I was reading some of the comments relating to the nurse physician relationship, and I agree that there is room for improvement in the way that we treat one another in some circumstances. Being a young female physician, I was naturally interested in the numerous comments about the attitude problem of young female physicians who do not like being confused with nurses.
I am inferring that nurses feel that this attitude is condescending, as though the reason we do not like it is because we feel that being a nurse would be beneath us. At least from my standpoint, my dislike of the "young woman = nurse" assumption is not a nurse-physician issue but a gender issue. I do not mind the occasional patient calling me nurse once; what is frustrating as a young female physician is the pervasiveness of this assumption throughout our daily activities. I wear a large, red nametag with the letters MD on it, and every time I walk into a room a introduce myself as a doctor. Without insulting people's intelligence, I do not know what else I can do to make my role in the hospital experience clear. However, at least once a day, someone complains that no physician has been in to see them.
I find it amazing that we live in a society in which gender roles are still so clearly defined.