Nurses vs Med students

The other day i turned up to the Pregnancy Day Care Centre so that i could get it signed off on my log book that the Victoria's Hospital for Women (VHM) requires us to complete as part of our ongoing assessment.

I've never been there before nor had any idea what was expected of med students in the PDCC. Luckily a nurse who was in her 20s saw me and immediately proceeded to give me an introduction. Isn't she nice? But she got called away to deal with a patient who had just ruptured her membranes so i was left there standing for about 10mins with nothing to do but to look around at the posters on the wall.

Perhaps it was because of my seeming cluelessness that encouraged the 1st yr Nursing students to approach me. They were really cute and enthusiastic about everything and invited me to tag along to check on the CTG traces of the women there. They also handed me laminated charts and brochures as reading material although i've read most of them before already. Weren't they sweet?

I've come across final year nursing students as well and they tend to be harder to assimilate with. Probably because we're all competing for the same thing: vaginal deliveries. But they do tend to warm up after they see that you're here to play by the rules and you've had worse luck than them.

And then... there are the really really senior nurses (those who've been around for 40 years and calls the shots around the place). Some of them, (keyword: some. There are of course really nice super senior nurses around... i just haven't met them yet) really like to step all over med students and junior drs. So far i've been lucky because my oriental culture makes me keenly aware of hierarchical social politics and also i tend to play the beta female role when i'm new to things.

I've heard from other med students that senior nurses can make life hell if you give them a bad first impression. For example, one of my friends who turned up days in advance to organise to be on the labour ward was given the cold shoulder by 4 people and bumped along the chain of command with complaints of "disrupting the schedule and overcrowded with students" before she finally got a reluctant approval. Another colleague told me that she went up to the nurse-in-charge to introduce herself only to be rebuffed by a "So?". This same nurse would also grab the name tag of any nursing students whom she deemed incompetent and ask them, "Who are you? A medical student?"

So i've come up with a theory: the younger the nursing student/staff, the friendlier they are. Age erodes their positive outlook bit by bit until they became nasty monsters who eat medical students for breakfast. :) Just exaggerating things.

P.S. In case you think that i dislike nurses, i don't dislike them as a profession, just those that trample med students because they can. Most nurses are kind, helpful and generous people who are responsible for the smooth operation of the hospital. They are the ones who make drs look good.