to wonder why consultants have a reputation of being so rude???

[staydazzling]

Been in hospital a few days, nurses, midwifes, auxiliary, care staff all very keen to do their best in hard circumstances always trying to help, largely on time etc, I sadly couldn't say the same for the consultants /surgeons sadly not just in terms of taking literally hours to turn but also how i saw them speak to said, nurses, midwifes, care staff etc and patients.
I jokingly mentioned this to a relative who works cleaning and sterlising equipment, who said yes its well known sadly, your lucky if any move or say thank you for returned equipment, i just wondered why is this a thing, AIBU to wonder where did that culture of behaviour come from?

I’m really lucky to work with a number of amazing consultants.

I worked with consultants and professors for quite a few years and I IME most of them were charming ans lovely. The ones who weren't really stuck out.

This makes sense when you consider that getting promotion in medicine is partly linked to whether your bosses and colleagues (and your patients ) actually like you.

Yes, @DougRossIsTheBoss, you can have some as well. Get well soon.

I think sometimes you see them once and think they are a bit humourless or distant.

I had one like this, but as I’ve got to know him he’s got a really dry sense of humour and is lovely.

Ds is currently under five consultants and all are different levels of amazing

I can only think of one of very very many he has seen that hasn’t been lovely

Yeh I think if you are not nice you are probably hugely talented or something to compensate or why would anyone employ you?

I know colleagues who have a bit of a shit bedside manner but are really really clever and skilled and colleagues who are absolutely charming and delightful and loved by all patients but I privately don't rate them clinically (not incompetent or anything just not as good as some)

Obviously I am clever and skilled and charming and not in the least bit arrogant as you can tell

When we have a vacancy and are looking to employ a new consultant we very likely know them or know someone who knows them because it's a small world.

If they are known to be an arsehole we'll try to give them a swerve because the rest of us have to work with them so fellow consultants and hospital mangers generally do prefer to employ people who are pleasant.
For our own sake as well as for patients.

I have known some clever Drs who effectively did get blacklisted for arsey behaviour as trainees and found it hard to get consultant appts but the reality is that if you are qualified someone is going to employ you because we don't have any spare trained consultants!

These days there is a lot more feedback with appraisal and revalidation so you'd hope that people with poor communication skills would get that feedback and improve.

We see three different consultants for my DS. One is our local consultant, one is at a world leading clinic for his condition we have to travel to, and the other is a also a very well regarded professor we see for a clinical trial he is on.

Ironically, the local consultant we see completely fits the bill you are talking about and honestly can come across as quite rude and dismissive. OTOH, the other two, who should have all the more reason to think themselves 'superior' because they are well known in their field, are absolutely wonderful, down to earth and kind people.

He is hugely passionate about his speciality and it is his life’s work. His manner may not be great but the treatment will be the best and he can’t see beyond that.

An in law was a leading expert consultant in a specific area and their manner was much like this. Factual and blunt - you would not get things dressed up niceties but you would get clear detailed information and absolutely top notch medical care.

Ps I have seen a few consultants in different areas and they have generally been good - they have not dumbed down explanations, and generally the care I have received has been good.

I used to know a Registrar years ago and while he was nice enough personally, he had a bit of an attitude about patients. He said he didn’t like it when patients questioned him further about his advice or decisions, and that “the best patients are the unconscious ones because they can’t argue with you.” (he did surgery).

I’ve had a number of consultant appointments over the past 20-odd years and have to say that almost all have been good, answered questions thoroughly, and were polite etc. The best one was the orthopaedic consultant who spent ages with me going through the surgery that he recommended, gave me leaflets to take home for further reading, and the details of a specific spinal website which had reliable info. After care was great too.

My consultant from a few years ago was absolutely lovely, warm, empathetic and gentle. We were on first name terms and she hugged me when I was discharged from her care.
Dad had an awfully arrogant chap for his hip replacement. It ended up dislocating twice in the first week whilst still in hospital and he couldn't have cared less about the situation or dad's terrible pain.
It's just different folks with different personalities I guess.

Whoever else makes a mistake nursing staff, junior Drs whoever the consultant is in charge of the care and expects to be held responsible.

I disagree with the assertion that Consultants are accountable for errors or failings of other HCP's apart from the medical staff they are responsible for training and supervising. I have however seen many Consultants, over the years, blame nurses for the decisions of Junior Doctors whilst the doctor responsible has been witness to the blaming and not admitted their mistake. Usually made more galling because experienced nurses questioned the decision making before implementing the treatment plan against their better judgement.

