****ty night

[gerido]

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I've made it through the entire 3rd year, and some of 4th year without any conflict... for the most part, cordial, respectful, and professional. Tonight, was taking care of 4 patients at one (we have A LOT of independence on this clerkship), asked the nurse to take the orthostatic on a patient and I got "you can do it,".. Told her I had to go suture a patient who's been siting around forever.. 30 mins later nothing was done. Asked her to helped the patient as she was about to piss her bed... "ok," and she just sat there. I left to do something, went back, pt said "I can't hold it, I'm wetting my bed." I was pissed, came out, "can you help the patient... ", she got into a hissy fit and talked to my attending about it when I was gone. Came back, he pretty much told me I need to kiss nurses ass if I want to have a decent med school and residency experience... of all the **** that happen.. this was what pissed me off the most...

I understand every work place can be ****ty if you don't get along with your colleagues, but to justify someone's action who was willingly going to compromise patient care and sacrifice patient's dignity, just to get into some mind game with a med student is stupid and unprofessional. To reinforces the expectation that a student or resident has to beg the nurse to DO THEIR FUKING JOB is simply making all our lives worse. Pull me aside and give me some advice on how to handle the situation better and I'll appreciate it... but telling me I have to practically kiss the nurses' ass right in front of them was probably the most disappointing thing I've experienced this year.

I hate these mind games and politics... everyone has a role, the goal is to make thing efficient.. I don't want to stick my finger up someone's ass, but I do it because it's my responsibility... I wish people get over their ego and childish attitude and do what they're suppose to do.. even if a lowly med student ask them to do it. To be fair, I've otherwise have great experiences with everyone this entire year..

 

[JaSam]

I've made it through the entire 3rd year, and some of 4th year without any conflict... for the most part, cordial, respectful, and professional. Tonight, was taking care of 4 patients at one (we have A LOT of independence on this clerkship), asked the nurse to take the orthostatic on a patient and I got "you can do it,".. Told her I had to go suture a patient who's been siting around forever.. 30 mins later nothing was done. Asked her to helped the patient as she was about to piss her bed... "ok," and she just sat there. I left to do something, went back, pt said "I can't hold it, I'm wetting my bed." I was pissed, came out, "can you help the patient... ", she got into a hissy fit and talked to my attending about it when I was gone. Came back, he pretty much told me I need to kiss nurses ass if I want to have a decent med school and residency experience... of all the **** that happen.. this was what pissed me off the most...

I understand every work place can be ****ty if you don't get along with your colleagues, but to justify someone's action who was willingly going to compromise patient care and sacrifice patient's dignity, just to get into some mind game with a med student is stupid and unprofessional. To reinforces the expectation that a student or resident has to beg the nurse to DO THEIR FUKING JOB is simply making all our lives worse. Pull me aside and give me some advice on how to handle the situation better and I'll appreciate it... but telling me I have to practically kiss the nurses' ass right in front of them was probably the most disappointing thing I've experienced this year.

I hate these mind games and politics... everyone has a role, the goal is to make thing efficient.. I don't want to stick my finger up someone's ass, but I do it because it's my responsibility... I wish people get over their ego and childish attitude and do what they're suppose to do.. even if a lowly med student ask them to do it. To be fair, I've otherwise have great experiences with everyone this entire year..

wow, look i totally feel for ya man, (or woman) 1000%. there have been times where u literally wanna just b1tch slap them. But ya can't. So ya just gotta let it go. LEt it go my friend. throw your worries in the wind and let it just blow on past ya. Iknow its hard. At my hospital, the nurses don't do jack and when they do, they do it wrong. So i honestly have gotten used to it after a while. But at first I was at that point where u were a couple times

Med students get treated like crap no doubt. especially by the nurses where i am. and Its funny because u know how nurses always say, oh doctors need to be nicer to us and crap.... Well if this is the way your treating medical students, sooner or later, we will be attendings and we will remember how you've treated us.


But yea, I mean thats a common problem everywhere. Here, the nurses cheat thru school, are lazy as hell, and when they get to the floors really are putting patients in harms way. But thats more of a problem w/ the system and you alone can't really do anything to change that. Yelling at her wouldn't make it better. Cuz she'll just go behind your back and talk **** about u to the attendings. And make up outrageous stuff. Trust me it aint worth it.

The good thing, or great thing in your case is that your attending was at least understanding. He/she didn't scold u for it but even offered u advice for future encounters. Now thats a good attending. I know many attending who would just put that on the eval. "Student is unprofessional, hard to work with, bitter and yells at nurses." - 10 points.

