A question to doctors

kelle

OK, maybe this thread is stemming from a bad day I had at work yesterday and I'm being a little biased here.

The question I want to ask doctors is : when you attend medical school, are you instructed by your lecturers that now you have entered this profession you can forget any good manners you were taught in the past - you are now allowed to be rude, arrogant and treat everybody else like s**t.

I encountered 3 very rude doctors yesterday, 2 of them consultants. I will not go into any detail in case they are Boards users.

Good manners don't cost anything, and don't make you a bad doctor/surgeon.

OTOH, the doctors on this forum appear pleasant and would probably be joyful to work with.

Thoie

Not a doctor, but my family has a theory on this.

Back in the day, doctors were among the most highly respected professionals in any town - and consultants were gods. There were generations of consultants who were never questioned and never troubled. They sailed around their patches expecting the world to revolve around them, and it usually did. In hospitals, the only other people who inspired anywhere near as much fear/respect were ward sisters - god help you if sister found you hadn't made the bed quite to her liking...

As society changed, the old consultants started to die off, but their legacy was the ones they'd trained up behind them. These were the young doctors who'd been messed around, treated like dirt, had put up with everything "because that's the way it was", and when they became consultants they inherited the egos and the sense of entitlement.

Younger consultants these days are improving, but I reckon it will take another 10 years or so before the attitude dies out. While it's not exactly taught in college, it's picked up from working closely with the older generation. One way to deal with it from the patient perspective is to politely point out that they're being quite rude, and that you'd prefer you weren't spoken to that way. In my experience that often makes a difference (no matter what they may say about you later). Bear in mind that consultants frequently see the worst of everything - by the time people get to the consultant stage they're probably that bit more stressed, and many will take it out on the doctor, which can often lead to the doctors being more defensive from the off.

drzhivago

Thoie wrote: »

Younger consultants these days are improving, but I reckon it will take another 10 years or so before the attitude dies out. While it's not exactly taught in college, it's picked up from working closely with the older generation. One way to deal with it from the patient perspective is to politely point out that they're being quite rude, and that you'd prefer you weren't spoken to that way. In my experience that often makes a difference (no matter what they may say about you later). Bear in mind that consultants frequently see the worst of everything - by the time people get to the consultant stage they're probably that bit more stressed, and many will take it out on the doctor, which can often lead to the doctors being more defensive from the off.

Dont consider myself rude but found this a problem quite a bit in casualty when I worked there
To the patient their problem is the most important in the world, understandable
To the doctor they are looking at a lot of people, not a lot of space, huge waiting times and some genuine emergencies that need urgent action and constant consideration about what next to do even when you are with the next patient

Not trying to justify rudeness am trying t say that in certain situations you dont actually get the whole picture of whats going on and distance or indifference may be as a result of still thinking about the last patient

Picture the scene, young family die in car crash, 2-3 hours working to save their lives, then explain to all their family members that they are dead, all ths time waiting lists builds up outside of epople who dont know that every doctor and nurse is working on that family for a few hours

Next patient comes in and immediately launches at you for them waiting 5 or 6 hours

I got out of it, couldnt handle being the apologist for a system that didnt value me, there was no protection for me from any of this, I considered the work very enjoyable, thought I did a reasonable job, very few complaints, but at the same time was going home every day with heavy heart from the abuse because of poor resources, waiting time, things which I really had no control over and couldnt see changing

sam34

i think you will find a proportion of doctors who are arrogant and rude, but the majority are decent sound people who treat patients with courtesy and respect.

pretty much like any other group of workers, or just people in general.

some are w**kers, but most are fine.

unfortunately, a few will tarnish the image of the whole group.

RobFowl

When I was in medical school (late 80's early 90's) we were told we were "the cream" of the Irish education system. A degree of arrogance and elitism seems to be encouraged.
This is hopefully going now but IMO there are more rude and arrogant doctors than in the population at large.
I remember particularly in a co-op (in the UK) where I was shocked and nauseated by how rudely a GP triaged a man with abdominal pain (who was known to have chronic pancreatitis).
I hope its changing for the better now though!

tallaght01

My thoughts on the issue are:

I genuinely think doctors are like the poulation as a whole. Some tools. Some exceptionally nice. Most lie in the middle. I think we're slightly over represented at the extremes, because medicine attracts both extremely altruistic people, and aspergers type people.
But people notice more of their doc is rude, because they're vulnerable at the time. I've had a lot of people working in shops be rude to me than I have had doctors being rude to me. But I don't take any notice if the guy in the shop is rude to me, because I'm not pouring out my heart to him.

Also, you should see how much abuse we take off other staff in the hospitals when we're young, scared interns. You will often hear young doctors bewildered at how people can treat them the way they get treated. Believe me, the abuse you get from other staff is shocking.

I see stress and exhaustion making some of the most lovely doctors just get snappy. It happens to us all. I work in a public health unit, where we don;t have a lot of stress usually. Right now, we're under enormous pressure with swine flu. You should see how the admin people are acting. Every meeting ends up in environmental health/admin/IT people biting the head off their colleagues because we're all tired and under pressure. They all think I'm Mr Calm. But that's only because I'm still under less pressure than when i was a junior working in a clinical environment.

I always think it's ironic when other hospital staff members complain about the attitude of docs. because, in a busy acute environment, none of us has a monopoly on being rude.

DrIndy

Doctors are people too - they might have been under undue stress at the time and may have come across as brusque because they had too much to do and more to think about.

I have always tried to be polite no matter how stressed - but sometimes fighting an uphill battle against the system results in grating the cogs in the wheel.

