I don’t know what it’s like to work in the medical field, but judging by some of the Reddit stories I’ve read, it seems like some of those folks feel like they have a lot to prove.

And here’s another good example!

Take a look at this story from the “Malicious Compliance” page and see what you think.

“Who told you to do it this way?”

“Being a travel nurse in the operating room has its benefits; the pay, the ability to take time off between assignments, and the bits of malicious compliance that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

They know what this surgeon wants.

Been at this hospital for two months. I’ve worked with this particular surgeon a handful of times, but it’s always been the same procedure so I know what he wants for every step of the case. I’m about to start applying skin prep (another layer of antimicrobial security to prevent postop infection) to where the surgeon is going to operate; he always wants the armpit, front shoulder, and breast/chest of the specific side prepped.

We’re operating on the patient’s right side. They’re already asleep, and their right arm is padded and secured on an arm board. Before I start prepping, the scrub tech immediately says “You need to undo their arm [from the board] so that you can prep the whole arm.”

They tried to tell them…

I tell them no, the surgeon wants it prepped this way, the arm stays on the board. This scrub tech hadn’t done this case with this doctor in quite some time either, but they still decided to explain how the whole arm should be prepped for this procedure. I ignored them.

I begin my prep. Less than a minute later, the charge nurse comes in to log in to a portable X-ray device (us travelers don’t often get credentials for those), and the scrub tech decides to ask the charge nurse how the surgical site should be prepped for this case, right in front of me.

Let’s go over this again…

The charge nurse backs up the scrub tech and tells me I should be prepping the whole arm in addition to the sites that I mentioned earlier. I protested, “But Dr. X doesn’t want that, he always wants the same areas prepped and draped accordingly.” The charge nurse wasn’t budging, and they demand I unfasten the arm and do it their way instead.

I sigh, and say okay.

Cue MC.

If that’s how you want it!

I prep the whole arm and am holding it in my sterile glove while waiting for the drapes and stockinette to be applied. All of a sudden, the most glorious thing happens: the surgeon arrives with the charge nurse still in the room.

“Did you prep the WHOLE ARM?!” he asked me. “Yep!” “Why did you do that? You’ve been here two months, how do you not remember the prep by now?!” “I was told to prep it this way.” “By who?! Who told you to do it this way??”

The surgeon wasn’t happy.

The surgeon was mad due to this delay; as a traveler I’ve learned to take the heat for making small mistakes, and I was contemplating taking the fall for this so that we could just move on with the rest of the day.

And then someone stepped in and took the blame…you don’t see that very often!

But before I could speak, my charge nurse was actually humble and admitted that they told me to prep the whole arm. The doc looked at me. “Did you tell them how I prefer it to be done?” “I did.”

It was time to get chewed out!

The doc turned back to the charge nurse and proceeded to lambast her for delaying the case. The scrub tech just stared blankly at the wall. But I didn’t look or listen, I just stood there enjoying the moment with the biggest ****-eating grin under my mask. It’s a nice day when someone else proves you were right.

Needless to say, I didn’t renew my contract at that hospital.”

Let’s see what folks had to say.

One individual talked about how a friend felt about this kind of work.

Another reader is not a fan of nurses…

This person talked about a nurse encounter they had.

One individual talked about the difference between good and bad nurses.

That’s how it’s done, folks!

Nice work!

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.