 

[JeffLebowski]

wow, look i totally feel for ya man, (or woman) 1000%. there have been times where u literally wanna just b1tch slap them. But ya can't. So ya just gotta let it go. LEt it go my friend. throw your worries in the wind and let it just blow on past ya. Iknow its hard. At my hospital, the nurses don't do jack and when they do, they do it wrong. So i honestly have gotten used to it after a while. But at first I was at that point where u were a couple times

Med students get treated like crap no doubt. especially by the nurses where i am. and Its funny because u know how nurses always say, oh doctors need to be nicer to us and crap.... Well if this is the way your treating medical students, sooner or later, we will be attendings and we will remember how you've treated us.


But yea, I mean thats a common problem everywhere. Here, the nurses cheat thru school, are lazy as hell, and when they get to the floors really are putting patients in harms way. But thats more of a problem w/ the system and you alone can't really do anything to change that. Yelling at her wouldn't make it better. Cuz she'll just go behind your back and talk **** about u to the attendings. And make up outrageous stuff. Trust me it aint worth it.

The good thing, or great thing in your case is that your attending was at least understanding. He/she didn't scold u for it but even offered u advice for future encounters. Now thats a good attending. I know many attending who would just put that on the eval. "Student is unprofessional, hard to work with, bitter and yells at nurses." - 10 points.

I agree with you, but it's hard to tell the circumstances. Sometimes there's literally no "good" way out of it. Like if you ask her to do something and try to insist, the OP's situation will ensue, and if you don't, you get yelled at by an attending or resident, which can be worse. So it's possible that the OP did nothing wrong or that there was no good course of action. That said, as I mentioned I agree with you, best not to make waves and be as diplomatic as possible.

The OP did the right thing though by griping about it to us (other med students), not the nurse, staff, residents, or attending. Here at the bottom of the totem pole, the only people who are safe to gripe about being on the bottom of the totem pole to are other people who are....you guessed it...on the bottom of the totem pole. We feel ya buddy.

 

[lil pook]

are you freaking kidding me? i tell ya...the balls on some of those women/men sorry ass excuses for nurses

at my school we're allowed to put in formal complaints-in writing of course-about any unprofessional behavior.

me? haha...i would go directly to her boss (whoever that may be) and report the byatch. be diplomatic, of course, and always professional in your approach and manner

this is not a power play. she is compromising pt care, and without reporting her, there is a risk she will continue this behavior and ****ty work performance. remember its about the pts, you guys--the PATIENTS.

personally, i've had some experiences with the nursing staff myself. i don't buy this crap that as a med student you have to allow everyone to crap all over you. and really, if you think about it, it's the pt getting crapped on (or pissed on in this particular instance)...NOT COOL

there was one nurse at my school...notoriously malignant....enough students complained, and guess what? she was moved to another dept.

goes to show that hey! whadya know? sometimes they do listen to med studnt feedback

how 'bout that

 

[JaSam]

are you freaking kidding me? i tell ya...the balls on some of those women/men sorry ass excuses for nurses

at my school we're allowed to put in formal complaints-in writing of course-about any unprofessional behavior.

me? haha...i would go directly to her boss (whoever that may be) and report the byatch. be diplomatic, of course, and always professional in your approach and manner

this is not a power play. she is compromising pt care, and without reporting her, there is a risk she will continue this behavior and ****ty work performance. remember its about the pts, you guys--the PATIENTS.

personally, i've had some experiences with the nursing staff myself. i don't buy this crap that as a med student you have to allow everyone to crap all over you. and really, if you think about it, it's the pt getting crapped on (or pissed on in this particular instance)...NOT COOL

there was one nurse at my school...notoriously malignant....enough students complained, and guess what? she was moved to another dept.

goes to show that hey! whadya know? sometimes they do listen to med studnt feedback

how 'bout that

ha, nice. But then again on further thought, where did that nurse get redepartmentalized to? The VA? So she can kill those old patients and the uninsured right? Since they're probably old and half dead anyway. Anyways I'm sure she's not out of a job.

 

[gerido]

Yea, I figure it's a losing battle so I just kept my mouth shut. What pisses me off more is that I know there is a sentiment among the nurses that there is a "nursing shortage".. I've heard them repeated multiple time and there's a sense that no one's gonna do anything to them because of that... which may be true. But that's such a ****ty attitude, especially when you're in the business of caring for people.

 

[lilnoelle]

Wow.
I have to say that I appreciate my program more after reading your post than I did before.
Every nurse I have worked with so far has been great. Every attending or resident I've worked with has told me to ask a nurse to do whatever it is that I need done (within their job discription) and I'd feel COMPLETELY comfortable talking to my resident if I got any opposition from a nurse.

Maybe I've just had really great teams up to this point and I'll run into this type of thing later on in the year.... but at this point in time, I really do feel like the behavior mentioned by the Op would be unnacceptable with the teams I've worked with.