Do doctors deal with the same stuff?

[Mrs. Sparkle Pants]

So I have gathered the general consensus around here is that nurses have to deal with a lot of crap; namely, management who is more concerned with the bottom line than patient care, understaffing, high patient load, impossible expectations, etc...I was wondering if you have seen physicians having to deal with the same issues? Just curious if this is across the board in patient-care professions.

[ImThatGuy, BSN, RN]

Yeah, they deal with more management than you do. Their livelihood is the revenue generated from patient encounters. You're going to get paid regardless.

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

My PCP is dropping down to just 400 patients in his practice. We stayed but I'm still not sure this is the way to go. It starts 4/19 so we'll see what we will see.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

Both my parents are physicians (in diffent specialties, never in the same practice)...

The had to worry about paying an office staff, finding an office manager who could deal with the staff and with the billing of pts, having malpractice insurance, who will cut the grass and perform other regular maintanance at the office, etc. etc. etc.

Needless to say, yes, they have to deal with the same issues as us (just magnified 500Xs).

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

Oh, absolutely. I suspect it is even worse for them. Press Gainey, etc. I really feel bad for them. The money and respect have diminished a great deal while tuition keeps going up, and now they are accountable to people who sometimes don't even have college degrees, lol.

[StNeotser, ASN, RN]

I have heard some self absorbed patients say "I fired Dr X" because s/he wouldn't give me a prescription for [insert name of drug they were seeking]

So yes, I think so.

[coast2coast]

Two moving excerpts from the same physician-writer illustrating this:

http://docsontheweb.blogspot.com/2011/04/resistance-is-futile.html

http://docsontheweb.blogspot.com/2011/03/world-gone-mad.html

Yes, doctors deal with just as much crap.

[mama_d, BSN, RN]

Yep, and they often can't defer up the chain like we can.

One of the hospitalists that works at my facility is an absolute doll, knows the nurses by name, says please and thank you, and really supports the nurses. I've recently seen or heard (over the phone) her extreme frustration with a handful of pts she's had to deal with lately. It ticks me off. She'll openly acknowledge the crap we have to put up with..."I don't know how you can deal with that wife for twelve hours, I can't deal with her for ten minutes"...and is totally understanding when she gets those phone calls at 2 am b/c wifey dear has decided that hubby needs a Colace STAT and she will call admin if he doesn't get it. Makes me get my angry face on (in the med room of course, God forbid pts see us being anything but perky Suzy Sunshines). I hate seeing a great doc get burnt out like that. And she's just one example.

Whew, didn't even realize I needed to get that out of my system. I feel better now.

[hoodiern]

Yes, definitely. I have seen them deal with a lot more than most people realize. They also do a lot of paperwork behind the scenes, such as billing, insurance matters, etc.

[rachelgeorgina]

Yes, they certainly do.

The things that come to mind for me are the unsafe hours, particularly for junior medical officers and the ten odd years of education to work up the ladder to independent practitioner that involve the difficulty and competition of first getting into a training program, the deadliest exams that are rarely passed first time around to get through the training program and the excruciating amount of work and extra curricular activities that one needs to be involved in to get seen and heard and known to get through the training program and keep a job.