Why is it okay for Doctors to yell at Nurses?

Nurses Relations

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I'm currently in Nursing School to get my RN license and I noticed something that is bothering me. Maybe I'm still naive, I just find it baffling to hear how it's almost seen as a given that doctors at times will be disrespectful to nurses. My professors, who are all experienced RN's, frequently comment on the fact that as a nurse you can expect to be yelled at by the doctors. In almost every lecture they will say something along the lines of "if you, as the nurse, don't do exactly what the doctor wants he will probably yell at you." What bothers me most about these comments is that nobody seems to find them shocking or is even a bit upset about it. In what other profession do you hear people talk about being yelled at in such a matter of fact way?

My other question is: why do nurses accept this kind of behavior? I've never been yelled at by a doctor but my natural reaction to somebody yelling at me would be:" I'm not sure who you think you are talking to, but you don't speak to me like this." Even if you made a mistake you could say: "I know I made a mistake but that doesn't give you the right to speak to me in this tone. We are all just human."

Maybe I'm missing something here and I hope some of you will enlighten me. What is the worst that could happen if you said something like that to a yelling doctor? He would probably think twice about yelling at you again. Please help me to understand, what are nurses afraid of?

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this from you guys. Thank you!

I think I had been yelled at probably several times since I became a nurse. I am still leaning to deal with this issue. I usually apologize but things need to get done and be done whether he or she likes it or not. Most challenging thing for me would be the foreigns doctors who have English accent. I cannot comprehend them on the phone clear so I ask them to repeat what they just told me. They do get annoy by that but what else can you do except making sure you got it down right what were told, right? Anyone agreed?!

I have a question.

I see a lot of post in many topics on AN about Nurses being mistreated. Is it really so bad that it can't be brushed off (I mean mistreatment by pt's and fami,lies btw. I wouldn't put up with a coworker looking down their nose at me either)? When I was a Marine, I took a side job as a bouncer, and I had a temper back then too lol. But I immediately realized that any yelling or threatening towards me was them threatening a "Bouncer," not me personally, you know? Keep in mind I'm not saying anyone is doing anything wrong, just curious-Is the yelling from Pt's and their families really that bad?

Depends where you work, the customers(patients ) and on your personality. I wouldn't say it is that bad.i kiss up to families and patients big time.. I would say a yelling by a pt or family who is completely oriented happens on average once every few months. Not THAT BAD.

One of my first threads on here was about a HORRIBLE day I had as a very new nurse. We were short aides and nurses. So I had to do a lot more work. Keep in mind being new, I was slower. One pt had a ton of visitiors in the room and they asked me to get them chairs. Ok. So as I walked down the hall, I HEARD one of my patients making a sound indicating pt needed suctioning. This pt could not communicate much and had a trach. PRIORITY ONE IS SUCTION THE TRACH! so i go in and do that. pt is isolation. and suctioning is supposed to be sterile. these things take time. And I have to assess the patient's respitory status. So this takes time. When I go back out in the hall. the family is ringing again with the OBNOXIOUS mother figure YELLING about the chairs and what is taking so long etc blabh blah blah, they asked me MINUTES AGO. ..... I didn't say anything. I was super annoyed that I was assumed to be a bad /incompetent nurse because I didn't get chairs for visitors fast enough. It really annoyed me, it was the icing on the cake to a bad day. . Then I didn't say a word. Now I might tell the visitors in a sarcastic tone, " Sorry I didn't get your visitors charis fast enough, one of my patients was having trouble breathing." ( or at least I would like to think I would actually say this to a pt or their family but probably never would lol)"

I have only ever seen one dr yell at a nurse, it was while I was in hospital at Easter and this particular nurse had been really good, he knew how miserable I was and would hang out with me after his shift. One day the dr walked in and yelled at hi he was spending to much time with me and harbouring my recovery....I was so angry, in so much pain I yelled back 'you effing ass earl has done nothing wrong. I live an hour from here, my mum works and my sister has Uni, it's nearly Easter and the last place I want to be is here puking my guts up and having klexane injections because I pass out from pain coz both LP's were cocked up now apologise to him or I get the boss!!!'

I have a low tolerance for that kind of behaviour

I have a question.

