During my first month of internship, a co-intern and medical school classmate gave me some sound advice on a weekend when I was assigned to the cardiac ICU: “ingratiate yourself to the nurses, they know cardiac patient care much better than you, and they can make your life much easier in the unit.” Point well taken.
My perception was that young physicians (young perpetually defined as my age or younger) were respectful of nurses and viewed them as important patient care partners. Gone were the days of nurses as mere patient care subordinates in matching uniforms with caps, carrying out doctors' orders and emptying bed pans.
In a recent column titled Doctor and Patient: Nurses’ Role in the Future of Healthcare, surgeon-columnist Dr. Pauline Chen debunks this notion, highlighting how the medical profession, administrators and third-party payers, either intentionally or not, have relegated nurses to the sidelines of the healthcare policy debate. Nursing is heading in a direction of higher standards in education and patient care with greater visibility as patient advocates. This can only be for the betterment of patients, particularly if embraced by physicians and hospital leaders. One hopes that nurses will play a greater collaborative role in all levels of medical care and follow up, resulting in a true team based approach to patient management. A team based, hospital unit model for safe patient care, with active decision making by nursing, is well described and championed by Dr. Peter Pronovost in his book Smart Hospitals, Safe Patients. This is a must read for all physicians, nurses and patients.
On a different note, I was interviewed, for the same column, different article, about glove use at the bedside and how healthcare providers are literally and figuratively losing touch with patients.
More on that later.
