Hey nurse!

While sitting at the nursing station in my emergency department one morning, I heard the patient in room 10 bellow out, "Hey nurse!" Not being a nurse, I continued what I was doing and waited for the nurse to see the patient. No one was answering him despite several rounds of "Hey nurse!" I looked over at room 10 and saw a giant man in nothing but a hospital gown. Said gown was dangling precariously and drenched in urine. He looked at me and repeated, "Hey nurse!" "I'm not your nurse, sir, I'm your doctor. What do you need?" I asked. He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and started again, "Hey lady doctor!" I've been "lady doctor" to those nurses ever since.

My medical school in upstate New York graduated its first female physician in the mid-1950's. Since then, the number of women in medicine has exploded. In fact, many major medical school graduating classes are now more than 50% women. Despite this, the public's perception is that women are nurses and men are doctors. It is not unusual for one of my Emergency Department patients to tell the nurse who is discharging them that they are angry that they have not seen a doctor during the visit. This despite the fact that I introduce myself as a physician and wear scrubs, a lab coat and an ID that all say "MD".