I see a lot of post in many topics on AN about Nurses being mistreated. Is it really so bad that it can't be brushed off (I mean mistreatment by pt's and families btw. I wouldn't put up with a coworker looking down their nose at me either)? When I was a Marine, I took a side job as a bouncer, and I had a temper back then too lol. But I immediately realized that any yelling or threatening towards me was them threatening a "Bouncer," not me personally, you know? Keep in mind I'm not saying anyone is doing anything wrong, just curious-Is the yelling from Pt's and their families really that bad?

I've been pretty fortunate. It's a very rare thing that a patient and/or family got crazy on me. It does happen, and you have to be professional--and understand that people that are seriously ill are terribly stressed. It doesn't excuse bad behavior, but it makes it understandable, and the role as a nurse is to be therapeutic and supportive--in that regard, its different from regular customer service. The patient or family may not always be right, but they need support, even if their responses may risk undermining that support. And then there are just some folks you really can't help or support. It's sad, but that too happens. You maintain a therapeutic approach and a caring, professional demeanor, do the best you can, and then move on.

Like I said, I'll take the yelling to my face over the subversive, backstabbing stuff any day. In some places, there's this kind of guerilla warfare that goes on in nursing. It'd be OK if you weren't already stressed out juggling dying kids and coding patients and the like. But when you are busting hump and someone is just looking for a mistake over any little thing, or when nurses make it hard for nurses to "fit" into the culture, well its more than hazing--and if you are there for the patients, it adds insult to injury and ups the stress level to severe on a regular basis. Horizontal and vertical violence is a considerable issue in many nursing areas. I truly wish it were not so. I think I've come to the conclusion that this field draws in all kinds of people--and some of them are pretty insecure and don't have a clue about who they are and what they should be about (should meaning in terms of purpose and striving to be a whole person).

To be honest, since you have identified yourself as a male, I will say that you will probably do fine. In my experience, usually men in nursing are not as readily targetted for the kind of violence I am referring to. It's usually a nice looking female nurse, who is smart, but doesn't play the kiss azz game, that often gets targetted. If the nurse is pretty secure, it can be resented by others, and hence she becomes a target. There's this whole mean girls, high school crap that goes on in nursing. Thankfully not always, and not everywhere. If you get a good team, jump up for praise! As I desired to move into other areas or subspecialities, I had to give up working with some amazingly supportive, truly teamplayer people. This can be quite an adjustment. Having a good crew, IMHO, makes all the difference. Personally, I think more nursing units should have baseball or softball teams--seriously--to learn about working in unity and support. Watching the vying for diva or control-freak goddess can be hard to watch in this field--especially as you watch it unfairly hurt other people. Watching parents lose their kids and striving to being an octopus to save a life is more than enough stress without all the other catty BS.

So in terms of abuse, the latter stuff is what you may see more than anything else--besides issues of lack of staffing and proper understanding of acuity and other administrative nonsense. If you work in the ED, however, you have an excellent chance of getting clocked by any number of drunks or narc addicts/abuse or people that are just seriously insane--and I mean quite literally psychotic.

Ive been yelled at before.

And they get it right back. They don't have the right to yell at me and I make them feel belittled about the situation just like they are trying to do.

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

I have seen physicians yelling.....I have been yelled at. There are facilities that allow it and facilities that don't. I think in the old days it was much more frequent. I had a MD throw a chart at me once, just once....he got fired.

I make it very clear that I cannot hear them any clearer, nor will I move any quicker, when they are talking loudly and I will not engage in a conversation until they decide to talk in a normal tone of voice. It is much less an issue today than years ago.

You will have to own up to a very unhappy MD when you make a mistake....but it should never involve profanity or personal attacks.

But remember "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent".

I've been yelled at and each time I wrote an incident report. I worked as a secretary at a top 10 not for profit hospital in one of the ICU's while in school. This pulmonary attending yelled at me as soon as I came on the floor to start my shift about an X-ray he ordered an hour ago and why isn't it done? I mean screaming loudly. All the nurses rushed over and the nurse manager came out of her office because he was so loud. I said I just got here. I still have my coat on and my lunch bag in my hands. I was on my way to the break room but I dropped my stuff and said I will put a stat order in right now. He said I asked you an hour ago. No, an hour ago I was at home. I was a minority and so was the day secretary who left early because she had a family emergency. And we looked NOTHING alike. Just minorities. Needless to say the manager and the medical director who was on the other side of the ICU immediately carted him off. He had to take an anger management course and apologize not only to me but the whole staff. He was handled appropriately.

