15 minute interview: Branded

For the past two decades she has rarely been off our screens. A former nurse, in recent years she has swapped a life as a stand up comic for domestic bliss bringing up her two preschool children. Peter Cross talked to Jo Brand.

What can doctors learn from nurses?

Everything. I think doctors can learn an awful lot about social skills from nurses. For too long doctors have been aloof, they have been superior, probably a lot of it not intentional. It's just the way they have been brought up—trained to think they are better than anyone else. I think they can learn about race issues for example. We had some brilliant interactions between white middle class doctors and black patients when I worked at the Maudsley. I recall an incident while I was a charge nurse in the emergency clinic. One day a quite psychotic and stoned rasta was brought in by the police on a 136 of the Mental Health Act. A junior registrar got him a room to assess him and this guy kept saying "you bloodclot" and the registrar said "are you worried you've got a bloodclot?" I had to get him out of the room and say "no he's not, he's just abusing you." I know it's unfair, but I thought that experienced nursing staff could run a department without a doctor if they just had either a computer or a consultant sitting in a room who could answer questions about anything they were unsure of. Because nine times out of 10, we would assess the problem and deal with it and just get the doctor to rubber stamp it. I realise that I am being too pro-nursing here, and there is probably a lot that nurses can learn from doctors too. But I do feel that the balance of power was wrong.

Did you do any general nursing?

I'm a degree nurse. There was a course that ran for 11 years between the Maudsley Hospital and Brunel University. I trained as a registered mental nurse and did social sciences, psychology, and sociology as well. But because we were degree nurses, for some reason they felt we didn't need to do a general secondment so we just had teaching in the school of nursing about general aspects. We were useless and slightly scared of it. If anyone ever had a heart attack or anything like that on the ward you could tell who the degree nurses were because they ran in the other direction because they were too scared to deal with it in case they cocked it up. We were all rubbish at giving injections as well.

What are your experiences of being a patient?

Six or seven years ago I had an allergic reaction to some hair dye and my face swelled up to twice the size, and I went blind for a week. So I was in St Thomas' for a week, which was appalling. It was generally a depressing environment. What depressed me about doctors was that they swanned in, and they never really told you very much. Information is power, and there is something about medicine that seems to require doctors to make everything slightly mysterious—they talk in medical language that you don't understand. But if they spoke in normal language you would understand and could claw a bit of the power back. They never tell you enough. I was always a believer in telling people as much as you possibly could. Because that's what makes people feel better. If someone's got cancer they don't want a load of platitudes like "we'll try this and we'll try that." They want a reasonable estimate of what their chances of survival are. We're all grown ups. And if they don't want that then ask them if they want you to tell them the truth. A lot of doctors handle that side of patient care very badly because they are frightened.

Also I've done a lot of balls for medical students, and they were the most hideous bunch of drunken misogynists I've ever come across in my professional career. That didn't fill me with optimism.

TREVOR LEIGHTON

How did you get on with junior doctors?

I used to feel sorry for junior doctors. I think they carry a huge weight of responsibility on their shoulders, and I think they would like to go into a room full of nurses and say, "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing." And the nurses would go, "Why don't you try to do this or this?" They don't give themselves much of a network because the consultant seemed snobby and distant sometimes with them. Some of them were lovely but it was down to individual personalities rather than built into the structure of medicine. I think it should be built in.

When did you last nurse and why did you stop?

I stopped in 1988 because I was offered a gig on telly—Friday Night Live—and I just thought I can't bear to be on the desk in the emergency clinic and someone's come in and has seen me do stand up on telly and do a double take and think what on earth is going on here? I just thought it would be wrong in a way. So when I got offered that telly I handed in my notice and took a gamble that the comedy would bring in enough money and I thought I'd give it six months and if it doesn't work I'll go back to nursing again.

Peter Cross, deputy editor, BMJ Career Focus
Email: pcross@bmj.com

This article was first published in BMJ Careers (2005;330:242).

studentBMJ 2005;13:265-308 July ISSN 0966-6494