Hey guys remember how I was dreading coming to work on Monday? I'm starting to wish I'd called in! Sorry this is a long post!
I've seen doctors verbally abuse nurses, seen them throw tantrums and swear at everyone. Have never seen anyone get physical on a nurse until today.
Well today I could not believe the disgusting behaviour of one doctor.
We had patient who had surgery with a very difficult airway who haemorrhaged. It was awful, patient thrashing around, only two of us nurses and a nursing student who were trying to keep him from falling out of the bed. Nurse rushing around trying to bet airway stuff etc. Patient lost control of bowels, bladder very messy, situation. Then it got worse.
The other nurse was next to the doctor trying to staunch bleeding from wound and keep patients arms from thrashing. I was at the end of the bed trying to manage the legs, nursing student next to me. Both of us saw to the whole thing.
The doctor just lost the plot completely. He manhandled the nurse (dare I say assault!), grabbed her right arm and started yanking it towards him (we have no idea what he actually wanted from her something to do with airway assistance probably, no verbal communication here) in a violent manner. He nearly had her off her feet, really pulling her in towards in hard by her wrist with both his arms. It's had to describe this but his whole body was sort of involved with yanking her towards him . The look on his face was pretty scarey, nursing student said he looked as though 'he wanted to eat her alive', I 100% believe the man just lost his temper completely and took it out on her because he looked so incredibly angry.
The nurse (victim) handled it well at the time, didn't yell at him (I probably would have) but when the crisis was over she was really in a state. Could not stand, had to sit with her head down. She had to go home early which I encouraged her to do.
I told her I witnessed the entire incident, that whatever she wanted to do about it I will verify because I saw the whole thing. She reported it to our CNC. CNC's response to this abuse was pretty much 'heat of the moment', 'patient comes first'. You need to speak with the doctor about it yourself'.'Just monitor your wrist and if it's injured we'll take it up further. No mention of incident reports, documenting this assault.
Ok so it was a crisis. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR PHYSICAL INTIMIDATION! How on earth are we to focus appropriately in this situation if doctors are going to manhandle us, potentially cause us injury and give us all post traumatic stress disorder? How is this good for the patient?I was so angry all day I too left early to see a staff counsellor because I could just not cope with any more crap today at work. I needed to let it all out instead of taking it home and having my workplace problems affect my relationship like it's been doing of late.
Before I left I filed a report on the whole thing. Instead of an incident report I filled out a risk register report. The reason being is that our CNC deals with all the incident reports and I don't want anyone no matter what their status handling this if they think 'it's ok, heat of the moment'. I strongly believe his behavior put every nurse in that room at risk because he was just out of control and it put the patient at risk because we weren't fully focused on the patient.
If this doctor had of apologised afterwards it wouldn't have changed me reporting him, but it would have made a huge difference to how we all felt the rest of the day.
And what a great experience for the poor nursing student. Afterwards she asked me is this is acceptable and everyday practice!
Anyway feel better now for a vent. Anyone else have some similar experiences out there?
Sorry this is a long post!
No mention of incident reports, documenting this assault.