Now at the for profit hospital that I worked at briefly and I mean briefly as a charge nurse a surgeon cussed me out because I called him about an order he wrote. I couldn't read it neither could the secretary, 4 staff nurses or the charge nurse on the floor next to me. We were super busy that day so I paged him. I asked him to please clarify his order because it was hard to decipher. He immediately calls me a stupid blank and that I need to learn to read and don't call him over stupid blank. I said stop cussing at me and please tell me what you want with this order so we can take care of your patient. And if you continue to cuss at me I'm ending this call. He said f blank and I hung up. In the meantime an oncologist was sitting right behind me and got real close to me and demanded to know who was talking to me like that on the phone because he could hear him yelling obscenities at me. I told him but after I hung up on the surgeon. Fast forward. I did an incident report and the DON didn't believe that he yelled at me and that I misunderstood him. He brought a lot of money to the hospital. Then I threw in the curve call and said Dr. So and So heard the whole conversation but I didn't include him in the incident report. Only the secretary who also heard everything. So I told Dr. So and So about the DON not believing me and when he went to talk to her and the hospital president then and only then was the surgeon written up. I should have included the oncologist on the incident report but I thought myself and the secretary should be enough for witnesses. I guess I was wrong.

Sorry that was very long post. I've been yelled at by patient's and family and I immediately tell them to stop or I'm walking away.

Those who say they've never been yelled at or never heard a doctor yell might be forgetting or might be young enough that they don't remember.

Things have improved over the past few decades. And now that doctors are often employees, they have to behave better. They're still gods, just smaller ones than previously.

Just try not to cry, try not to yell in return. Follow the advice given here and you should be ok.

Specializes in CCT.

Granted I'm not a nurse, but I've never been yelled at by a physician, only nurses (yes, actually yelled at). I've also been accused of "yelling" at people,what I've found is usually any type of disagreement leads to a "yelling" accusation by these folks.

Specializes in Peds ED, Peds Stem Cell Transplant, Peds.

If a doctor makes a habit of yelling at nurses, then it is the facility fault and they can be sued for harassment if they don't deal with it.

I worked agency once and had a doctor yelling at me on the phone. I politely asked him to stopped and explained I am will not take his abuse,and would hang up, he can call me back when he is calmer. That made him madder, after third hang up, he threaten me. I immediately called security that this doctor had threatened me, I also wrote a long detailed report and turned this into risk management and my agency. I am unsure the outcome because I never went back. I do know the charge nurses and other nurses had my back and thanked me profusely because this physician was known for this, however, it never came down to the threats, he mainly just made nurses cry. I don't cry over jerks, he wasn't going to gain the victory.

Specializes in Peds ED, Peds Stem Cell Transplant, Peds.

I too was yelled at by a nurse, I was in labor and asked my husband to get some ice chips, he was taking his own sweet like he usually does, and I snapped at him, then the nurse butted in and yelled at me. I was not a difficult patient, I wasn't doing all the swearing and screaming that many do. I just wanted my husband to get off his butt and get me 1 thing, and the horrible witch of a nurse was rude.

So I do feel your pain

For those of you who have never witnessed or experienced the abuse, you are lucky. Where I currently work, it isn't so bad. The doctors usually only get upset when they have a good reason, and they are not "yellers"... they will just calmly tell you that you are stupid. I have seen very few doctors capable of offering criticism in a reasonable way. I have not been so much the target of this but have seen it happen. At my last facility we had a couple of cardiologists who were temper-tantrum screamers who enjoy making nurses cry, and succeed about once a week. They make a lot of money so they are kept on staff.

The worst kind of tantrum is the one thrown by the doctor because they are upset you paged them, even for a legitimate reason. It makes nurses terrified to call the MD even when its necessary! Its those situations which lead to changes in condition not being immediately reported, because the nurse is second guessing herself and trying to get ready to be yelled at.

On the bright side... it seems that new doctors (aged 35 and below) are coming out of school nicer than the old ones! Maybe they added "Social skills" to the medical school curriculum!

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