Nasty M.D phone manners

[sharann, BSN, RN]

What do you think of this Drs order (Verbal clarification)??

"Follow the orders you can read and don't follow the ones you can't read"

(Spoken R-E-A-L-L-Y slow like one talking to a naughty 2 yr old)

Who would you report this to?

This is the response I got when I said I couldn't read all his orders. By the way, 3 other RN's and a US couldn't read them either, not that it mattered.

Sharr

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

I would have written it as a telephone order:

..."Follow the orders you can read and don't follow the ones you can't read"

signed it T/O: Dr Doofus McDoc

Witnessed by all who had tried to decipher

Notified the supervisor

Made out an occurrence report and listed all orders legible,

photocopied the orders and attached to the Occ report.

Kept a copy of the occ report and photocopied order sheet (one for each nurse who witnessed)

Re-written the ones we could read.

followed them.

Passed on to day shift to follow up.

Explained to the patient that your doctor didn't want to clarify the orders.

Gone home and slept like a baby knowing that YOU were not the jackass here.

P

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I take a lot of telephone orders in the ER (sometimes multiple pages for admits). I only have had trouble with one MD who accused me of writing my own orders because he couldn't remember talking with me on the phone!!!

We're a pretty assertive bunch, so I refuse (and still do) to take his verbal orders. We had a little conversation last week when he asked me to take orders. I told him that I didn't feel I could do that because I needed to make sure he was awake and cognizant of the gravity of the situation. He huffed and puffed and blew off steam and unfortunately, got disconnected. OH TOO BAD !@

[pebbles, BSN, RN]

Little do they realise that we save their sorry asses too, just by phoning them to clarify those orders!

I agree with P_RN, I would have left a big paper trail to make sure that if there are any repercussions, it wouldn't be my ass on the line. Plus, at my hospital, we have a nursing supervisor on duty for teh hospital even at night, so that's who would help me clarify what my action should be. That person is our superior for the night, so even telling the supervisor would be part of my professional response. (to his unprofessional behaviour!)

[thisnurse]

oh prn...thank you for that great advice. lately i have been having problems like this as well. there seems to be this underlying "nurses are stupid" attitude...especially with surgery.

bowel prep orders:

fleets till clear

one fleets

d/c fleets

two fleets

call if inadequate bowel prep.

i call the resident and he asks his superior, who says..."cant they follow orders? whats so hard about following orders" and starts laughing.

ive had enough of that from them.

"well you see doctor, i would be able to follow orders if you will kindly tell me which of the four you would like me to follow."

i read them off and apparantly embarassed he demanded to know WHO wrote those orders. i said...

"doctor that is something you can address when you come to the floor. at this point my concern is with the bowel prep. the patient is far from clear. which order would you like me to follow?"

humbled, he said "fleets until clear"

i thanked him and hung up.

boy did he look like an ass. he came right up to the unit where i was highlighting all the orders.

he said, "oh they were written by another resident. take them off"

he never even went in to see the patient.

i chuckled about that for the rest of the shift.

do you think they will ever learn that we all work TOGETHER?

[nurs4kids]

Originally posted by P_RN

I would have written it as a telephone order:

..."Follow the orders you can read and don't follow the ones you can't read"

signed it T/O: Dr Doofus McDoc

Witnessed by all who had tried to decipher

Notified the supervisor

Made out an occurrence report and listed all orders legible,

photocopied the orders and attached to the Occ report.

Kept a copy of the occ report and photocopied order sheet (one for each nurse who witnessed)

Re-written the ones we could read.

followed them.

Passed on to day shift to follow up.

Explained to the patient that your doctor didn't want to clarify the orders.

Gone home and slept like a baby knowing that YOU were not the jackass here.

P

absolutely beautiful, prn!!

[leesonlpn]

superbly stated PRN. Florence N is so proud she's swinging her lantern. Youse good, girl.

[aimeee, BSN, RN]

I LOVE it, PRN! :D

[SharonH, RN]

P RN, you're my hero!

[sharann, BSN, RN]

Thanks for the advice.

Dr Doofus is right. Anyway,

I wrote a QA report, photocopied three times

with the verbatim "orders". One copy to our

DON (only works days 8-3) box, one for me and one

for my co-workers to keep for "later" if any get "lost". The original hopefuuly went to QA.

By the way, do they take this stuff seriously or just fluff it off?

PRN, you are great.

Shar

[nursechris1]

I too have had my share of nasty Drs. I had a patient, morning rounds, I couldn't get her to wake up. I took her blood sugar, as she was a renal patient, just thought it was good measure. I called the dr, told him the assessments, was MAD at me for doing the blood sugar, and gave orders to draw blood, and call if the patient didn't wake up.?

An hour later, he called, wanted to know why I hadn't called back yet. I told him he needed to come see the patient. He stormed in, saw the patient briefly,wrote orders, then took off. None of us could read his orders, so we paged him. His answer was "you figure it out." then he hung up on me.

We ended up calling his office nurse and she helped us interpret what we could. Why do some Drs have to be that way?

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

Who knows Chris, who knows?

Doctors hold peoples LIVES in their hands and HANDWRITING!!

Some take it as a badge of honor to have the terrible penmanship. Some take it as FUN to make a nurse cry. Some are just plain cruel to the nurses, patients and families.

Who knows? Arrogance, Stupidity, what?