Doctor refuses to acknowledge VA doctor

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I work in a long-term care facility. Our medical director doesn't have the best bedside manners, but he is our medical director and we should have some respect for his position.

Yesterday a resident came back from a visit with his VA doc and was given a 30 day supply of pain medication. Our nursing facility MUST call our medical director and get an ok from him before we can give the medication. Medical director says we can only give the resident 5 days of the medication and no more. Resident is so upset that he is refusing to take the medication at all now. This really upsets me. The resident is in pain. (He was hurt in Korea and has a bad knee). I see this type of behaviour all the time from this doc. Very arrogant and teetering on the malpractice side. Families are mad, complaining and I hear the brunt of it all. It's maddening to try to make these residents happy and be a good RN, then to have a doctor to make life miserable for our residents. Is this normal behaviour of a medical director?

Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

VA doctors don't have to be licensed by each individual state as long as their practice stays within the VA. My spouse gets his meds there and they honor Rx's from our internist also. There is a very good rapport with our VA Hospital and clinics here.

I wonder if the ECF doctor is thinking an injury 50 years ago necessitated narcotics this far along? Just thinking out loud here don't holler at me.

Specializes in ER/ICU/Flight.
I would also consider contacting the State Board of Medicine, as well as the credentialing board of the local hospital where this doctor has admitting privileges. Failure to collaborate with a patient's primary physician, and failure to adequately conrol pain are serious issues.

Absolutely! That's good advice. Not only is the medical director on a power trip, but it's not putting the patient's best interests in front. What kind of person would do that?

I didn't think the medical director could even stop someone from taking their own pills that were prescribed for them?

Specializes in ICU of all kinds, CVICU, Cath Lab, ER..

I worked for the VA in 3 different facilities (one was a Harvard affiliate). The Vets received (for the most part) wonderful care. The residents doing their training were sharp as tacks and held to high standards (there goes all those stereotypes). Additionally, there were occasional "special services" used for the Vets; specifically, in the facility that I initially trained in, there was a patient who was given special medication under the direction of the FDA - all vials were guarded and accounted for and the man did very well and went home.

Any thing the patients needed - they received!

I don't know about the "you don't need a license to practice" - I had to have my nursing license and presented it when requested.

By the way, the only time I ran into an unlicensed physician was when I did a travel assignment at one of the largest, most respected hospitals on the east coast - they had an ER doc who never graduated from med school...he worked a little over a year there and they finally followed up on him and boy, did the stuff hit the fan!!!

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