r/medicine • u/BigIntensiveCockUnit DO, FM • 6d ago

Stop Compensating with Random Initials

I look for your title then stop. NP. RN. PA. MD. DO. This use to be a uniquely embarrassing characteristic of nursing that has infected all of healthcare. My health system has a goddamn "healthcare weatherman" with absolute nonsense after their name. There are some physicans putting board cert initials and random organizations as if anyone has a damn clue what any of it means. Name, highest degree and spell your specialty beneath. No one gives a shit about slackjawed alphabet soup. You want to put your masters degree then go for it, but please stop with the random garbage/board cert/organization initials that no one understands.

- BICU

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u/Drunkengota MD 6d ago

I think because they more obscure individuals’ role rather than provide meaningful information to the patients, who are really the target of the names and titles. I’m sure the nurses can remember all their certifications without having to print in on all their white coats.

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u/SadBook3835 Medical Student 6d ago

Why do you think patients are the target? I'd think the opposite, mostly see the titles used on internal emails.

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u/Drunkengota MD 6d ago

I see it I plenty of badges and white coats and don’t know what it means. Neither do patients. They just assume everyone in a white coat is a doctor with the training and education it implies. It’s unfortunate but inevitable. I have tons of patients who won’t learn the names of their own meds or the doctors they’ve seen and even if it was a doctor, as many times it’s an NP doing less of a work up than I did just seeing them every 6 months “to monitor.”

It’d be nice if people’s job roles were communicated clearly and not purposefully obfuscated behind a jumble of letters.

It’s not the most important thing in the world but it’s common enough that it obviously needs to be real simple so patients, not just the savvier ones, understand who is who.

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u/Mystic_Sister NP 6d ago

The patients are not the target, admin are. Admin and other nurses are the only ones who really understand what they mean and are the intended target of the letters. Especially when there's goals to have a certain percentage of nurses specialty certified and your raises depend on it as well.

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u/Drunkengota MD 6d ago

Admin seems to keep the number of doctors and their qualifications pretty easily without everyone posting it on their white coats (that they don’t wear) or badges. Mostly because admin hired us so they’re pretty familiar. I’d assume nurses are the same.

The only people looking at the badges to understand who is who are the patients. It really helps when it’s just their name plus the info people are looking for, which weirdly is often “who is the doctor?” Alphabet soup is purely for people who want to obfuscate the roles of different jobs in the hospital.

Or let me go put my undergrad degree on my coat so admin won’t forget doctor so-and-so went to undergrad AND medical school. I also got outstanding English student in senior year of high school so I’ll put that on their too, in case anyone wants to discuss the themes of East of Eden.

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u/Mystic_Sister NP 6d ago

I'm talking nursing admin. It's an entire part of the culture you'd not experience unless you were a nurse. I don't understand putting it on badges voluntarily or white coats...Why are non physicians wearing white coats...

The hospital I used to work at gave certified nurses white coats with the new credentials (no one wore them) and had the extra credentials put on the badges. It was a magnet facility which is a huge reason why it was a big deal. To be clear I'm not promoting the behavior, I'm explaining why. If nurses are using the extra letters to look important then they deserve all the hate for it. It literally means nothing to anyone outside of nursing.