Random question about your own rude family members...

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guitarguy23

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Soo I wanted to ask this real quick because it bugs me, and I wanted to see any of you have done if you have been in this situation:

I am a 2nd year medical student and I have a cousin who is an RN at a great institution. At every family get together, she makes a point of bringing up the fact that "I don't know anything yet" and that "all the interns the see each July are idiots.." and really puts down physicians in general. I know the whole deal with the nurses vs. doctors thing, and I don't really care to take a "side" per say, but I am becoming a physician!

How do I protect my career choice from a rude family member? I am usually very patient and ignore it, but I feel like I need to stand my ground. Has anyone else been in a similar position? If so, how did you confront them?
 
Off the top of my head...

-punch her in the ovaries (okay, not really)
-feign nausea and demand she produce a bedpan
-remind her every 45 minutes that it's time for one of her breaks



In all seriousness, I would just ignore it. You can't fix this person, but you can take satisfaction from the idea that in a few short years you can buy and sell her if you'd like.
 
If it were me, I would probably just be very straightforward and honest with that cousin. Just tell him/her not to bring it up any more because it really annoys you. There's no need to put them down and/or bring up their probable inferiority complex.

Also the philosophy major in me has to point out that it's "per se" and not "per say." It's a latin phrase that means "in itself."
 
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What sinombre says is right but its half the battle, you have to bring it up at the right moment; and while you are waiting for that moment don't dwell on it, because when you do bring it up you may come off as condescending or combative and open a new door of problems.

I like what colbgw02 said but you can't just ignore it because it will keep getting brought up and she will keep taking advantage of you by displacing her anger/inadequacies unto you.
 
001100010010011 said:
Bro, this is America.
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My bad.

'Murica.
united_states_flag.gif
 
a good dose of patronizing passive aggression would be my go to.

"wow, so impressive that you are a nurse. i really wanted to be a nurse in college, but then i realized how terrible i was at taking orders from higher ups."
 
SurgeDO said:
a good dose of patronizing passive aggression would be my go to.

"wow, so impressive that you are a nurse. i really wanted to be a nurse in college, but then i realized how terrible i was at taking orders from higher ups."
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hahaha oh man thats harsh.

nurses give all med students **** haha
 
GangaMaster said:
I like what colbgw02 said but you can't just ignore it because it will keep getting brought up and she will keep taking advantage of you by displacing her anger/inadequacies unto you.
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It won't last forever. This is one of those things that nurses do to medical students and inexperienced residents. Eventually, physicians gain enough experience and stories about idiotic RNs that only but the most intrepid won't shut their piehole because they know it's going to get visited back on them 10-fold. I don't know how frequently the OP has to interact with this cousin, but if he/she doesn't want to make waves and doesn't have to see her that often, I'll nearly guarantee this will go away.
 
guitarguy23 said:
Soo I wanted to ask this real quick because it bugs me, and I wanted to see any of you have done if you have been in this situation:

I am a 2nd year medical student and I have a cousin who is an RN at a great institution. At every family get together, she makes a point of bringing up the fact that "I don't know anything yet" and that "all the interns the see each July are idiots.." and really puts down physicians in general. I know the whole deal with the nurses vs. doctors thing, and I don't really care to take a "side" per say, but I am becoming a physician!

How do I protect my career choice from a rude family member? I am usually very patient and ignore it, but I feel like I need to stand my ground. Has anyone else been in a similar position? If so, how did you confront them?
Click to expand...

Honestly, I wouldn't go causing animosity within your family over this. I'd be inconspicuously rolling my eyes at her if I were you too and sometimes it's hard to just be the bigger man and let something go when someone has said something unjust or distasteful. I think in this case her taking a pot shot at doctors isn't worth causing a rift in your family (especially if you see her even remotely often) because we all now how this type of person can get when you call them out on something like that. Her antagonizing doesn't change the fact that your education far exceeds hers and one day your clinical skills and your pay cheque will too. Personally, Id just take the high road and let her think she's special rather than cause drama at family gatherings. One day your accomplishments as a successful physician will shut her up far more than a verbal lashing from a med student ever could.
 
guitarguy23 said:
Soo I wanted to ask this real quick because it bugs me, and I wanted to see any of you have done if you have been in this situation:

I am a 2nd year medical student and I have a cousin who is an RN at a great institution. At every family get together, she makes a point of bringing up the fact that "I don't know anything yet" and that "all the interns the see each July are idiots.." and really puts down physicians in general. I know the whole deal with the nurses vs. doctors thing, and I don't really care to take a "side" per say, but I am becoming a physician!