The trouble is we are all in the same boat and so it is unfair to launch at someone else who is also only trying to do their job under pressure too.

But sometimes its not an ideal world.....

Frank3142

drzhivago wrote: »

Next patient comes in and immediately launches at you for them waiting 5 or 6 hours

I really hate the way people do that.

Thoie

tallaght01 wrote: »

My thoughts on the issue are:

I genuinely think doctors are like the poulation as a whole. Some tools. Some exceptionally nice. Most lie in the middle. I think we're slightly over represented at the extremes, because medicine attracts both extremely altruistic people, and aspergers type people.
But people notice more of their doc is rude, because they're vulnerable at the time.

I have to say from my experience of consultants (both using their services, and in social settings at friends' houses) I do think there's a higher percentage of rude consultants (not doctors) than there is in the general population. As mentioned elsewhere, this is possibly because their job is more stressful than other peoples. My job can be stressful, but as I've pointed out to colleagues, the worst than can happen in our job is we lose a bit of money - nobody dies.

tallaght01 wrote: »

Also, you should see how much abuse we take off other staff in the hospitals when we're young, scared interns. You will often hear young doctors bewildered at how people can treat them the way they get treated. Believe me, the abuse you get from other staff is shocking.

This is where I was coming from with the "legacy" of the older generations. It's a bit like the old fagging systems in English public schools - you hated it as a junior, but then went on to do exactly the same thing when you were more senior.

DrIndy wrote:

Doctors are people too - they might have been under undue stress at the time and may have come across as brusque because they had too much to do and more to think about.

Possibly, but I've encountered extreme rudeness in private clinics as well where there certainly is no particular appearance of stress that day. As has been said, perhaps something awful happened the previous day that they're still mulling over. I don't think the rudeness is confined to those battling to help people despite of the health system.

kelle

Thanks for your answers. Sorry I seem to have offended some of you! My rant relates to the way some doctors where I work behaved yesterday, one consultant gave a registrar a bollocking in front of a patient; another consultant wouldn't answer a question I asked him, wouldn't even look in my direction - had to ask three times befoe I could get any kind of an answer (my parents would have punished me if I behaved like that as a child!).

Traumadoc

I dont think you have offended any of us. We all have been victims of that type of consultant - they project their stress onto others thats the way they deal with it.

Poor coping skills in a stressful enviroment-
( I found it particular in surgical specialities involving children).

mardybumbum

RobFowl wrote: »

we were told we were "the cream" of the Irish education system.

Rich and thick.:pac:

AlanSparrowhawk

A consultant treating me in a rude/arrogant/patronizing/insulting way would get the same treatment the bloke in spar would get if he tried the same antics.

Kernel

Don't be grumpy chaps, at least you're rich, eh?

JuliusCaesar

OK, I'll confess. I was once rude to a juniour doctor. In my defense I was young, newly qualified and unsupervised as happened in those days. It was my first day in a new hospital and a junior pulled me aside and asked what was the usual medicine prescribed in X case. I felt defensive, felt my competence was being questioned, said "I haven't a clue" and flounced off. I apologise most heartily. Nowadays, I'd know the answer and know where the junior was coming from - because I wouldn't be so caught up in myself. So a big sorry out there to all junior doctors: sometimes the other staff are feeling very inadequate too.

Haviing said that, I don't stand for any sh*te from consultants now either. I'm a human, they are human, we all get upset and annoyed, but you don't take it out on me just because you see me as lesser because of not being a medic. But then I really do know what I'm doing nowadays!

angeldelight

Purely from my own experience - when I was a pharmacy undergrad we had some shared lectures with pre-med, first med and second med when we were in first year. There was one lecturer in particular, she was also the vice dean, who in physiology lectures always left all of us pharmacy students gobsmacked. She swaggered around making comments like "ECG techs do all the donkey work then we swoop in and make sense of it for them" "even a trained monkey could take those measurements, we are the only ones who can interpret them and we shouldn't let anyone forget that" etc etc. Yes it is very true that the doctors interpret readings but she was so demeaning about any other hospital worker other than doctors it was appalling, and she was happily passing all her own prejudices along to the next generation.

tallaght01

but, honestly, every one of us here could give examples of other professionals in the hospital who go on like that. Or worse.

In the kids hospital were i do some shifts now, the junior nurses get WAY more grief off their head nurses than anyone gets from doctors. But when I did NICU in the UK, their head nurse was too soft. Swings and roundabouts.

It;s just life.

nesf

I've always found nurses to be more patronising and rude than doctors in hospitals. Some Med Students are worse though, they haven't been tempered by a few years on the wards and still have some delusions of always knowing the right answer.

missannik

My first memory of my nursing degree was our lecturer stating that if there were any bitchy people in the lecture theatre that they were to leave, nursing had enough bitchy people as it were. And in my experience, she was right. Nursing can be quite bitchy and cliquey. But then I do agree with the comments made that it is no different to the general public... everyone is human and everyone has bad days.

I would say that on a whole Doctors are generally lovely, its just a shame that the small minority ruin it for all of them. Same goes for nursing and allied health too.

Chunky Monkey

^Care assistants being the loveliest, most friendly bunch of people of course

sillymoo

Chunky Monkey wrote: »

^Care assistants being the loveliest, most friendly bunch of people of course

I second this :D:D:D

_Whimsical_

nesf wrote: »

I've always found nurses to be more patronising and rude than doctors in hospitals.

I'm afraid to say that in my experience as a patient I would have to agree with that. I've seen some nurses be exceptionally rude to patients who were in very vunerable positions. I've been fortunate in that my experience of doctors has been much better and I've only met one who was in anyway unpleasant.