....

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Originally posted by gwenith

Blame the 50's and 60's movies where the nurse was ALWAYS female and the doctor ALWAYS male - it is hardly any better today although there have been some improvements.

Not true here in the US where half the mds coming out of med school are female. Female doctors are more and more the norm.

Nursing still is overwhelmingly female though, so you're right there.

The problem is the presumptions of the public as you said that come from way back in the 50s and 60s, even though the reality is different.

[OC_An Khe]

Healthcare is a grouping of many professions that have an inherently old fashioned culture. Gender bias,with regards to roles, is just a very obvious attribute. The culture is changing slowly as role assumptions are less frequent then 30+years ago when I entered the healthcare world. In addition to the professions being culturally behind the national culture as a whole, the greater part our patient population tends to be the elderly which does much to determine the shape of the healthcare culture.

To Youngfemaledoc, as time goes by the gender bias will lessen and what little there is left will have less impact. Besides eventually we all become the older members of the profession and our culture will tend to dominate.

[mittels]

Originally posted by cheerfuldoer

I worked with a young female doctor who matches your "comments" perfectly. I have met several young female doctors who are hot and bothered by being mistaken as a "nurse"...geesh! Let's NOT confuse the young female docs with being a "nurse". What's the world coming to anyway?

Since I am female, and my life's dream was to grow up and become a doctor, I in no way had or have problems working with female docs. Most of the healthcare providers that I see for my own healthcare are female by my choosing, so why would I not be accepting of a female doctor?

I've worked with some great doctors....both male and female. I've worked with some great nurses...both male and female.

The problem I have is when the genders wear their "holier than thou" attitudes, and in the process put down those of us who don't care what their gender is as long as their professionalism matches their maturity......be they a nurse or a doctor...male or female.

One female doc wrote me up because she did not get what she wanted when she wanted it. She was NOT wearing a badge of any kind, she had on blue scrubs (lots of staff wear blue scrubs), she was sarcastic when asked who she was and answered in a condescending tone. She did NOT have a white lab coat on with the medical emblem where I would have readily known who she was either. Her whole "young female doctor" problem was taken out on me during a very hectic point in the shift when my patients needed me instead of the sarcastic attitude she brought with her to the scene.

So tell me "youngfemaledoctor"..........how can you young female doctors improve your relations with other health personnel you work with rather than internalizing how you presume or assume you are being read and turning it into an "attitudinal attack" on other healthcare staff, especially nurses, who do NOT deserve the chip some of you wear on your "young female doctor" shoulders???

A call at three in the morning to ask for tylenol or an order for a suppos. may help Doctors feel like Doctors.

[jadednurse]

Originally posted by mittels

A call at three in the morning to ask for tylenol or an order for a suppos. may help Doctors feel like Doctors.

BWAAAHAHAA!

[youngfemaledoc]

Thanks to everyone for your opinions.

I just wanted to respond to one comment that was directed toward me in particular. Bluesky, the reason I sought out this discussion board is because I was interested in the nursing perspective on the physician-nurse relationship, not because I was really bothered by being mistaken for a nurse. I have read many of the threads in an attempt to better understand the issues in nursing, and I took sufficient interest in this topic to post because it seemed that in several threads the young female physician was named as being particularly difficult to stomach. In fact, more than one person commented specifically about the fact that young female physicians did not like being mistaken for nurses as though this was inherently a bad thing. I just wanted to toss out another perspective about why some of us get frustrated by that frequent assumption, as an alternative to the opinion that we as a group look down on nurses.

Happy New Year!

[BBFRN, BSN, PhD]

youngfemaledoc,

I appreciated your perspective, and I thought it was enlightening. I also think it's pretty cool that you not only took the time to share that perspective, but have enough foresight to try to understand some of the issues in nursing, because those issues can, and probably do affect the job you're trying to do.

I don't even know why the sense of entitlement issue has to come up. You are entitled to be adressed as Dr.- you worked for it, you earned it, and you are a Dr. I don't know if any of the nurses here could say that they wouldn't have the same problem if they were addressed as CNAs or Techs on a continuous basis. (No offense at all meant to the CNAs/Techs here.)

[luv2yoga]

I have worked in a fortune 500 company for 20 years as a professional (I'm a CPA). For a period of 4 years, I worked in the research division where many were PHd's. But throughout my 20 years, every one of us calls each other by our first names through the entire company. When the v.p. comes to town, everyone addresses him by first name. Nobody is called "Dr." in conversation. Occasionally you see it on very official memo's (never e-mails).

Ten years ago, I worked as a volunteer in the ER and immediately noticed that the nurses called the Dr.s as "Dr. Brown" while the Dr.'s called the nurses by first name only. The disparity in terms of address is not a positive thing, in my opinion. It was quite a surprize too, as I assumed that it would be similar to my work environment. I think that contributes to some of the tension between Dr.'s and nurses. Has it gotten any better or is this still the norm?

Meredith

[live4today, RN]

Originally posted by LisaRN2B

Would you as a female nurse be upset if someone mistook you for the doctor? Has it ever happened?

One of my former patients who happened to be a female asked me if I were "the doctor", and I told her no, I'm your nurse today. Her reply was "Well, you look like a doctor, and you speak so professionally you could easily be a doctor."

I was wearing dark blue scrubs that day, and I always present myself as a "professional" to my patients when I am in their presence. They deserve to have a professional caring for them, so I'm fully aware of that need. Besides, I've been a patient myself more than a dozen times in my life (not counting the delivery of three babies), and I give my patients what I expect during the times when I am a patient myself.

It does NOT bother me to be mistaken for a doctor because I know if I were a doctor, I'd be a damn good one. :)

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Originally posted by meredithT

I have worked in a fortune 500 company for 20 years as a professional (I'm a CPA). For a period of 4 years, I worked in the research division where many were PHd's. But throughout my 20 years, every one of us calls each other by our first names through the entire company. When the v.p. comes to town, everyone addresses him by first name. Nobody is called "Dr." in conversation. Occasionally you see it on very official memo's (never e-mails).

Ten years ago, I worked as a volunteer in the ER and immediately noticed that the nurses called the Dr.s as "Dr. Brown" while the Dr.'s called the nurses by first name only. The disparity in terms of address is not a positive thing, in my opinion. It was quite a surprize too, as I assumed that it would be similar to my work environment. I think that contributes to some of the tension between Dr.'s and nurses. Has it gotten any better or is this still the norm?

Meredith

No, in fact many doctors insist on being called doctors long after they retire. I've had a several, not many, but several patients who insisted on being called Dr. patient. Their doctors even insisted we call their patients Dr. patient, their wives even called them Dr. patient...."Dr. so and so needs a bedpan please..." instead of "my husband needs a bedpan please.

However, I have no problem calling a doctor a Dr. so and so when at work. I'm on a first-name basis with only one doc that rounds at our hospital, but that's because I used to bowl with him outside of work.

I get just as bothered when people presume I'm a doctor. Doesn't happen as much anymore though.