Tag: doctor

Post-it Sunday 9/29/24- the in crowd

The gown card reads “Drs are a collegial bunch. As if having an MD gets you into a special club.”

My sister is a doctor. A pathologist, in fact. I know all about the years of schooling, the internship year, and the resident years, and the fellowship years (if they do that).

I get it.

I also understand why there is a special handshake doctor club.

I get it.

No one else can possibly understand but another doctor.

However, there is also a hierarchy among doctors. The general surgeons generally look down on the ob-gyns, the orthopedists look down on the podiatrists, and the neurologists and cardiothoracic surgeons look down on everyone.

Bullying between doctor groups is not okay.

It smacks of high school. And all the doctors I know have at least 10 years of post-high school education.

There is also a rivalry between the PhD nurse and the DNP (doctor of nursing practice), for no good reason. The PhD nurse does the research, and the DNP puts it into practice.

Stop acting like a bunch of teenagers!

Did you not learn in high school that bullying and snobbish behavior are not how to treat a colleague?

I was gonna write act your wage, but I don’t think so.

Definitely act your age.

Bullying is not on.

*** As an aside, reading the rest of the notes on the card I wonder if this was not a note about healthcare. The rest of the gown card is about a serial killer mystery I plotted out. And the main characters. The age of the gown card definitely bears this out. But the message is still the same, fictional doctors or non-fictional doctors need to stop acting like a bunch of teenagers and act your age.

Post-it Sunday 6/9/24- Don’t be fooled

The gown card reads “Don’t act like you think I’m a moron and I won’t act like you think I’m a moron.”

Look the people who work in the OR and are nurses and doctors are very smart. They have to be. We deal with the intricate workings of the human body. We have to know every part of it, and the mechanism of action of each of it. Not only that, but we have to know all about medications and their actions on every portion of the body.

There is a reason for such a steep learning curve for new OR nurses and techs. There’s a lot to learn. Not only that, you have to learn to anticipate what the surgeon wants. There is a reason that I reassure lap appy patients that if the surgeon falls out (passes out) during surgery the tech and I could band together to finish their surgery while we wait for assistance. It makes them laugh and relax. I once told a surgeon that I tell people this and they laughed and said after 23 years they would hope so.

The point is don’t discount anyone’s intelligence. No one; from the orderly to the circulating nurse.

There is also a soupcon or even a heaping cup of misogyny in there.

There is a prevailing “wisdom” that nurses are nurses because they aren’t smart enough to be doctors. I usually don’t respond to that. Who else is going to carry out the orders and question them when they are inappropriate? Many a life has been saved by a nurse refusing an order as written. Many a license to practice medicine has been saved by the same thing.

Some of us don’t want to be medical doctors and never have wanted to be one. Someone has to watch out for the patients and protect them from everyone else.

Let’s make a deal, you and I.

Don’t act like you think I’m a moron, and I won’t act like I think you are one.

Okay?

I’m glad we’ve had this talk.

Oh, and leave the patronization at the door, will you.

It just clutters up the workspace.