On Surgeons....

[Lawgiver]

from a nurse:

"I've worked around surgeons a good part of my life. They are among the most thin-skinned individuals I have ever encountered. They tend to be incredibly immature because they have spent so many years devoted to their art/science/craft that they have not had the time to develop social skills. They are the absolute master of their work environment. Because their work requires incredible confidence they end up thinking that they are God."

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[DrBodacious]

People seem to mean a lot of different things when they say so and so is, "thin skinned." If the nurse meant, "get pissed off easily," so what?

 

[DrBodacious]

I guess I think of "thin skinned" as "going to cry in the corner" when things are stressful or when you are criticized. Which I would say surgeons are not thin skinned, in that regard.

 

[Crayola227]

Maybe they mean thin skinned in the sense they get their panties in a twist over any imaginary transgression

An MS1 asking a simple question like "is that an appendix" and it gets written up as questioning their authority

Yeah I'd say thin-skinned. Fragile egos.

I could go on and on. Of course that is true of all docs not just cutters.

 

[jqueb29]

coming from a nurse, eh? might be a little bit of a pot/kettle situation

 

[Psai]

from a nurse:

"I've worked around surgeons a good part of my life. They are among the most thin-skinned individuals I have ever encountered. They tend to be incredibly immature because they have spent so many years devoted to their art/science/craft that they have not had the time to develop social skills. They are the absolute master of their work environment. Because their work requires incredible confidence they end up thinking that they are God."

What do nurses have as an excuse for their thin skin? Some lady asks why some other lady at a beauty pagent has a doctors stethoscope on and nurses nationwide get upset at the supposed slight

You might get written up for coughing in their presence

 

[WingedOx]

I guess I think of "thin skinned" as "going to cry in the corner" when things are stressful or when you are criticized. Which I would say surgeons are not thin skinned, in that regard.

I'm not sure having a tantrum meltdown is superior emotional control to crying.

 

[themockjock]

from a nurse:

"I've worked around surgeons a good part of my life. They are among the most thin-skinned individuals I have ever encountered. They tend to be incredibly immature because they have spent so many years devoted to their art/science/craft that they have not had the time to develop social skills. They are the absolute master of their work environment. Because their work requires incredible confidence they end up thinking that they are God."

We've done it. A premed quoting a nurse has just cracked the psyche of every surgeon on the planet.

 

[giantswing]

I tell nurses to shut up and get my gloves.

Jk.

Sort of.

 

[Dr. Death]

Lol she saw his paystub.

 

[Cytarabine]

oh my god who cares

 

[zeppelinpage4]

from a nurse:

"I've worked around surgeons a good part of my life. They are among the most thin-skinned individuals I have ever encountered. They tend to be incredibly immature because they have spent so many years devoted to their art/science/craft that they have not had the time to develop social skills. They are the absolute master of their work environment. Because their work requires incredible confidence they end up thinking that they are God."

On my last week of surgery rotation.

Though there are one or two characters. The vast majority of interns/residents/attending surgeons I worked with were very caring and kind people. I did not once see a malicious or bad interaction between one of the surgeons and a fellow staff member. I'm not saying these stereotypes don't exist, but I was pleasantly surprised to see, that most surgeons do not follow the stereotype. It saddens me to think, some amazing doctors I've worked with, who are just great human beings, would get placed into such a stereotype. I'm guilty of making judgments about surgeons too, but having worked with plenty now, I've learned to see them differently. 🙂

I'll note, many didn't take **** from others, and were very confident people with strong personalities, but they were still nice folks.

 

[DrBodacious]

I'm not sure having a tantrum meltdown is superior emotional control to crying.

Asking nicely doesn't always get you what you need.

But, what I was saying is that emotional control is different than the "thickness" of your skin, which to most people means ability to handle criticism. The most negative criticism in the (supposed) nurse quote was that surgeons are thin skinned, which I think is either flat out wrong or incorrect diction.

 

[TBV]

Sounds like jealousy. Nurse likely saw avg surgeons salary and in b/w some menial work thought that he/she would try to bring the surgeon down by projecting a god complex on them. Truth is if nurse was better at their job they might not be getting yelled at, in my experience surgeons are only angry when mistakes are repeated.

 

[Crayola227]

During my training they were outright scary.

They had only in the last few years made the threats towards them dire enough to get them to stop yelling, cursing, and throwing things AT people in the OR. They still did all three but they just had to be sure it wasn't AIMED at anyone.

So there was still yelling, cursing, throwing which would be OK sometimes in my view but a lot of the time it really was gratuitous and scary.

Of course, they still verbally tongue-lashed people directly, they just had to keep the volume down, no cursewords or direct epithets. Which actually had the effect of making the verbal abuse and condescension worse because it was much more personal.

And none of those rules applied to residents, only the nurses (the union saw to that) and the med students (the school would crack down if a student were brave enough to report, only because their stint with them was short enough to do so, and for PR the school was trying to reign the ssurgeons in). Since resident asses are owned to the extent they are of course exempt from any protections from attendings.