Difficult work situation

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To be totally transparent, I have two reasons for starting this thread. One is that I'd love some good advice, especially if any of you have been in a similar situation. Second, I need/want to vent. So if you don't want to listen to a whiny medical student, this thread is not for you....

I've been continuing to work part time (1 shift a week) in the ER. This is working out fine in terms of school, etc. The problem is that ever since I've started school a couple of the nurses have been giving me a really hard time. Not most - I still get along great with 98% of the people there. It's just a couple (who, by the way, are generally not real nice to the residents). Prior to this I've never had problems with anyone.

They'll make fun of me in front of patients if I miss a tough stick or something (You're going to be a doctor and you miss lab draw?), they give me crap if I ask questions about anything (gee, you don't know that already?), and recently one of them told me to "stop trying to be the doctor and do your own job" for - wait for it - telling a medic which room to go to with a patient after the charge nurse asked me to tell them!! Oh the horror! I then caught this nurse complaining about it to a bunch of other nurses. And this is my fear. I wouldn't be nearly so worried about it except I'm concerned they'll start turning other coworkers against me which could end up affecting my job.

After giving it some thought I decided I'd really better make sure that I'm not coming across badly, so I went to a couple of very experienced nurses who I work with a lot and asked them to give me their honest feedback. They both told me that I haven't been acting any differently since I started school, and that they'll tell me if they see me stepping out of line. I also had a doctor pull me aside when he witnessed some of this and tell me not to worry about it, that I was doing fine, and that some nurses just treat med students like dirt.

So what to do now? Part of me thinks I should just suck it up and take it (gotta develop a thick skin after all), but part of me thinks I ought to confront it before it festers. Anyone ever been in a similar position? Any thoughts of a good way to handle this?
 
To be totally transparent, I have two reasons for starting this thread. One is that I'd love some good advice, especially if any of you have been in a similar situation. Second, I need/want to vent. So if you don't want to listen to a whiny medical student, this thread is not for you....

I've been continuing to work part time (1 shift a week) in the ER. This is working out fine in terms of school, etc. The problem is that ever since I've started school a couple of the nurses have been giving me a really hard time. Not most - I still get along great with 98% of the people there. It's just a couple (who, by the way, are generally not real nice to the residents). Prior to this I've never had problems with anyone.

They'll make fun of me in front of patients if I miss a tough stick or something (You're going to be a doctor and you miss lab draw?), they give me crap if I ask questions about anything (gee, you don't know that already?), and recently one of them told me to "stop trying to be the doctor and do your own job" for - wait for it - telling a medic which room to go to with a patient after the charge nurse asked me to tell them!! Oh the horror! I then caught this nurse complaining about it to a bunch of other nurses. And this is my fear. I wouldn't be nearly so worried about it except I'm concerned they'll start turning other coworkers against me which could end up affecting my job.

After giving it some thought I decided I'd really better make sure that I'm not coming across badly, so I went to a couple of very experienced nurses who I work with a lot and asked them to give me their honest feedback. They both told me that I haven't been acting any differently since I started school, and that they'll tell me if they see me stepping out of line. I also had a doctor pull me aside when he witnessed some of this and tell me not to worry about it, that I was doing fine, and that some nurses just treat med students like dirt.

So what to do now? Part of me thinks I should just suck it up and take it (gotta develop a thick skin after all), but part of me thinks I ought to confront it before it festers. Anyone ever been in a similar position? Any thoughts of a good way to handle this?

Just lay down the law with them. No one has the right to treat you that way. One confrontation back with them in front of a patient and they'll probably never speak to you that way again.
 
These situations are always tough as a med student. Unfortunately, as a student you basically have everything to lose and nothing to gain (other than your own satisfaction). I once publically confronted a resident who was treating us disrespectfully, and it cost me in my evaluations which ended up on my Dean's letter.

I would say just suck it up. The few moments of satisfaction aren't worth what you could possibly lose if someone sees you confront them or word gets around or something. If you really want to do something about it, I would recommend doing it privately, or maybe talking about it with the nurse manager.
 
If you ask me, they're just jealous or intimidated that you're going to be a doctor and you'll get ahead of them one day, so they're trying to belittle you while they can.

Play it safe, but if they do again what they did in front of a patient (which, btw, is a completely as***le thing to do) you should just laughingly say to the nurse "I wonder what your reason is for not becoming a doctor?"

Trust me, they're just insecure. don't worry about what they do to your co-workers. Keep a healthy relationship with the other co-workers and if they're dumb enough to buy into what the back biters are saying, then they were never any good to begin with. That's how I roll.
 
My 0.02

I wouldn't make a big scene about it. I'd ask plainly, in a matter of fact way, what the deal was with the remarks. Do it in private. Doing it in public will only make you look bad in front of the other nurses, and make it come off like you've changed when you haven't.
 
If you ask me, they're just jealous or intimidated that you're going to be a doctor and you'll get ahead of them one day, so they're trying to belittle you while they can.

Play it safe, but if they do again what they did in front of a patient (which, btw, is a completely as***le thing to do) you should just laughingly say to the nurse "I wonder what your reason is for not becoming a doctor?"

Trust me, they're just insecure. don't worry about what they do to your co-workers. Keep a healthy relationship with the other co-workers and if they're dumb enough to buy into what the back biters are saying, then they were never any good to begin with. That's how I roll.

Uh, probably not. What most "premeds" fail to realize is that RNs are professionals who do not all wish they were doctors. Most ED RNs are not intimidated by anything, let alone a med student working part time as a tech, and most are very secure in their jobs. Second, I doubt jealously is the culprit here. Most people in emergency medicine know that ED RNs like to take a gang of **** all shift long and are a strange clique-y group of people. For lack of a better word, they can be bitchy sometimes.

