Shaking my head

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

TheKidCanRun

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2011
Messages
12
Reaction score
4
So recently my attending and I are in the pre-op room talking to an adolescent patient and his mother. The patient is nervous. His mother, a very nice woman, attempts to console him and says "you know our neighbor across the street, she is an anesthesiologist too." She then turns to us and asks us if we know __________. We say that we don't.

I later google the person's name and it's definitely a CRNA.

The public's perception of our profession is nowhere near where it needs to be. Shaking my head all day.

Members don't see this ad.
 
Welcome to medicine. Plenty of people incorrectly categorize medical professionals, and it's not going anywhere. Self worth shouldn't be judged by the perception of others.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
If things like this are going to ruin your day, you are probably in the wrong field.
 
Dude, you'll hear this about 2,398 times in your career. I've heard it at least that many times in my 13 years.
 
All patients are spectacularly unequipped to assess the quality of the care they get. Most understand 1/4 of what a casually informed "consumer" should (consider the amount of time the average person spends researching an iPod purchase vs the elective surgery they've scheduled). Worse, most understand about 1/100th of what they think they do.

And that's when nobody is lying to them. You can bet this patient's neighbor wasn't leaping to correct any "misunderstandings" about her credentials.
 
Wow. That is really enough to ruin your day?



Obviously you've never met anyone who was going to "med school" so they could become a nurse after a special one-month program.*






*It was a CNA program.
 
Top