Dr. ripped my co-worker a new one for no reason

Nurses General Nursing

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I am a RN nursing student and what happend at work today makes me want to chnage my major. One of my co-workers paged a Dr. to see what time he was planning to make rounds, this was like at 1pm so it wasn't like we woke him up. The pts. family members had plans for x-mas shopping ect. and had already been waiting all morning to speak to the Dr. When my co-worker reached the Dr. he began yelling at her over the phone and said you can't tell me how to care for my pts. I got to hand it to her she held her ground and was assertive during the whole conversation. The charge nurse heard what was going on so she was atleast a witness and also the nursing supervisor just happend to walk onto the floor also. No Dr. has the right to treat anyone like this and this is not the first time he has yelled at a nurse on the phone, it was a different nurse the last time. She went to management and they were suppost to handle it. Obviously it has not been resolved. Any ideas on how to handle this situation? Should you hang up on them?

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I guess my question would be if this is a doc who routinely yells at staff for every little thing. If not, then I would not get my undies in a bind about it......it could be the family's sense of entitlement was annoying him. That will do it everytime for me.

However, IF they were PROMISED a d/c time, that would be reason for the family to be upset, indeed.

Now, if the doctor is known for doing this routinely and inappropriately, then it should be addressed.

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You are damned if you do and damned if you don't. I just caught the same kind of grief from MD for exactly the opposite thing. Patient was discharged but needed scripts from consulting MD befor leaving building. Attending MD actually told the patient and myself that he had spoken to consulting MD who happened to be in building and consulting MD said he would be up shortly. We waited hour and half and finally I paged consulting MD but got no answer. We waited another half hour and I paged again. Second page finally got answered and consulting MD got very nasty with me for not paging him SOONER. He totally denied that he had ever spoke to attending MD and denied that he knew the patient was discharged. He said it was my fault the patient had to wait so long, said he would have come up sooner if he knew because he had been in building 3 hours. I said "well I did page you sooner, if you look at your beeper you will see that the first page came over an hour ago". Well he looked at his beeper and there it was and he shut up. We were actually jaw to jaw there for a minute. He owed me an apology but it would be a cold day in hell that an almighty MD would apology to a lowly creature like a nurse. I should complain to my NM but I am on 8 days vacation over Christmas and by the time I get back I will have forgotten all about it.

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well...after experiencing the wrath from both sides in several situations I no longer get involved .I am not anyone's secretary or answering service-I have to focus on the pt's care and their needs-not the families needs.......I encourage the family to get in touch with the doctor themselves directly to try and set up a meeting and will also refer them to social services if they are not getting a response back from the md..........If the patient is alert and oriented then the doc really is not going to violate their privacy (not supposed to,I should say) If the patient cannot speak for themselves then the family needs to take the responsibilty for communicating with the md....

I don't mean to sound harsh and I know what it is like to be the family member of that patient firsthand-and I took it upon myself to communicate with the docs-the nurses were way too busy... So-I would NOT have made that phone call (CHRISTMAS SHOPPING? well-whoop dee doo-I guess momma or poppa isn't that bad off anyway...)-but if a doc ever treats me like that I will hang up or walk away-after telling him why I am doing so....Most facilities have policies regarding this type of behavior-there are other threads about abusive docs here-look them up....I wonder if the person that made the call ever gets her work done in a timely manner?-who has time for that kind of baloney? We are nursing professionals.....

Excellent response. This is the way things must be done.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Just another slice of my opinion, which is just another thing to take into consideration.

(This is not saying that the MD was right for yelling, he most certainly was not. To be PO'd, maybe, but never to yell)

Several times i've been in an OR room with (mainly) the general surgeons, who get several pages during cases. A floor nurse will page to ask how soon a doc is doing his rounds, and he may say "about an hour", which was probably true AT THE TIME, but then, an emergency lap pt. comes in and then this surgeon's the only one available to do it, so there goes another 2 hours. And after that, a ruptured appy comes in, so there's another hour. And that makes 3 more hours of pages of "when are you making rounds?". I mean there ARE some pts. and family members who think the doc is sitting on his *** in the lounge, instead of having emergencies come up.

In other words, you never know what ties someone up.

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I agree, it was a silly thing to page the Dr for. Patients and families are constantly asking me what time the Dr will be in; as a float nurse I go to at least 12 different units within the hospital and have no idea what time most Drs round. If it's during office hours I suggest the pt or family call the office and speak to the secretary, leaving a number where they can be reached. I also suggest they write down all their questions/concerns so they don't have to contact the Dr several times in one day. I find it helps to give the pt/family an idea of what a Dr's schedule can be like (seeing pts in the office, rounding on pts in the hospital, doing surgeries if the Dr is a surgeon, emergency situations, etc) because most lay people have no idea how crazy a Dr's schedule can be.

