Last month, the SA Salaried Medical Officers Association released a report containing allegations of “bullying, harassment and disrespectful behaviours from various nursing staff”.

Doctors also claimed their clinical decisions were being overridden by nurses. Here, ACRRM registrar Dr Louise Burns argues the tensions reflect longstanding historical divisions between the professions.

Nurses bullying junior doctors (and even senior doctors!) – it happens. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. And I write this as someone who briefly trained to be a nurse.

I have seen medical students borrow a nurse’s pen and commit the cardinal sin of never giving it back. Nothing rubs a nurse the wrong way more than a boomerang pen that never returns. And that pen can make or break your rotation.