How do I protect my career choice from a rude family member? I am usually very patient and ignore it, but I feel like I need to stand my ground. Has anyone else been in a similar position? If so, how did you confront them?
Click to expand...

Just ask her why she feels so inadequate.
 
What's with all the ultra passive aggressive methodology in this thread. Are you all just giant *******? What are the consequences? Just tell her to STFU and stop being a bitch and that you have no desire to hear her complain about your profession.
 
Wordead said:
What's with all the ultra passive aggressive methodology in this thread. Are you all just giant *******? What are the consequences? Just tell her to STFU and stop being a bitch and that you have no desire to hear her complain about your profession.
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If it was a dude, that's what I'd do. I'd actually go a step further. With a woman, I'd just let it go. Did you really think that was actual advice?
 
Go to her workplace and dig up all the juicy details about the stupid stuff she did when she first started. Every time she tries to pull that nonsense, pull out the anecdote of your choice and crush her.
 
Brain Bucket said:
If it was a dude, that's what I'd do. I'd actually go a step further. With a woman, I'd just let it go. Did you really think that was actual advice?
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Out of curiosity why does it matter if it's a woman?
 
colbgw02 said:
-feign nausea and demand she produce a bedpan
-remind her every 45 minutes that it's time for one of her breaks
Click to expand...
lmao.. win.

And OP, she isn't really saying anything the is untrue. In the grand scheme of things, as younger med students we don't really know how to handle clinical situations effectively yet and as beginning residents we won't know how and/or have the confidence to make decisions either. Constantly bringing it up all the time is just smug though and I'd assume she's either the insecure nurse who wanted to go to med school or the gunner nurse that walks around with a fanny pack that makes it look like she's going to war... but in reality the only things she'll ever use from it are gauze and tape.
 
Talk about all the dumb **** nurses do. "Oh god, the other day a nurse suggest we bolus a hyperglycemic patient's insulin dose instead of titrating it slowly! It's like they don't teach them anything in school these days. Don't they know the latest recommendations?"
 
its called jealousy with a sprinkle of insecurity. i've always felt sorry for people like your cousin.
 
It's so weird when you see this mentality around the wards. I've been around a ton of new grad nurses and some of their questions are equally absurd as what I imagine a new intern's would be. One new hire called the intern last week to ask if 87 was too low of a blood sugar.

Everyone learns as they progress and experience more.
 
HopefulReapp said:
It's so weird when you see this mentality around the wards. I've been around a ton of new grad nurses and some of their questions are equally absurd as what I imagine a new intern's would be. One new hire called the intern last week to ask if 87 was too low of a blood sugar.

Everyone learns as they progress and experience more.
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What is equally absurd is that I'll bet you $1 million that the OPs family member is one of these stereotypical senior nurses who judges medical students and interns based on their lack of nursing knowledge.

"OMG can you believe that that dumb student/intern didn't know that ampicillin had to be reconstituted?!"

"I can't believe that dumb student/resident didn't know that medication X can't be crushed and put down the PEG. They're such idiots. Thank God were here to save the patients from them!"
 
act cool, and just treat her as a young niece or something.
You don't need to prove nothing to her.
Family meetings next year will be a breeze, you will learn much about clinical stuff at 3rd year, she will be sorry to bring the issue up.
 
I have the misfortune of having 3 jaded RN's on my wifes side (not saying all RN's are this way). At family gatherings, most of their bantering is physician bashing. According to them, all the physicians in their hospital are completely incompetent and don't know anything. The doctors they are speaking of are all attendings, there are no residency positions at this hospital.
Sadly, this is the least annoying conversation going on at any given gathering. The other family members are talking about how modern medicine is useless and that there are sooooo many cures for cancer that the government is hiding, marijuana being #1. I just agree and say how crazy it is that no one else has figured this out and how it's an obvious conclusion since no one smoking or vaporizing marijuana has ever developed cancer (obvious sarcasm is lost on them, further humoring myself).
The worst conversation that I have to put up with is the Anti-vacc cousin in law preaching. According to her, I'm a shill for Big Pharma and we are all just sheeeeeeeeple and we all need to Wake Up! After I regain my composure from laughing at all of them, I head outside and hang with my father-in-law while he smokes a J (somehow weed didn't cure his prostate cancer) and we laugh at our insane family some more. He's the only one with an IQ above 32 (pretty sure he's a certifiable genius, actually) and capable of a rational discussion.
All this to say: find a member of your family that is not insane, and make fun of the crazies (or the rude) with them. Arguing will likely only push the crazies further to the extreme you disdain and give you a heart attack in the process. At least you can blow off some steam making fun of them with someone else.
 
