I've been pretty lucky in my relationships with the nurses, they really have for the most part deserved the title "professional" and all of the benefits that go with it. I have found the same problem with the night shift nurses, and a few in particular. I finally got crazed one night and spelled it out for a particular nurse much in the way that Taurus did in her post "I started rounding at 6 am and you were here...then you went home and I did cases in the OR all day...then you came back and I was STILL here...and in the morning when you go home AGAIN, I will be back in the OR doing cases...THEN I will get to go home...for 8 hours until I start the cycle again.And while you get a day off once in a while, I DO NOT, so please give me as much rest as possible!" She said (? prentended ?) that she didn't know that was my schedule and to give her the benefit of the doubt, things DID improve after that little rant. I'm lucky though, I can fall asleep anywhere, and I found that if I would pull a cardiac chair next to my most critical patient in the ICU and sleep there, I would NEVER get bothered...it was only when they couldn't actually see me that I would start having problems.

Again, overall I have had very good experiences with nurses and have actually learned a ton from some of them. I have found that if I include them to some point in the discussion/issue at hand they are far more willing to respect my authority. Just my 2 cents. I also think that a lot of the nurses were so pleased to have a female surgery resident that didn't treat them like dirt or have an explosive personality that we got along!

Taurus, I AM in a teaching hospital! hehe :rotfl: I started out (as a GN!) in ICU and loved it, but my hospital's making cutbacks and I was sent to the acute care for the elderly unit (ick!).

I love the replies--keep them coming!
amy

myimd,
Referring to one on your previous posts,I cant relate to any situation of my own having to do with charting against docs. If I notified a doc about something, I MUST chart this, regardless if orders were received or not. By law, if I dont chart it, I didnt do it. Can you ellaborate one this issue?

A seperate reply to a previous post:
No, just because doc make money doesnt mean they deserve to earn their money by answering stupid 3 am calls. But one has to know this will happen. Sometimes nurses call with appropriate things and the doc on the line will still have a crappy way about him (note, I have NEVER had problems with the female docs). My thing is, in this circumstance, if you dont want to be paged in the middle of the night you should have A)picked a specialty you would be paged less B)Reconsider your postion as a doctor. Plain and simple. I feel like lets get past the personality issue, and deal with the real issue at hand.
Somehow from previous posts, I am getting the feeling that some of the nurses at the teaching hospitals take for granted that they are always there to handle anything, even the BS, and what does it matter to call them? Not the way I necessarily think. I also think it appears to be like a power struggle to gain the position and respect as a doctor even though one is in training. I dont really see this at my nonteaching hospital. The docs there are done with training, and confident. Many times I have mentioned things to some of the docs as a nurse, and they well tell me whether I am wrong or right, and even tell why. They dont see me as a challenge. They see me as an interest in learning.
Sure the doc is the leader in prescribing medical interventions. And is there a reason why those nurses dont trust the interns, or residents? I ask, because I have a friend who does work at a teaching hospital and sometimes talks about how some of the residents dont know their butts from a whole in the ground. I dont know if that was a profound judgement or not. But it makes me wonder.
I think too, like I had posted earlier about how patients demand to talk with, or me call in reference to their problem--that yes, I will have to address it. If not a) I could, and more than likely be reported to patient care adm, and second of all, if they are tha raulled up despite trying to apease them, more than likely the nursing supervisor will some how be involved and Ill have to call the doc to please the patient anyway. Believe me on this one.

I think premedRN is right. I worked in a community hospital and a teaching hospital, and the nurses call about EVERYTHING in the teaching hospital. They do take it for granted--one nurse (in the teaching hosp) told me, "I don't have a problem with calling them in the middle of the night. It's their job" and I think she mentioned something about a learning experience for them. I hope that doesn't happen to me in residency!
amy

amysunshine,
what you just said validates my thinking. Maybe it is not an issue of whether those nurses doing that arent critically thinking or arent able to, it is just they dont CARE to. Their mentality about the issue doesnt seem to allow them to be considerate. There's a difference between not choosing to critically think, and choosing to.
A lot of the above mentioned calls, I think, happens more at the teaching hospitals. Not to say some calls will happen at a nonteaching, but I have never known of someone calling a doc at home to especially at 4 freaking am to renew a MOM order. That is CRAZY. I think nurses are getting a bad name from unrightful generalizations from some of the nurses at the teaching hospitals. I think when the docs are done with training they will see what REALLY goes on as far as what a nurse does, and should have been doing.

I'm sure you are right, my thinking will no doubt change some once I'm done. And I do realize that not all nurses are incompetent...and I don't doubt that many doctors are. So, I guess my gripe is more with *our* nurses, than with nurses in general - as I am strongly against over generalizations. But, given the experience of some of us as interns/residents, it's no wonder the nurse-md relationship is less than rosey.

I think that the nurses who truely have their patients interests in mind when they perform their duties are obvious. Most of the "gripe" we young physicians have with the RNs is when they start "doing things" just to cover their ass at the expense of the rest of the healthcare team and the patient. We have nurses who chart all night but *never* go see the patient. Their charting is pristine, but the patients are miserable and the doctor is frustrated (because of bogus calls, because orders are left hanging, because the nurse wants so *document* she called the MD, not because it's a pressing medical issue present. And ladies, this happens more than you realize.

But thanks for your feedback (everyone) this is a wonderfully enlightening thread

Yeah, it is the opposite for me, I am always finding myself trying to chart at the last minute so I can go home. It seems as though the way hospitals have now, if we did everthing perfect and done the way they want things done, there would be NO patient care. In addition to the normal horrendous task of what we have to chart, my hospital mandated that anytime we pass pain meds, it must be charted in the computer--WTF!!!!!!! Shouldnt putting your initials by the med on the med sheet with a space beside it to check after you have followed up on whether or not the pain was alleviated be good enough? My goodness. REDUNDANT. I cant imagine the time constraint the surgical floors are now faced with. I guess what I want to point, is that some nurses probably do that (mostly chart instead of patient care) because they dont know how to multitask and get both things done, or they are just plain lazy and ought to look into secretarial work. When I went to school, I had NO IDEA there would be as much paper work involved as there is. Yuk. But as for me, Id rather slack in the paper work, and provide good patient care.

Wow, this discussion has been amazing. In the sense of how much was brought up. I am a RN in the field of Public Health. I can admit that I went into nursing because I didn't have the confidence, nor the finances to go premed in undergrad. I am jealous as all heck for the people who could afford to go to med school right out of undergrad. After 4 years of nursing school and learning all that "theory" I feel no more confident about the technical "skills" part of nursing (I gave one heparin shot in nursing school). I realized that most of the "skills" must be learned on the job. Now, 4 years into public health and policy, and forgeting any skills that I did learn, I want to know more of the whys to medicine and don't feel that nursing will be able to provide me with the depth I want.

I applaud amysunshine and PremedRN, your careers seem very exciting:)

~Katie

Really? I gave heparin shots, IM shots, did gain experience in clinicals--but yes the more technical equipment operating skills are learned on the job. But I think most important is that nursing school made me competent enough in my decision making/judgement, not everyone in my graduating class felt the same however. Im an associate's degree RN, and to be honest, having a bachelor's will not make me a better nurse as far as making judgement calls, etc. Which is kinda what turns me off about getting the BSN for med school. Im in Liberal Arts divison now.

There should be some major communtiy-wide campaign to NOT CALL EVERY FEMALE WALKING AROUND a "nurse" ....
and I will admit to slipping and calling my office medical assistant a nurse once in a blue moon...
but RN's are most def different from LPN ( although some of those are xtremely useful), and assitants...and CNAs (!!!)