Why Doctors are our friends

As nurses expand their roles in areas such as prescribing we must not lose sight of the fact that we are not doctors but nurses with a unique set of skills and values. Advanced nursing care should not necessarily mean medical care, it should also mean a supportive and unique role where cleanliness, comfort, patient advocacy and precise knowledge of the particular patient’s treatment and diagnosis are an adjunct to medical care.  As a student I was taught that part of my role was to prevent harm to a patient and to argue the patient’s veiwpoint in any arena, including with medical staff, but from a position of knowledge, it was an invaluable lesson. It did  not make doctors my foes we were taught to support them but we were also taught to recongise our differences and work with  them in order to deliver excellence in patient care.

Yes I know I have knocked docs on our podcast but I feel the time is right to come out and say how much I feel that nurses miss out when they fight with the docs. Many of the happiest nurses I know work closely alongside their medical colleagues as valued and highly respected practitioners.

 Nursing misses out when this close partnership is not respected and when we dont listen to some of what the medics say about us. Much of their grumblings focus on changes within nursing that many nurses are not happy with either. Is it unreasonable for a doctor to communicate with a nurse about a patient without the “he/she is not my patient” cry being sounded or even finding the appropriate person for the doctor without whisking off? No, it is not unreasonable, doctors are busy people too and expecting them to constantly find the right person by a process of osmosis is not only unfair but may well damage patient care.

In order to deliver excellent patient care a good relationship is needed between nurses and doctors at all times. I know that some doctors can be very difficult but so can some nurses. Experience tells me that working with my medical colleagues as partners in a patients care where they value my input as I value theirs is one of the most enjoyable and worthwhile of clinical relationships. As a nurse I do not have nearly so much in common with an OT or a Speech therapist as I do with a doctor. I believe in team working but think nursing has lost out by not creating enough alliances with doctors. We have had leadership programmes aimed solely at nursing and the allied health professions but not doctors and I think that waters down the effects of such programmes.

Teams need to learn and grow together and nursing has not done enough of this with the medical profession in recent years. We should listen to their concerns about changes in nursing practice with open ears and not be too defensive about some of their criticisms but that should not stop us criticisimg them either from to time.