situation bad situation bad!!!!!!
yikes today was one for the records lemme tell ya!
as you all know thru my previous moaning and complaining I'm working at the desk on my unit (only one more week left of that though, yay)
okay so today a family member calls SCREAMING
yelling , swearing , too upset to calm down etc
stating that her father hasnt been eating for a week. this is the first I hear of this and so I promise to investigate and get back to pt family member.I look in the chart, no charting by the MD for five days, nursing notes document that pts not eating and that MD notified , no orders etc etc...
so I page the MD and get no response, talk to my Unit administrator about the escalating situation and how the family member isnt able to even listen to what I'm saying to her at the moment cuz she is so angry, pt representative gets called also to get in on the situation, family member calms down and thanks me for my involvment, so were okay on that level.
til the MD shows up on the floor, uh oh.......
I approached him with my concerns about the pt and the families concerns and the fact that they are complaining etc
and he said and I quote "I dont want to hear about any concerns , you can tell the pts family to go f' themselves"
i know the dr isnt pissed at me but I had to tell him that that isnt appropriate and that my job is to liase with him on the pts behalf to get the pts needs met, he insists that he has seen the pt everyday and talked to his kids in detail about the situation, i point out that he hasnt documented this in the chart, he insisted he did , opens the chart, finds out that I am right and says "well i'll do a late entry but im swamped and have too many pts to deal with and i dont want to deal with this pt or his family anymore"
the UA and the pt representative are here for this little conversation and they intervene, taking me nicely out of the situation
unfortunately the MD goes in to see this pt and apparently tells him that he doesnt want to care for him and that he will try to find another MD to care for him but it will be difficult because of his family............what?:!??!?!?!??!?!!?
I dont doubt that he said this to the pt because the pt said word for word exactly what the MD said to us before going into this pts room to see him
and there is no way this pt overheard the dr when he was speaking to us and made it up.....
so the UA called the chief of medicine who basically said let it go for the weekend and he will follow up monday
is it just me or is this unacceptable?!?!??!?!
the dr spent great lengths explaining how busy he is, told us all about his pt load, and how he doesnt like being affiliated with our hospital cuz he is overworked, to which we basically said we can empathize but he should bring it forward to his superior, as we cannot change the fact that he has pts on our floor that need his attention.....
hello but are we not all overworked??!?!
drs are human beings too but there are ways to behave and courses of action to take to get the situation handled.
so now of course the pt is crying and thinks his dr hates him and his family, the family is even more angry and talking law suits etc.......
and I'm wishing I called in sick for the day!!!!!!!!
sorry for the long drawn out entry but wow I had to get that off my chest!!!!!!!!!