I've dealt with an army of consultants over the years and have never met a rude one.They've all been amazing. I've met plenty of matter-of-fact ones and that is absolutely fine by me. I want their brains and knowledge. A consultant is a person who maps out my options and tells me straight-up what my outcome is.

I've only been under a consultant once. After the first appointment I came home and cried for 3 days solid. I managed to pull myself together enough to make it to my occupational therapy appointment, looking like shit, and my lovely OT gently asked if I was ok, I started crying again and she guessed who I'd seen. She insisted on accompanying me to all other appointments. Some really are vile.

I'm not sure about this. In all my history of dealings with consultants via NHS and privately, most were very polite and nice to talk to, bar one or two who had no patient manner.
It's actually nurses and midwives who I often found rude, unpleasant and dismissive, not all, but most. Some GPs as well, mine seem to always come across as if they barely knew what they're talking about.

Appreciate the view from the insiders might be different, it's just my personal experience to date as a patient.

Consultants are only the direct line manager of the junior medical staff but they are generally regarded as responsible for leading the whole team and in major scandals eg mid Staffordshire they were held responsible for not whistle blowing on the unsafe environment.

The general public's perception is certainly that I as the consultant can be held responsible for anything at all on the ward including the food quality, visiting hours and very certainly the nursing care. It may be that in a line management sense I am not responsible but that is what most people believe and I do see myself as responsible for working with the ward manager to uphold a good quality of care.

It is a dysfunctional ward if nursing staff and medical staff don't respect one another and work together so I am sorry if you have experienced that. Usually my nursing staff will feel they can tell me or at least tell the ward manager to pass on to me if a junior Dr is doing a bad job or is rude and they know I will deal with it. Similarly I will not discipline a nurse personally for doing something wrong (unless it's some kind of immediate safety or abuse issue that I have to step in on) as that is not my job but I will ask the ward manager to address it.

At the end of the day I do think it is far more likely to be the consultant in the coroners court if a patient dies than a senior nurse so I stand by that assertion.

Apparently most surgeons are psychopaths.

Not many people could operate on a child; especially with the risk of one wrong move and they’ve got to break the news that someone’s loved one is never coming home.

Quite interestingly depending how a psychopath child is brought up either crime or politics/consultants.

And for time keeping I presume it’s more than likely because theyre rushed off their feet.

Patients and relatives will say 'well it's your name over the bed isn't it?' And it is hard to argue with that.

I'm a consultant. This thread is tosh and generalisation at it's worst.

Consultants are people. We come in all personality types. So do patients/ other staff. Some people have better human skills than others.

What we do have at the moment though are fairly shit working conditions and a tonne of pressure.

I also have to stand up for the orthopaedic surgeons - out of all the surgical types they are usually the most affable.

Who is actually the line manager for whom?
If a nurse is awful, who to complain to?
If a community midwife is, where to go?
If a hospital midwife is, where to go?
If a doctor is, where to go?

I am aware of PALS. But I think the big problem with the NHS is that there is no accountability or at least the path is not clearly communicated to patients. Maybe if it was, there would be better standards instead of some staff doing whatever they like.

I'm coming a bit late to the party.

I'm a hospital consultant as well. I usually bring a packed lunch although the idea of demanding lobster sounds great.

I think that sometimes as a female consultant people can have an expectation that you will be super kind and empathetic all the time. Then sometimes you are busy or have an off day or are worn down by spending day after day all day telling people that they are going to die, or that their loved one is going to die. And a colleague asks you the same question that you have been asked 4 times already and you've written in the notes about and when you are explaining it again you sound stressed and tired (having just thought that maybe you were going to be able to eat your packed lunch but now you can't because you're running out of time).
And then you have met the expectation that consultants are rude and arrogant.

I think that sometimes people have a chip about us thinking that we are so senior but I just work there as well, I'm an employee with targets and managers.
Also I agree about the law saying that we do have responsibility for problems with the nursing or ward management. We don't have much influence on it but we can certainly be held responsible.

I work with some. Sometimes they can be rude (some are better than others) but generally I think they are just stressed becuase they are so busy. If they're late it's unlikely to be because they're getting a long lunch they probably were in a clinic that overran or something. They have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders and not much time and lots of stress

Hmmm. Everyone has off days though, difficult colleagues who don't do what we ask them to, and difficult conversations. But, if you go into this job, you need to be able to handle this. Frankly, this is your choice and on top of that, you are paid very well for a job that requires above average resilience and maturity.

Most regulated professions are held much tighter to account by the regulator than the medical profession. Things I saw and heard from NHS staff would never be acceptable in my environment and I often thought that at the time.

We're all human, but there are things that are minor and things that should never be tolerated as they are substandard.