Get a clue!

[Sadie04]

I just need to vent a little about an MD I was working with yesterday. I was taking care of a 33yo female admitted with severe HA, also her left eye kept deviating to the left. The docs suspected MS and told her so that morning. She had been teary all day and needed lots of emotional support. They decided to do an LP to r/o infection. They started the procedure at noon, made 3 attempts without success, and were still trying at 1:30. By that time the patient was crying uncontrollably, her husband and I were holding her hands, and the husband was getting angry. I left to get some more lidocaine and one of the docs followed me. He said 'why is she being so spleeny? LP's don't hurt that much.' :angryfire Hello? Do you need to ask that question??? I reminded him of the news she had received that morning, and the fact that lumbar punctures DO HURT!

Most of the docs I work with are great but this one is definitely the exception :angryfire

[*Peanut*Vennie*]

the wrost thing i have seen was, the doctor had called the nurse and was asking how the patient was doing, he then asked to talk to the patient. She gave the patient the phone, and then after she had got it back was, the doctor had told the patient over the phone that he had lung ca :angryfire i cannot believe the nerve some people have. Its absolutley mindblowing

[dianah, ASN]

If an "easy" "painless" LP cannot be easily and painlessly performed at the bedside, GET SOMEONE ELSE to do it. Like a Radiologist (under fluoro -- they are trained to do myelograms, for goodness' sake!) or an Anesthesiologist or CRNA . If you care about the patient (as others have posted, what if it were your mother??), know when to hand it over to someone else. We as nurses see this all the time, say, starting IVs. Sometimes I can't start one to save my life (and I'm usually good), and once I call someone else to come try, they start it first time!! I've seen the same phenomenon happen with arterial sticks in angio, too. More times than not, when I suggest the Radiologist call someone else, often that jinxes us just enough so that he gets in the artery the very next try!

[RNPATL, DNP, RN]

Every clinician needs a class on people.

Ever nurse needs a class on how to smack the clinician when he or she messes up with them.

-Dave

Hear, hear .. I agree.

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

Every clinician needs a class on people.

Ever nurse needs a class on how to smack the clinician when he or she messes up with them.

-Dave

I'll use a brick, i don't want to hurt my hand trying to knock sense into the clinician. That wouldn't help the pt.