So I know it shouldn't bother me, but it does.
In the last week I have been called, or mistaken for, a nurse several times.
Now don't get me wrong, it's not that there is anything wrong with being a nurse...they are basically they glue that holds the hospital together, and are AMAZING...especially the ones I've had the privilege of working with lately. And just yesterday 1 nurse (who happened to be a male nurse) called out the doc's on 3 different occasions when they were doing things that weren't necessarily the best for the patient. (I'm not going to go calling them medical errors...just kind of poor form.) But seriously, they usually know their patients better than the docs do and (especially in the ICU) can have better judgement than the residents.
So yes. Nurses are great...but I hate being mistaken for one. And here is why...
Just because I am a female in the hospital does not mean I am a nurse...I COULD be a nurse..I could also be a physician or a tech or part of the maintenance staff. First it was last week when a patients family member saw me doing paperwork and I smiled because I am friendly like that, and she asked me if I was a nurse. I politely told her no, I was a medical student. So she said "oh so you are in school to be a nurse?" and I said "No, I'm about 100 days away from finishing my MD and being a physician." And she really couldn't wrap her mind around it. And I can't even chalk it up to her being old and "thats what it was like in her day" because she was in her 30's! And now this week...I started in a new unit, the Cardiac ICU, and I got asked by 2 nurses if I was a new nurse working in their unit for the day.
It just irks me because I would like to think as a society we have moved on from such gender biases. Even in undergrad I got looks for saying I was an Engineer...yeah I get it, it's a male dominated field...but guess what I was great at it! And yeah, I loved calculus and chemistry, hence I went for the engineering degree. But I didn't think it was so bad in Medicine, 51% of my class is female for crying out loud! Little Cashew, I want you to grow up in a society where there aren't such ridiculous assumptions made as to what you do or can do based on your gender.
On a less annoyed note...the cherry blossoms will be out at the end of the month...I think we will take Little Cashew downtown to take a look...
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agreed... we should be beyond that. i know a number of female physicians who wear their white coat for that reason. they shouldn't have to. there is clearly an old stereotype that's stuck in people's heads, perhaps from their childhood memories of going to the doctor or something...
ReplyDeletethen again, before we went to color-coded scrubs, i'd constantly get mistaken for a radiology or transport tech. no idea why.