Coffee break during rounds

Anonymized physician submission. Lightly edited for grammar and clarity.

Future ICU NP wannabes join our rounds to see 16 patients. Rounds include the attending, fellow, residents and an NP. Less than two hours in, they left for a break...and came back after a whole hour!!! Meanwhile, we still continue to round. They went to have coffee and relax before re-joining us. They didn't even care about the three patients they missed, and didn't even ask about what happened as one of the patients crashed while they were out. This patient was assigned to one of them.

Our future is bleak.

Wow, this sounds absolutely insane. Can you imagine if a medical student or resident had the cajones to just leave an attending's rounds whenever he/she felt like it? They would be torn a new asshole by the attending and likely face disciplinary action or other sanctions for their gross lack of professionalism. Obviously, professionalism didn't seem to be a consideration when these NPs decided to take their unsanctioned mini-vacation. Not that something as basic and fundamental as "don't just leave and rejoin rounds whenever you feel like it" really needs to be taught to anyone with half a brain and even the slightest sense of common decency and self-preservation. We certainly didn't need to be taught that when starting clinical rotations for the first time in medical school. But this is perhaps not too surprising - when NP diploma mills are willing to accept virtually any warm body with a pulse and wallet into their 100%-online programs, these are the kinds of graduates you end up with.