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by kmokay

for every nurse i've seen stand up for ourselves, i've seen ten that don't. i've tried to ask this quesiton during nursing school and all i get from profs are "well thats the problem, nurses should stand up for themselves". well that doesn't answer my question. Why DON"T nurses stand up for themselves, i mean we're all co-workers when it comes down to it right? They can't fire us, or amm i just being naive and there is something i don't know yet. Like today, the nurse took a call for a doc and told the doc that she had a call on hold on such and such a line. Well the doc came out and said "who is it" and the nurse replied "i'm sorry, i don't know" and the doc chuckled in a haughty kind of way and said "well next time could you find out". She said it in a way that was arrogant as if she could walk the literally ten steps to the phone and find out herself. she didn't say please or thank you. it would have been find had she said "well next time, if you could find out, that would really help me out", but i mean, she acted as if the nurse was her personal secretary. the nurse's responsibility is to the patient she is taking care of and to assist the doc who is taking care of the patient with her, but not to be her personal secretary esp. if it is not related to the patient. It was a courtesy she thought she was entitled to. oh and sorry i kept typing that it was a doc, it was actually the FNP. another instance was when the nurse was at the station busy doing something and the PA had said something the nurse did not hear and she proceeded to said "are you IGNORING me?!" and the nurse heard her and said "i'm sorry, i'm not" half still busy. and the PA replied "okay...just DONT!". wow i mean, seriously, she really needed to get the *** down her high horse. is there is a certain reason, nurses take this. its not always flat out rudeness, its the tiny comments and gestures here and there that make me angry. can docs do something to get us fired or written up?

[jahra]

Re: what can docs do to us?

Here's one approach- nurses do not confront Doctors because
we are saving our energy for our patients. If you were assertive
with every tantrum throwing MD or other medical staff my
opinion is your career would last less than 24 hours from sheer exhaustion.
Their need to be controlling ,arrogant and foolish is their
insecurity.

My approach-take a Hot Lips Houlihan approach. Go about your business
and don't sweat the little stuff.

Choose your confrontations wisely, when you
are right do not back down.

Word will get around and the Dr.s will leave you in peace
to care for for your clients................they don't want the Hot Lips tx

Nurses are people too and we need to set boundries.

(The second part to the question-often management does not
back you up when you are assertive.)

As our instructor told us-The same DR who is the King in the OR,
is the same guy who puts the garbage out at home at night.

[zoeintx]

Re: what can docs do to us?

I could not agree with you more and that got me written up one day. I was rounding one am with physician who, once again, was very rude and condescending to me. This time I said something back. Well he had me written up for being rude to him in front of patients and being unprofessional. Nevermind the fact that he was rude and unprofessional to me in front of patients. The patients did not hear anything come out of my mouth anyway. Another time he told me I was full of s..t loud enough for the patients to hear. Since he was the big bread winner we had to keep his sorry butt happy! Now I have to bite my tongue every time he is rude to me!!

[Jess1983]

Re: what can docs do to us?

it takes all kinds.

[KellieNurse06]

Re: what can docs do to us?

Ya...alot of MD's are nothing but spoiled little brats in an adults body....gotta agree !!! I think the nurses nowadays are pretty lucky minus the crap like the op mentioned.....I have been told by nursing instructors as well as nurses I personally know that years ago nurses had to get up the minute they saw the doctor & give them their chair..and they had to follow the doctor down the halls with all the charts on a cart & hand them to the doctor as he saw each patient.....pretty much the nurses were like a servant to the doctor way back when. I have never seen a doctor ream out anyone....yet... but I am scared of the 1st time this may ever happen to me when I am working as a nurse...and I hope I stand up for myself if this happens to me!

[TazziRN]

Re: what can docs do to us?

I am soooo lucky to have the medical director we have now!! When he hires new docs for his ER physician group, he makes it clear he will not tolerate any abuse of the nursing staff. Although he is not our boss he treats us like "his" nurses and is very protective.

[jenni82104]

Re: what can docs do to us?

Wow. This really disturbs me. From what I can ascertain from these posts, nurses are supposed to tolerate this disrespectful attitute towards them in the workplace? Is this really how it is?

[TheCommuter]

Re: what can docs do to us?

I created a thread about this very same issue over 1 year ago (when I was a nursing student) and was even accused of being 'a troll' for doing so. Some respondents were in denial about the issue of physician rudeness. If you have any spare time, please click on the link to my aged thread below.

http://allnurses.com/forums/f8/why-d...ude-99309.html

[TrudyRN]

Re: what can docs do to us?

Originally Posted by jenni82104

Wow. This really disturbs me. From what I can ascertain from these posts, nurses are supposed to tolerate this disrespectful attitute towards them in the workplace? Is this really how it is?

There could be more to the story than is being said here. Or, it could be just as stated, like the PA and FNP in the first story. I would just ignore them or maybe say things like I didn't want to intrude in your personal life.

There's always the passive-aggressive approach. Rude docs' charts get "lost" for a few minutes, labs get "misplaced" and you don't have time to pull them up on the computer because Mrs. Smith is about to fall off of her bedpan and you must get to her right now. Start paging them from payphones at 3 a.m. or on Saturday evening when you know they're at some party - don't be there to answer; put their phone #'s up in gas station potty stalls, stuff like that. Fantasy, of course, but it helps to ease the pain we live with at the hands of some people.

There is always the option of getting some coworkers together and going as a group to someone in charge and letting it be known that you are enduring this and that and you want it to STOP.

Think about retirement.

[Tweety]

Re: what can docs do to us?

Docs can not get us fired or write us up. The only one's who can write me up are my charge nurse, manager and her higher ups.

Generally, most people, including nurses are afraid to confront. How often do we read on this board about problems with a coworker, and no where in the post does it say the person talked to the individual. So much of the advice is "run to the manager!" We're very good at flipping someone off in our safe cars, or going behind someone's back and talking about them, but face to face confrontation we run from.

As a society we back down from confrontation because of our fears, it's not just doctors we back down from.

I choose my battles because I find irritability everywhere, in traffic, in line at the grocery store, Christmas shopping at a crowded mall, from coworkers, from patients and from doctors.

Mercifully in the 24 hours of my day it's only minutes or even seconds, so I don't allow it to ruin to much of my day. Often it's not important. Often the doc sometimes has some legitimate grief. The last time a doc was somewhat rude and arrogant was last week when she was looking for a patient, and I said "we moved here to the sixth floor". She very snottily said "well someone could have called me, aren't you supposed to notify the doctor of a room change? I just left that floor......" I simply said "you're right someone should have called and I apologize for not doing so." and then started to ignore her because our business was through. I could have confronted her and asked her to speak more professionally, but that's a battle not worth my time and she seemed o.k. with the apology and got her point across.

Often too nurses can be rude to doctors, especially interns and residents, so it starts us off on the wrong foot. Also CNAs can ask the same of RNs. Or the transporters can ask the same of the nurses, "why are they so rude when I come to pick up their patients and ask for help?", etc. etc. We have to be sure we're not the cat calling the kettle black.

Anyway, I don't think we should accept unacceptable behavior and I'm not sure why nurses do. I try not to generalize doctors as spoiled arrogrant brats and take when each as they come.