[livefrmaust]

on one of my clinical placement at a busy gastro surgical ward..i was really ****** of by one of the registrars. pt had a new suture line and newly inserted colostomy. Reg used the same gloves to inspect the colostomy site(wich had discharge) to inspect the suture line, touching and proding.. i was increasingly getting irritated because i was thinking of cross infection blah blah. same reg had told me before that he doesnt think much of student(as if he fell from heaven as a reg). so when he was touching the suture line, i opened a new pack of gloves and politelly told him to change his gloves for the suture line. needless to say he gave my facilitator a bad report about me.

[DragonKeeper]

I've done this a few times. I worked in a small practice with myself, one other nurse, and one doc. We had an agreement. If he started to act like an ass or get the whole "God-complex" thing going, I was free to let him know without fear or retribution. And I did. Lots. And he never said a bad word.

Another time I was reading a chart and a doc wrote down PERRLA. Ok. I sat down next to him and said, "Wow, I am very impressed with the manufacterer." To which I got a very odd look and a, "Huh?" "Well, if that patient is PERRLA, than that is the best prostetic eye I have ever seen!" He got a chuckle out of that one.

Fast forward 10 years, same doc. I was working at a nursing home. I called to get an order on a Res who was ping-ponging on her blood sugar. He gave me the order to which I said, "Very good sir, however that is an inappropriate order. Please let me finish giving you my assesment before I go to the trouble to excute an order that won't solve the problem." He appologized for jumping the gun and listened to me and gave a more appropriate order.

I'm known as the short pain in the ass nurse with many docs. All because I have a problem keeping my mouth shut when they do something not quite right.

[niceynurse33]

We have a couple of doctors that have God complexes. The way I see it is we are all on the same team and should be treated equally (everyone down to the custodian). I don't think anyone is below me or above. So when I had to deal with one of the Cardiologist that eveyone is afraid of, I just stood my ground, I had my facts ready, and told him that until he could talk to me in a civialized voice I was done with this conversation. And told him where he could find me when he was ready. He has never had a tantrum when I have been around since. You just have to be sure of yourself and let them know that.

[peggy2624]

As a surgical nurse I'm used to all sorts of temperments but one day a cardiac surgeon went too far. After being promised a 1 PM start time but finding he was to be delayed by the patient in the room previously, needing more time to transfer to ICU...he proceeded to verbally berate me in front of his patient and others in the pre-op holding area. He actually said I was "killing his patient." Then he wouldn't allow me time to provide the standard of care in doing a proper skin prep because I'd already "wasted so much of his time."
I wrote an incident report both for his unprofessional behavior and also for his compromise of patient safety by failure to follow standards of practice.
Several days later the head of the cardiology department called to ask me if this was true and if so did I have a witness. My answer to both questions was "yes". She then asked me to get my witness and repeat my statement in front of the witness. Which I did. She then asked my witness if my report was as she witnessed and the witness corroborated my statement. The chief just quietly said, "I'll take care of him".
This cardiac surgeon never again raised his voice nor questioned my time. Nor did any of the other surgeons who'd heard of the incident....most having the intelligence to realize that if I'd been forced to take such action there was just cause. It's nice to have professional confidence!! And competence.

[Bethy-lynn]

Once worked with a particularly rude, not so nice cardiologist who managed to be mean to everyone. One day he came over, all in a Tizzy, and I said to him " Are you having a bad day? Do you need a hug?" He looked at me like I was completely insane, but I never had a problem with him after that. He even offered to bring me lunch. I've used it just a couple of times since then, works like a charm.

[margarnp]

I have a few times and I was justified. I can snap back quickly if I have had a rude doctor that is critical in front of patients or other staff.
Once an OBGYN confronted me about not charting a procedure that I had just finished. He said he expected to see everything charted when he made rounds. I told him if I took time to chart everything I did, I would not have time to do the stat procedures. This was on a surgical floor with 20 patients and I was the only RN. Another time, I had called a doctor about a patients blood pressure. I was an ER nurse,again the only staff. He came an hour later and found the patients blood pressure lower, of course.
I told him if he had come earlier the patients blood pressure would have still been high but I had calmed the patient down. Both these incidents were when I was a new nurse. I never had problems with either one of them again. If you let them get by with being rude or unreasonable, they will always be that way.

[barbiedee]

As an LPN I rarely have much interaction with physicians, however, there was one doc whom we all didn't like for his demeaning behavior towards all nurses. After being called to assess a resident who was becoming more and more aggressive and violent, the doc had the nerve to tell all the nurses present that it was just our approach. It was our fault we were getting hit, hurt and punched. This doc then walked in to see the resident with a jolly "Hi there." Can you guess? Yup. He got a fist right in the kisser. That brought him down a notch or two. And I imagine it didn't do his ego good to have a bunch of snickering nurses watching! Sometimes there is cosmic justice.

[blueheaven]

Not all docs have God syndrome. There is one doctor though that stands out above all the others.
I am from West Virginia (let all the stereotypes roll!) and one of the large medical groups in our city had acquired a doc from Bosston, MA. I worked on the cardiac step down at the time.
Everyday this guy came in and berated the "damn hillbillies" he was caring for. One day I had it with the "hillbilly" stuff. I asked him if he was drawing a nice income from his work. He replied yes. I asked him if he lived in a nice area. Once again he replied yes. Have enough to eat? Yes. Kids in a good school? Yes.
Then I said in front of everyone in the nurse's station, "Sir, it's those "damn hillbillies" you are referring to that is providing all that for you. If you don't like it here, may I suggest you pack your butt back to Boston-we don't need you here that bad!." Silence..........
Never heard another word about us "hillbillies" again.

[Tievoli]

Originally Posted by Lachrymologist

I keep reading here that nurses are constantly walked on and berated by doctors. That doctors seem to have a God complex and see themselves as better and all omniscient as opposed to the nurses who they seem to percieve as lowly and worthless. Well, has anyone here ever stood up to a doctor thats been treating them like dirt? If so, what took place and were the consequences good or bad?

I have on numerous occassions......everything from incorrect prescriptions to talking down to me.

One i can remember was a doc that ordered me to get "gelofusin stat" twelve times in two minutes and finally shutup when i suggested that if they finished messing about with the IV access I would be able to sort it and by the way I managed to understand the request the first time it was made. LOL how meekly did they go off to their next job of the night.

[jonear2]

Yesterday I had a resident who needed to do a paracentesis on one of my patients. I had everything ready and asked him (twice) to page me whn he was ready so that we could do the time out and I could start the albumin. Eventually I walked into the patient's room and he was already there and had drained one bottle of fluid already. I was a little upset as no onehad done a time out and JCAHO is coming for an audit. When he was done I took him outside, exlained again that policy stated we have to do a timeout etc, etc. He looked at me and said, why? I said "Because you really dont want to go to doctor jail, do you?" He said "What's doctor jail?" I said, "It's that place right next to nurse jail where I will be if you compromise patient, my job and my license again." He apologized. I let my manager know what had happened. She said she would speak to his attending. Duh, I dont just want to come in and watch you for fun buddy. I do have better things to do than that.