If I was the OP, I would keep my job (great to find one that works with you while you are furthering your education) and strengthen my relationships with co-workers who have supported and mentored and ignore all the rest, and continue doing a bang up job at work. Than laugh al the way to the bank because you are have a higher income than most other med students and will have a leg up for any e-med electives and/or residency interviews.
 
Uh, probably not. What most "premeds" fail to realize is that RNs are professionals who do not all wish they were doctors. Most ED RNs are not intimidated by anything, let alone a med student working part time as a tech, and most are very secure in their jobs. Second, I doubt jealously is the culprit here. Most people in emergency medicine know that ED RNs like to take a gang of **** all shift long and are a strange clique-y group of people. For lack of a better word, they can be bitchy sometimes.

If I was the OP, I would keep my job (great to find one that works with you while you are furthering your education) and strengthen my relationships with co-workers who have supported and mentored and ignore all the rest, and continue doing a bang up job at work. Than laugh al the way to the bank because you are have a higher income than most other med students and will have a leg up for any e-med electives and/or residency interviews.
Actually this sounds better.
 
Play it safe, but if they do again what they did in front of a patient (which, btw, is a completely as***le thing to do) you should just laughingly say to the nurse "I wonder what your reason is for not becoming a doctor?"

The rest of the previous post is alright, but DO NOT SAY THAT. PERIOD. That is just asking for everyone else to start looking down on you too.

If you need to do something, pull them aside privately and say, "look, i'm trying to do my job, I'm not trying to be the doctor. if I'm doing something wrong let me know, but please do not make comments about me in front of the patients. I'm your coworker" and then talk to the nursing supervisor about it. You're not asking her to do nythingabout it. You're asking her to be aware of the situation
 
Two people in the wrong does not make the situation right but makes the situation doubly wrong. Ignore these people who are meaningless in your career in the long run and do your job. People will talk and people will try to get you to sink to their level. You can't win this but you can drag yourself to their level (unprofessional) and make the situation worse. Move on and learn what you can. You are passing through there, they are stuck there.
 
to the op:

I'm not sure what year you're in, but other than making sure you just do your job to your scope of practice, just wait. In a few years, I've found that you get more respect and more wiggle room in your scope of practice as you go along in your training. As a third year medical student I've actually found the the nurses I work with (as a CNA), even the ones who are "that's not in your job description" kind are now respecting me a lot more and eek-asking for advice: "Should I call the doctor about this at 3 am?"
Besides, compared with most people in your class, you'll have less debt, less raman noodle consuption, along with the ability to start IVs---and your nurse "friends" will be greatful for that later on.
 
Uh, probably not. What most "premeds" fail to realize is that RNs are professionals who do not all wish they were doctors. Most ED RNs are not intimidated by anything, let alone a med student working part time as a tech, and most are very secure in their jobs. Second, I doubt jealously is the culprit here. Most people in emergency medicine know that ED RNs like to take a gang of **** all shift long and are a strange clique-y group of people. For lack of a better word, they can be bitchy sometimes.

If I was the OP, I would keep my job (great to find one that works with you while you are furthering your education) and strengthen my relationships with co-workers who have supported and mentored and ignore all the rest, and continue doing a bang up job at work. Than laugh al the way to the bank because you are have a higher income than most other med students and will have a leg up for any e-med electives and/or residency interviews.


I agree with what your saying about what to do but I disagree that jealousy is not the culprit. In my experience almost all unprovoked meanness/rudeness stems from jealousy or low self esteem in the person being rude. I don't think that all nurses or techs want to be a doctor but I think that if they are being rude there is a jealousy component. For all I know they are jealous because the poster looks good or is rich and not because they are a med student.

If someone is mean to me and I don't think I have wronged them I take it as a compliment or at the very least feel sorry for their own low self esteem. I'm a very personable person and make friends everywhere so I don't waste my time worrying about these people. Just ignore them its only temporary.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I actually pulled one of them aside last night, and we had a really good talk. I just asked her if I had done something wrong and what I could do better. Turns out I had failed to do a small task a while back (not intentionally but she had thought it was) that led her to believe maybe I wasn't taking my job seriously since I had "moved on", and then I did something which made her feel I was stepping on her toes (which really was my bad). Then she had a really bad day when I was working with her, things festered, and then they went south quickly. She felt bad about it, and I felt bad for having made her feel I wasn't there to help her or that I was trying to go over her head. So we worked it all out, and I re-learned a good lesson. You get a lot farther by sucking up your pride and asking someone what you need to do to make things right, rather than telling them what they did wrong. And in this case it turns out that I had caused offense, and I'm glad I found that out and was able to apologize and make things right.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I actually pulled one of them aside last night, and we had a really good talk. I just asked her if I had done something wrong and what I could do better. Turns out I had failed to do a small task a while back (not intentionally but she had thought it was) that led her to believe maybe I wasn't taking my job seriously since I had "moved on", and then I did something which made her feel I was stepping on her toes (which really was my bad). Then she had a really bad day when I was working with her, things festered, and then they went south quickly. She felt bad about it, and I felt bad for having made her feel I wasn't there to help her or that I was trying to go over her head. So we worked it all out, and I re-learned a good lesson. You get a lot farther by sucking up your pride and asking someone what you need to do to make things right, rather than telling them what they did wrong. And in this case it turns out that I had caused offense, and I'm glad I found that out and was able to apologize and make things right.

Well hopefully that's it and all good. I'd like to share a different take; I don't like dual relationships. They are dangerous. And until you are board certified you are vulnerable. You are a medical student but you are also a co-worker of sorts. That's a dual relationship. If things heat up again, get another job outside the place that is also your school and source of evaluations. Probably not a big deal and all good.
 
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