Responsibilities

[Darknights]

We have a new medical team. My past two shifts were spent chasing doctors to fix up problems on med charts.

You may have a different way of doing things in the U.S but we have a doctors book. In it we list the patients whose Med charts will run out that day, and list who will need variable doses of meds written up. The day doctors are ignoring this tonight staff have to get the only doctor in the hospital to come to the ward to write med charts.

Is it actually a nursing responsibility to chase doctors to write charts and orders? If a chart runs out and there isn't a new one, who is the incident report about?

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

Hospitals I've worked in have all gotten nurses to write reminders, flag charts, call docs etc in an attempt to keep the docs in line. No matter what administration tells you the docs are responsible for their own practice, our reminders are a courtesy. they also make our lives a little easier, avoiding lots of phone calls to renew or clarify orders. If your docs aren't cooperating with the reminder system it's not your problem. Bump it up the administrative ladder and feel free to call them as needed for what you need.