First, let me say Happy Nurses Week to all of the nurses out there. I have an older cousin who is a registered nurse, a younger cousin who is a CNA, and I also know many other nurses. From one health professional to another, thank you for all you do!
Long ago, the first day of my pulmonology rotation was one of my scariest experiences as a student. From the minute I met and introduced myself to my preceptor at his office, and him calling me Jennifer, even though my clerkship registration form with my name on it was on his desk, I knew that it was going to be an interesting month. He quickly briefed me on his expectations of me for the month, and then sent me off to the hospital to pre-round on patients before he got there.
See, I hadn’t had any experience in the ICU, and any med student will tell you that the ICU is very different from the other medical units. The patients are often clinging on to life with multiple issues going on at once. They have lines and tubes everywhere and you must pay close attention, as things can decline quite rapidly. Well, as can be expected, most of my patients were on a ventilator, and I wasn’t very comfortable with my knowledge of ventilator settings at that time.
On the morning of my first day, while I found my way to the ICU and gathered my patients’ charts, I was met with the friendly “good mornings” of the nurses on the floor for that day. I found out who my patients’ nurses were and immediately began to ask questions about my patients’ conditions. When I told them who my preceptor was, they warned me that I was in for a treat. They had witnessed him make a nurse quit her job; he had even caused another nurse to shed tears in front of the whole department. This guy was not the one to be played with! Don’t get me wrong, he was one of the most intelligent people I’d ever met; however, his people skills were lacking, to put it nicely.
Anyway, after hearing how he made people cry, I was a bit intimidated. I thought to myself, “Say what now? Uhh uhh.” I was not trying to be the one crying that day, so I politely asked for additional help. The nurses assisted me in navigating the unfamiliar EMR (Electronic Medical Record), helped me understand the ventilator settings, and reviewed specific patients’ meds with me. One sweet nurse even gave me pointers on how I should present my patients to the preceptor, as he was very particular about the information he wanted to know for each patient. I knew how to present patients to my attending, but since the nurses had scared me about my new preceptor, I took their advice and did it the way they had instructed.
Needless to say, I still got chewed out later that morning by my preceptor. He cut me off in the middle of me presenting a patient and, in so many words, told me that I wouldn’t make it through his rotation. I looked him straight in his eyes as he spoke to me in a very condescending tone. I was heated, because I had never had any physician talk to me like that before. I didn’t turn into the angry Black girl that he may have thought I would. Nope, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of stereotyping me because of my brown skin and strong, affixed eye gaze. I just let him finish, and politely said, “Ok.” Although I didn’t cry, I was still pretty ticked off.
Since I usually call my parents when I’m driving, my dad had to hear me vent about it when I got in the car to go home. He gave me a sermon (his advice often involves scriptures, analogies, and Bible stories), and then told me to take it like a champ. He told me to suck it up, and do whatever I needed to do to make it through that rotation.
The next day, I got to the hospital extremely early, so I had ample time to pre-round on every single patient and be well prepared to present to my preceptor. Each day got better, and the nurses continued to teach me something new every day. I worked my butt off, and by month’s end, the relationship between me and my preceptor was much better. We didn’t become BFFs, but on my last day, he told me that his initial impression of me was wrong. He didn’t technically apologize for being so rude, but knowing I had proved him wrong gave me the satisfaction I needed.
The moral of the story is, as a med student, nurses can make your life so much easier, or make it a living hell. Had I been an arrogant medical student, like so many people I’ve seen, I’m certain that those nurses would not have been so eager to help me. They could have just ignored the lowly med student, with the short white coat, and went about their day taking care of their patients. Instead, I realized that I knew very little, and that they knew much more than me. Most of these nurses had been working in their field for years. I trusted their guidance and was happy to learn from them.
So, yes, nurses take care of your family members when they are sick, and do all the things nobody else wants to, like manage the patient with a GI bleed and deal with rude, belligerent family members. However, they also sacrifice their time to teach medical students. Of course they don’t want us to kill any of their patients, but secondly they want to see us succeed. They really enjoy what they do, and they want us to learn and enjoy what we do, as well.
If you know a nurse, please tell them thank you and give them a big hug! Again, Happy Nurses Week to all of the nurses!
-thedoctorjb