Brain Bucket said:
I'd just ALWAYS be super-polite to her and constantly tell anecdotes about this idiot in class 'who didn't even know the translocation for dermatofibroma protuberans. I'm sure someone like you knows it, right?' Pick some hard questions from the qbanks / minutiae from Robbin's and give her prompts in everyone's presence, making it seem as though they were perfectly easy questions, and just make a comically disappointed face every time she ****s up. Whenever you're in public together, just constantly pelt her with them. Don't give her a chance to breathe.

When she finally breaks down into tears, stand up and proclaim:
View attachment 180090
Click to expand...


Everyone hates those kinds of medical students, even other medical students. Don't be that guy.
 
I'm not in clinical years yet, but I'm already tired of going to preceptorship and having to answer the attending "I don't know" when they ask me random clinical ****, just because nothing we learn in school is actually relevant to clinical practice. And then some douche nurse had the temerity to ask me "what do you know then"? Don't these people know that MS-1 is about laying the foundation for the rest of your career?

EDIT: Blah blah, I know I can't say angry ish because I "represent the profession" 🙁
 
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Arkangeloid said:
I'm not in clinical years yet, but I'm already tired of going to preceptorship and having to answer the attending "I don't know" when they ask me random clinical ****, just because nothing we learn in school is actually relevant to clinical practice. And then some douche nurse had the temerity to ask me "what do you know then"? Don't these people know that MS-1 is about laying the foundation for the rest of your career?

If I have to deal with this **** any longer, one of my new motivations to become an attending will be so I can verbally abuse and humiliate people and get revenge for what happened in my past.
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This is probably a part of the reason why the circle of abuse persists in medicine. I'm finishing up third year, and if I posted some of the things that were said to me throughout the course of this year, then my classmates would surely recognize me on here (i.e., it's really bad). I did well on Step I, but some things you just won't know the answer to and they will give you crap for it. You have to learn not to take things personally--even if they are really insulting--, or third year will eat you alive. Even if you get along with nearly everybody, people who are out to assert their little bits of power will still try to bring you down.
 
Arkangeloid said:
I'm not in clinical years yet, but I'm already tired of going to preceptorship and having to answer the attending "I don't know" when they ask me random clinical ****, just because nothing we learn in school is actually relevant to clinical practice. And then some douche nurse had the temerity to ask me "what do you know then"? Don't these people know that MS-1 is about laying the foundation for the rest of your career?

EDIT: Blah blah, I know I can't say angry ish because I "represent the profession" 🙁
Click to expand...

As long as you're not graded in MS-1 on it, you shouldn't care. That being said, you should try to think about it, not just automatically say, "I don't know."
 
boogaloo said:
This is probably a part of the reason why the circle of abuse persists in medicine. I'm finishing up third year, and if I posted some of the things that were said to me throughout the course of this year, then my classmates would surely recognize me on here (i.e., it's really bad). I did well on Step I, but some things you just won't know the answer to and they will give you crap for it. You have to learn not to take things personally--even if they are really insulting--, or third year will eat you alive. Even if you get along with nearly everybody, people who are out to assert their little bits of power will still try to bring you down.
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^^^ This. It will eat you up alive.
 
DermViser said:
^^^ This. It will eat you up alive.
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Yeah I know. I'm also scared of Surgery rotation, I've heard surgeons are nasty people who get angry all the time. And they probably won't be nice at all if they find out I have less than zero interest in any surgical field. Should I lie to them and say that Surgery is my life's dream when the time comes?
 
Arkangeloid said:
Yeah I know. I'm also scared of Surgery rotation, I've heard surgeons are nasty people who get angry all the time. And they probably won't be nice at all if they find out I have less than zero interest in any surgical field. Should I lie to them and say that Surgery is my life's dream when the time comes?
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I don't think they're as malignant as that necessarily. They do want the work getting done. That being said, lying to them that you want to do Surgery, may backfire on you: 1) They might have you do more back-breaking work since you want to go into Surgery or 2) they easily figure out you're lying - and the repercussions from that.
 
How about: "You cut me some slack for the next 5 years; then I'll cut you slack for the next 40."
 
LennyKravitz said:
The worst conversation that I have to put up with is the Anti-vacc cousin in law preaching. According to her, I'm a shill for Big Pharma and we are all just sheeeeeeeeple and we all need to Wake Up!.
Click to expand...

