Incometent Doctor

Specialties Emergency

Published

What do you do when you work with an incompetent doctor? This doctor is truly an idiot and is inhumane. I know how very frowned upon it is for nurses to go after a doctor, but I am scared for MY license and MY patients lives when I work with her. We were getting ready to put a hare traction splint on an 8 year old with a femur fracture who was crying with pain already, we requested pain meds, she refused and said, it's going to hurt anyway!!!!:angryfire Then after we insisted she said to give 1 mg of morphine! Gee, thanks, then when the nurse went to push it she said, hold on, were not ready yet!?! Like we were giving Sux or something!?! This is just one example of MANY as you can imagine. If I write her up then the policy is that I will end up in a room face to face with this physician to discuss the write up, and we all know they will not fire a doctor over one nurses right up. All of the other nurses in the department agree with me. What do we do?

Nene's probably right, "refuses" is kind of a loaded word. But when you are telling a doc over and over again that a patient is awake and c/o 10/10 pain and they say they won't order anything, technically that is a refusal. I've always been taught that you should document exactly what actually happens, not to pick and choose what's going to get a certain person into "trouble". If they say it, they should be held accountable for it. Also, with the above case that I mentioned, the point was that she did notify the attending sugeon and was held accountable for his decision not to do surgery. So these incompetent docs must be reported not only for the patient's sake, but for the fact that we can be held responsible for not reporting their poor care.

Specializes in CVICU, CCU, MICU, SICU, Transplant.
If I write her up then the policy is that I will end up in a room face to face with this physician to discuss the write up, and we all know they will not fire a doctor over one nurses right up.

OMG...that's insane. Gotta love "physician satisfaction" over nursing ethics, SBAR, Press Ganey, and all the other buzz words/policies out there. :angryfire Ugh

At the risk of sounding dumb, in 20 years I don't know what code white is?

Specializes in E.R. Peds, PICU, CCU,.

I must rephrase what I meant I said. Or something like that. I didn't mean not to chart "Dr. Aware" after re-reading what I wrote that was what I said.

I meant that you should not put in the pt's chart that you notified nursing supervision or Risk Management. I did this once and it had me sitting across the table with administration and almost had a reverse effect from what I was trying to gain.

We write an incident report and a report to our nursing manager and medical director.

I have written the Medical Board about a doctor. They sent me a letter stating it would be looked into.

That doctor asked me in the elevator why I reported him. I told him the facts. He then asked, "Did I really do that?"

He kept his license but the rude abusive behavior that also risked patient care stopped.

I'm told the medical board works behind the scene.

There should be protocols regarding this in every hospital.

We make an incident report.

As to charting, pain is part of your assessment and so is relief of stated pain. I think you should chart but don't put your interpretation in the charting. Say, "8 y.o. complaining of 10/10 femur pain. Physican aware. No orders received". I wouldn't say "Physician refused". That is a judgment.

steph

Specializes in Day Surgery/Infusion/ED.

You bet your bippy I would document that the pt was in pain and that the doctor did not order pain medication. Which, BTW, could be construed as pt abuse.

Makes me glad we don't have any docs that are that unreasonable.

Specializes in ER/SICU/Med-Surg/Ortho/Trauma/Flight.

Yes I work with a doc like this in our er to just chart chart chart, and talk to your manager. The one I work with tryed to get me and another nurse to splint a guys fractured hip however your supposed to do this concidering in nursing school we never learned how to splint someones hip and I dont even think its possible god hes a moron.:angryfire

You can report her anonymously to the state medical board.

Yes I work with a doc like this in our er to just chart chart chart, and talk to your manager. The one I work with tryed to get me and another nurse to splint a guys fractured hip however your supposed to do this concidering in nursing school we never learned how to splint someones hip and I dont even think its possible god hes a moron.:angryfire

yup, you can splint a fx hip, hare traction splint is one device, i was just looking and there are others....most of this done prehospital....

Specializes in CCRN, CNRN, Flight Nurse.

Because of the placement required for a Hare Traction splint (under the ischial tuberosity; the patient should feel as though they are sitting on in), it is not used on hip fractures. A Sager Traction splint would be a better choice.

Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

Our hospital has an anonymous patient safety/ethical concerns hotline, goes to an outside group.

I would have charted "pain 10/10 reported to MD at XX hours, no pain control orders given. Repeated report of pain at xx hours. No pain control orders given.", instead of "no orders received". The order you received was not to give anything!

The next step in advocacy is to refuse to participate in the procedure. "I'm sorry Doctor, I cannot ethically carry out this procedure without providing pain control. I'll call the nursing supervisor for you."

Specializes in ICU, Surgery.
At the risk of sounding dumb, in 20 years I don't know what code white is?

Code White: You're in the hallway getting blasted by a doctor who is acting inappropriately. You pick up intercom and call "CODE WHITE hallway 1" Every available staff member should respond so that there are lots of witnesses to the childish doctors behavior! They will then realize how stupid they are acting and slink away.

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