When is the last time you heard a doctor ask a patient, "What did you think of Dr.

[prn nurse]

_________??" Never? It simply isn't done. Doctors are professionals. They protect their image. They do not critisize each other to their patients. They do not manipulate their patients to complain about another doctor. They do not encourage patient complaints . Why do some nurses do this? I want to say that every shift I work, if the nurse who follows me is looking for something to critisise, she can find it. I work hard, do not read, sleep, watch t.v., balance my checkbook, play on the computer, take breaks, on my 12 hour shifts, and STILL I never get everything done as much as , and as well as I want to. There is always something ......that I could have done better. Should the nurse who follows me----especially if she has a personality conflict with me----critique me or poll the patient about the quality of my care? Do doctors do this?

[thisnurse]

i go thru the same shit at work too. im not taking the writeups seriously anymore. just got written up for something so amazingly stupid i wouldnt even comment on it.

i could keep a list. there is ALWAYS something undone for me. there is always some mistake made by someone. i find theirs. they find mine. difference is that i dont write anyone up for theirs.

we have a little clique of "tattletales" for better words that get by thru ass kissing. good for them. if thats how they have to do it, i say go for it. im not getting involved in their pettiness. maybe if that was the stance of most of us they wouldnt be able to get away with it.

[Stargazer]

This behavior amazes me. I left bedside nursing because chronic short-staffing meant I didn't have time to do good basic patient care, much less document appropriately. Who the hell has so much extra time that they're constantly writing up colleagues? I don't get it.

[prn nurse]

and I have been nursing over twenty years. I have noticed the ones' who are hell-bent on it are the ones who realize --for the first time in their lives---that they have an iota of authority. And they want to use it!! If you only have a wee bit of authority, the easiest way to exercise it is by writing someone up!!

[nightingale, RN]

I have NEVER written up a colleague... hopefullly will never have to (to save my butt in a bad situation)...

I have had this happen... and I left...

This might make for an interersting poll.....

Sorry comrades.... I feel for you.... los cientos.... B.:)

[Huganurse]

I hate writing incident reports and rarely do it. However, there are sometimes that I feel I have no choice. When I do my initial assessments of my patients and find that a patient is crashing hard because the nurse before me did not follow proper protocols, I write them up. I am just covering my own butt at the time. When bad things happen because of nurses not following orders/protocols I have found it is usually because they are either over burdened with the acuity and number of patients, or it is the nurses that are sitting around socializing and taking smoke breaks. I am not against smoke breaks but they should only be done when you know all your patients are OK and your work is not behind. Writing up these kind of incidents shows management there is a problem either with the employee or the system itself. Without documentation of the incidents, nothing will improve.

There are times when writting up people is unwarrented.

[RNed]

I do not write incident reports about nurses. I write incident reports about incidents.

I have read incident reports stating the last nurse (Ms. Smith) hung dopamine at so and so. WRONG !!

Dopamine reviewed and found to be running at 5 mcgs, orders reviewed. "Run Dopamine at 2 mcgs". Dopamine adjusted to 2 mcgs. Infusion site reviewed no infiltration identified, patient stable, vital signs, bla, bla, bla.

Incident reports are to reflect an event. They are not a tool to assign blame by those who write them. Followup should identify the failures, possibly a nursing error, pharmacy error, MD error, labeling error, calculating error, system error. I was not hired to followup on incident reports, nor do I assume I know what happened during the last shift. Later is when we find out that the patient crumped, was tranferred to the unit, intubated, received a swan and pacer.

The antibiotic was not given, oh well, maybe next time we'll do better. Incident report, no way !

[a-rose]

Some doctors do this, too. In fact, the phenomenon could happen in any calling. But I don¡-t like it.