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Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

Learning to deal with doctors being less than nice over the phone or in person is par for the course sadly..and I do what I can avoid these sitatutions with doctors by learning their little 'quirks' or always being a delightful person on the phone especially! (my co-workers tease me by calling me the 'airline stewardess' on the phone with docs or even 9-11..."hello and thank you so much for using Traige Nursing services...today we have a female patient of 97 with us today...short of breath and complaining of increasing chest pain with respirations at 40 out of the west..she is alert and oriented times four and will most likely choose the fish entree today for her complimentary dinner, and enjoy our inflight movie as well...and in case of an emergency, those of you whom are caring for her should assist her through the emergency doors located two to the front, two to the side, and two to the back. Since she is filling up with fluids secondary to acute CHF, her seat pad can function as a floatation device, and Oxygen with nebulizer will come down from the panel above to assist breathing. Please be aware that she has used two emisis bags, which are located behind each seat...." LOL!!!!!!).

Anway...sadly enough learning to deal with these situations is the trick, and I also have family call MD's if they have questions! Families seem to get more response than I do at times...and I have even gone over with family what they should say...those little key words that get docs attention! Plus, it is harder for me to show the docs the emotion the family has..best they hear it from the source, and they can always have the doctor call me back if more info is needed or new orders.

I have had a doc for years that yells at me if I do call about something on a weekend, yet screams purple meaninies at me if I DON'T call! LOL, talk about a catch 22! I finally had a talk with him when I met him in person while a loved one of mine was in the hospital and he was doing rounds...I came up, shook his hand and basically stroked his ego about how happy I was to finally met him, and how wonderful he was for being such a caring and compassionate doctor for his clients...LOL, he doesn't yell at me anymore, and we have even gotten so far as saying a little howdy do before getting to the facts! That was very helpful, and luckily it worked! Talk about being the airline stewardess on that one! LOL!!!! (my hubby was with me and his jaw dropped to the floor like "HUH? Why is she being nice to a DOC...she is never that overly nice to a doc...". LOL!!!!!!).

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I agree with this. As a nurse in a surgeon's office, I see this from the other side. We get calls all the time from hospital nurses who have patients wondering an approximate time the surgeon might be rounding.

I totally disagree. The physcian is "employeed" by the patient to proved health care and patients family has every right to question when the doctor is going to come in to see the patient. The patient and the patients family time is just as importent to them as the physicians time is to him. I work with a physician who is chronically late and keeps patients waiting all the time. One time he was actually on time and the patient, who now always added an hour to the appointment time due to waiting for the doctor to show up, hadn't arrived yet and he walked out saying reshedule her for next week.

Have had others say they will be in the morning to discharge a patient and we are still waiting for them at 4 pm. Apparently its okay to let the person who is supposed to transport them home sit around all day due to the physicians time being too valuable.

If they are my nurse and the doctor doesn't show up when stated, I start paging them and continue to page them until they arrive. Counseled frequently because torgues off the doc's, but havve the highest patient satisfaction of anyone in my department.

As for hanging up on physicans, have done it a few times when they started using profanity. Always call back and if they start swearing or being abusive again hang up again. My response is "Why don't you come on in and talk to me like that face to face, and for some odd reason they are always calmer when they meet me".

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
I work with a physician who is chronically late and keeps patients waiting all the time.

Ever take the time to find out why?

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Specializes in Critical Care/ICU.
I totally disagree. The physcian is "employeed" by the patient to proved health care and patients family has every right to question when the doctor is going to come in to see the patient. The patient and the patients family time is just as importent to them as the physicians time is to him. I work with a physician who is chronically late and keeps patients waiting all the time. One time he was actually on time and the patient, who now always added an hour to the appointment time due to waiting for the doctor to show up, hadn't arrived yet and he walked out saying reshedule her for next week.

Have had others say they will be in the morning to discharge a patient and we are still waiting for them at 4 pm. Apparently its okay to let the person who is supposed to transport them home sit around all day due to the physicians time being too valuable.

If they are my nurse and the doctor doesn't show up when stated, I start paging them and continue to page them until they arrive. Counseled frequently because torgues off the doc's, but havve the highest patient satisfaction of anyone in my department.

Hooray for you mackrn! I'm so glad to see that there is another opinion such as mine in this thread. I agree with every single word you've said (or typed). I was really starting to lose some hope that there isn't anyone else who also sees the patient's and family's time is as valuable as anyone else's.

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I've had this happen to me, too. Then, even if the doc says he will be in at a certain time, they often aren't and the family is back to bugging you about it. I will not make excuses for a doc.

I now let families know that certain docs will not return phone calls for these types of things, and that there is no way to predict when the doc will be in. I let the family know that calling the doc themselves is an option.

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Specializes in Home Health Case Mgr.

One of the few times it is a pleasure being a male nurse. NO doc has EVER yelled at me in person or on the phone....I am a pretty big guy and they treat me with a lot of respect. It is unfair to treat some nurses bad and some good. I always take up and intervene on my coworkers part when I see or hear a rude doc. And if they DO ever yell at me or touch me.......well...I just hope they have dental insurance! LOL.... peace out

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While I agree that everybody's time is equally "valuable", there aren't the same constraints on all our time. We have a doctor in the family, a busy pediatrician, very good, (IMO) very conscientious, spends plenty of time with families in the office. Unexpected delays happen all the time; I know that it's just not possible to "stay on schedule" like lay people think should happen. Yes, patient's time and their families time are just as valuable; but when a doctor is tied up that's just the way it is. I don't know any doctor who purposely squanders other people's time. I think unless we do what they do, it's very hard for us to imagine what their day is like.

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