Originally posted by: Beanie46
Originally posted by: DrPizza
Well, since the thread title changed...
A house catches on fire in your neighborhood and you're a doctor...what do you do?
I dunno? Mow my lawn? WTF do you want the doctor to do? Diagnose the problem? "You have burns!" "No shit! Tell me something I don't already know!"
Have you ever stopped to wonder why they send ambulances to take people to the hospital, rather than taxicabs? WTF can a doctor do other than say, "wow, you've been burnt. I hereby diagnose you as having burns." Thank God you don't live near an airport where there's been a plane crash. "My neighbor is a pilot! The jerk just mowed his lawn after the plane crashed. I mean, he's an expert. He probably could have done something to help, like rebuild the engines or something to get the plane flying again."
Next time you have a tooth ache, are you going to run over to the dentists house and ask him to put in a filling for you? "Well, I don't have my office equipment, but I do have this Black and Decker drill."
Thank you for that post, DrPizza.
It seems that the OP has little grasp of what a resident physician is or any concept of reality in this case.
First, a resident physician, while called "Doctor", is anything but an MD as typically understood. Residents are not just let loose to work but instead are working, actually practicing and learning, under the direction and control of his/her attending physician.
And while it's true that a resident is more highly skilled than a lay person, many times a first or second year resident (the OP neglects to mention how far along the maligned resident physician is in his residency nor what speciality the residency is in), is not any more knowledgeable than a seasoned RN, and many times sorely lacking in knowledge as compared to the aforementioned RN.
Second, if said resident isn't specifically doing his training in emergency/trauma medicine, he'd be very much out of his sphere of expertise in all this. What if his residency is in urology or OB/GYN or radiology? Guess his response could be, "Let me take an X-ray and I'll call you back in the morning, just hang in there."....or "Put your feet into these stirrups and let's make sure you're OK 'down there'."
Additionally, if the resident isn't being trained in trauma, he'd be much better off letting the first responders get there and do the job they've been trained to do. I'd much rather have someone properly trained with the proper equipment do the job rather than a partially trained person with no support whatsoever. What's he supposed to do....something akin to doing heart surgery with an ink pen?
And about the Good Samaritan laws out there......there seems to be a misconception as to what they mean and how they apply. The law is NOT to protect medical professionals providing emergency care on the side of the road at accidents or in extricating victims from burning structures or anything else. The laws were created to prevent LAY PEOPLE from being sued in attempts to provide aid and care to victims, that is to keep non-trained people who attempt to help in an emercency, acting like a Good Samaritan, from being held to medical care standards of which they have no training in or knowledge of or skill in.
On the other hand, once a nurse or physician or anyone with training in the medical field enters this picture, that person is held to using proper medical standards in removing victims from accidents, burning houses, whatever.....such as how would a properly trained first responder act and react. Those are the standards a medically trained person would be held to when providing emergency care in the OP's burning house scenario. And a resident's malpractice insurance would most assuredly not cover him working outside his well defined areas, such as under the direct supervision of his attending physician in the hospital in which he's training.
Why the MD's anti-social? Could be he's just not into swilling beers, getting drunk, passing judgement on others while inebriated, or a whole host of other things.
And I didn't understand the whole "I make more than he does" comment by the OP. While it's true the OP may right now, the earning potential of the resident is vastly superior to the OP's earning potential it's silly to compare the current earning disparity. Given the maligned resident will never be unemployed, will over his lifetime earn multiples of what the OP can only dream of, and will possibly one day employ the OP in some capacity (maybe cleaning his offices or installing some new cable for a network). I almost see the OP as being somewhat feeling a bit jealous of what the resident has done with his life vs. the OP's and this is one way to backhand the resident to show him "who's boss".