Physician bullying/sarcastic comments to nursing staff

I find the grumpy docs more difficult to deal with than the sarcastic ones! The ED I work in is quite a light hearted place, people being *human* as well as professionals and having a laugh. Most people realise the staff they can't have a banter with and avoid it with them. I'm not sure what kind of situation you are meaning to be honest.

Personally, two days ago I was working an extra shift as a conference I was supposed to be on was cancelled. I wasn't in a work mode, so was walking around telling people I wasn't really working (I was doing my work of course ), one of the consultants turned around to me and said "Claire, do you ever actually work?" Now to some people, this might have seemed unprofessional and rude, but it was light hearted joking and I thought it was hillarious :)

On the other hand, just a few minutes after the consultant's comment, a jumpted up GP locuming with us got the hump with me for doing my job! I turned around to her and asked her what she was doing with a patient who was almost at 4 hours as I'd have to transfer them before the 4 hours. She screamed at me that she'd not finished with the pt and I wasn't taking them anywhere (bear in mind our decision unit is a 1 minute walk from where we were standing). I realised I was getting nowhere and went to the NIC and asked her to intercede. The doctor went nuts at me saying I was rude and out of order for asking her the question!!! Needless to say, everyone was on my side, but I was in SUCH a bad mood after that, I just wanted to have it out with her, afterall, as the senior nurse in that area, it would be me who would be balled by the NIC if that pt went over 4 hours.

Now that is the sort of thing I'd go to management, banter and sarcastic comments, I'd have a word with the person in question and try to manage it.

WE had a fantastic group of doctors in our ER. We were such a great team!! Then they hired the "new guy". He had a chip on his shoulder the minute he got there. He was constantly going against "standard procedure" and the last straw for me was when he told me to give an 81 mg aspirin. Our protocol for chest pain was an aspirin (325 mg), nitro, IV, labs, etc. Well, he blew up right in front of the pt. and said "you'll give what I tell you to give and not until I TELL you to give it."

So, the next pt. that came in that needed all that done, I did nothing. He had to tell me each and every single thing. I wouldn't even put O2 on him before he told me too. It took at least 3 times as long (don't worry, pt wasn't in danger) for things to get done. Then I asked him (very snidely) if that's the way he wanted things to work.

He apologized. But not very nicely.

He only worked there a couple more months and then he was gone.

The MD group I work with now is great, but I've had to deal with grumpy and insulting docs in the past. I'm lucky enough that my NM (3 in the years I've been in this ED) has not put up with it and two of the worst docs were asked not to come back. A couple of others were talked to and turned themselves around. One of the two that was let go.....I got into it with him a few times. It got so bad that I didn't wait to discuss it with my NM once. I pulled him into an empty room and flat out told him that he was never to treat me like that again, especially in front of a patient. He once went so far as to call me a liar because he gave me a verbal order and then refused to sign it saying that he had never said it. I was so furious that I had to calm down before I could talk to him without raking his eyeballs out. I had a conference with him with my NM mediating.

I used to work in an ER that had an excellent intern and resident program for emergency medicine. I just loved the place. Everyone was on a first name basis, and we even had campouts at a local lake all paid for with our collections of recycled soda cans. Any way, we had a new intern that had only been there about a month and he had already started with the nasty little comments to the nurses, hateful thing,he was. I called him by his first name and he hit the roof and started yelling at me in front of the attending and the rest of the nurses. Telling me he had gone to school for a long time to get the title of Doctor and he would not tolerate anything but Dr. soandso. You could have heard a pin drop. Everyone just stood there and stared at him. I told he that I would certainly call him Doctor. A little while later he called me by my first name. Still having everyone at the desk I told him to never call me by my first name as well and since he was much younger than me he could call me Mrs. ____ or nurse ____ because I had earn both titles and had 20 yrs of ED experence. The attending was leaning back in a chair and started laughing so hard he fell out of the chair The supervisor was laughing and left as fast as she could. and then the rest of the staff went to other rooms just howling. Thar kid never was given a residency in ER either. Hmmmmm I Wonder why?

We "banter" in our ER. If you are new it takes a while to pick up on the different personalities. We have one doc who is totally crusty on the outside, but has a heart of gold. If you are able to play the game, he will be very easy to work with. if you are not, he is kind of difficult.

I do ok with most of the doc's. I have one that is a pompous ass. I just treat him with respect, but don't go out of my way to speak to him during slow times.

I think if you are being "put down" or treated with a lack of respect you should go to your nurse manager. But, if this is a case of a doc trying to "banter" maybe you should hold off a bit and see what happens.

We had one ED Doc who would "blow up" at us in front of the patients. She never failed to let us know that her degree took longer than ours and that SHE was the doctor. SHE isn't here anymore!!!

Although I don't work in the ER our unit has a hospitalist which I like to refer to as Dr. Plankton, who always has an attitude with the nurses and tries to belittle us in front of pts, staff, families etc. At first, when this would happened, I would just curse him under my breath, but now I just tell him to keep his mouth closed and walk off from him when he is barking. I know this isn't very professional but I do figure that is better than telling him what an idiot he is. Granted it took me 5 months to get my fill of him and now he pretty much doesn't talk to me like that anymore!! I didn't get disiplined by my NM, which I really thought she would have to fire me but instead she said " I wondered when you were going to do that":D

I once had a doc send a tech to get me out of a patient's room (where I was involved in a procedure) and when I get to the doc (who was in another pts room) found out that he had called me because he wanted me to put the bed in trendelenburg.......... if that wasn't enough in and of itself, he yelled at me in front of the pt for taking so long to get there. They were automatic beds with a button right in front of him to put the bed in trendelenburg, and it was not an emergent situation at all. I was so mad! Plus, I literally had to move the doc out of the way just to push the stupid button. I managed to hold my tongue, but it wasn't easy!

Well, wherever you go in life, there tends to be one *special* one, isn't there?

As a new nurse in a teaching hospital I've been very pleased with the working relationships in my dept. However there is one resident ... It amazes me that he can get through the day without being totally incapacitated by the effort of carrying around his ego. Snide, sarcastic, condescending, short with pts. & families ... ugh, ugh. Will have to give careful thought to his eval at the end of the month. :stone

Depends on the situation. Some people are snide and silly: example is one doc who walked out of a room and told me to go in and ask the able bodied pt to put on a gown. She informed me she didn't go to medical school to ask patients to put on gowns. (She had issues with being a female physician and was taking it out on many people...

Then though- there are physicians who are actually being nasty and trying to intimidate nurses and other staff members. These physicians make it difficult to work. In one ED i traveled to, they just lost 3 nurses because they do not like to work with one physician, and the manager finally noted that when doing self scheduling everyone was trying to schedulethemselves off on the days he works... it was pretty wierd. Thsi type of physician needs to be confronted by management as they detrimentally affect the department.