I think we're somehow related. I have this same cousin. Same exact speeches. One day, I was weak and asked him how his smallpox was progressing. He has a child with autism and believe his kid was "vaccine injured." In my mind, the 6 week old that was having ALTEs later discovered to be pertussis is vaccine injured because some adult close to them didn't get their booster and this kid nearly died.
 
Arkangeloid said:
Yeah I know. I'm also scared of Surgery rotation, I've heard surgeons are nasty people who get angry all the time. And they probably won't be nice at all if they find out I have less than zero interest in any surgical field. Should I lie to them and say that Surgery is my life's dream when the time comes?
Click to expand...

My experience is that surgeons aren't any more or less malignant than any other specialty. Like everyone else, they are busy professionals with a list of ish they want done. If it's done, that makes less stress in their lives. And none bothered me because I wasn't going to be a surgeon. If you show up, do your work, and be (or at least act) interested they'll teach you something.
 
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Arkangeloid said:
Yeah I know. I'm also scared of Surgery rotation, I've heard surgeons are nasty people who get angry all the time. And they probably won't be nice at all if they find out I have less than zero interest in any surgical field. Should I lie to them and say that Surgery is my life's dream when the time comes?
Click to expand...

There are few things worse than being caught in a lie as a "professional." My worst experience was in Ob/Gyn. I honored evals and the course, but the rumors were true at my school. A lot of the residents and some attendings were catty, sexist, and just horrible people in general. I was close to being burnt out by the end of it (the real definition). The field was interesting though, and the patients were all nice to me.
 
I'll make more in a day than you make in a week.
 
Every time she talks just interrupt and tell her to go get you something
 
Arkangeloid said:
Yeah I know. I'm also scared of Surgery rotation, I've heard surgeons are nasty people who get angry all the time. And they probably won't be nice at all if they find out I have less than zero interest in any surgical field. Should I lie to them and say that Surgery is my life's dream when the time comes?
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Definitely not. In my experience, if you say you want to do the field that you're rotating in, the attendings/residents typically have higher expectations of you and work you harder.
 
hire them to work in your clinic and make them file papers.

also snap at them when you want them to come to you....

physician = bossman
 
Wordead said:
What's with all the ultra passive aggressive methodology in this thread. Are you all just giant *******? What are the consequences? Just tell her to STFU and stop being a bitch and that you have no desire to hear her complain about your profession.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the ovary punch is extremely passive aggressive. I agree.
 
guitarguy23 said:
Soo I wanted to ask this real quick because it bugs me, and I wanted to see any of you have done if you have been in this situation:

I am a 2nd year medical student and I have a cousin who is an RN at a great institution. At every family get together, she makes a point of bringing up the fact that "I don't know anything yet" and that "all the interns the see each July are idiots.." and really puts down physicians in general. I know the whole deal with the nurses vs. doctors thing, and I don't really care to take a "side" per say, but I am becoming a physician!

How do I protect my career choice from a rude family member? I am usually very patient and ignore it, but I feel like I need to stand my ground. Has anyone else been in a similar position? If so, how did you confront them?
Click to expand...

My wife's little sister is a newly minted nurse at a large academic center. She's not far enough along yet to have the bizarre superiority complex, but she does have enough sense to ask me from time to time about certain behaviors/occurrences regarding med students/residents/attendings. She and many of her new-ish coworkers had a weak understanding of what the role of a resident in a hospital even was, and wondered why this person with "M.D." after their name wasn't always able to give a definitive answer about treatment plans. When I started my first year of internship, she asked me whether or not I could now do something like a heart transplant since I graduated medical school and was an M.D. And this wasn't her being snarky, she just really didn't know.

Chances are your cousin is a bit more seasoned, though. Which gives her less of an excuse to act this way. In the way DermViser sh*ts all over most other specialties, a lot of physicians can be nasty when it comes to nurses, and vice versa. It's stupid, since we're all a team. When you first start your intern year, there will probably be a couple of nurses who teach you a thing or two. By the end of this year (if not sooner), you'll hopefully be teaching the nurses. Many of them truly don't know enough to know how much they don't know. Much of what they do (and what they see physicians do) seems entirely algorithmic, and any deviation from this tends to throw them off. The sensible nurses would ask me "why?" so they could learn. The combative nurses assumed ignorance on my part, and I had to more firmly educate them.

The best thing you can do at this point is smile, nod, and know that in a short while you will be in the physician role and have the chance to demonstrate your knowledge and professionalism.

The second best thing you can do is just take a **** on the floor at dinner and demand she clean it up.
 
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