Has A Surgeon Ever Thrown An Instrument At You?

[TravelerAdvisor]

I remember working at a hospital in Washington, DC and a Surgeon threw a key elevator at one of the nurses who worked there and it hit her in the head. He was upset that they didn't have the prosthesis he needed. She happen to be a friend of mine and I will never forget it! Neither would the surgeon because he came close to losing everything. The nurse was injured with a busted head and was rushed to the ER. Talk about chaos! Could you imagine? She recovered quickly (back at work two days later) and ended up suing the doctor. Two months later I went on my first travel assignment to get away from all the crazy things happening at that hospital. It's enough to write a book! Has any OR nurse ever encountered such a thing?

George Traveling with Hospital Support

[GadgetRN71, ASN, RN]

No, I haven't had an instrument thrown at me yet and it would not be tolerated in my facility anyway. They've made docs go to anger management and in one case years ago, the doctor got sued(successfully) by the nurse he hit.

[fusionfire32]

here is my 2 cents. when i first joined the or, although i was scrubbing for some time then, this particular surgeon was having really bad temper and some people had hard time dealing with him. anyways, once i scrubbed with him to do a abdominal hysterectomy and he liked using roberts as clamps and not curved spencer wells. so we had opened 2 straight and 2 curved roberts for him. now it was me and the circulator who were having this conversation about how many straight and curved we had and he intercepted and said to me ' how many roberts do you have' and i replied that 2 curved and 2 straight. and dont know but something bothered him and he started shouting and screaming at me. and as i was relatively new to or, i had not come across such behavior and started trembling. so when he asked for mayo scissors i gave him mackindoe and i couldnot get a grip on myself. he started shouting more and got hold of the patient and screamed at me ' in a minute i am going to murder someone' making the situation even worse. however i did not get the courage to say anything to him but kept quiet and someone relieved me and i walked out of the or. for a year i kept ignoring him and not even saying hello to him good mornings. one day i turned round and said to him ' even after a year you expect me to smile at you and say hello when your behavior is very much out of line' you are very lucky that i did not report you otherwise you would have been out of this game long back. he appologised to me for his behavior in the end so i have let it rest

[LAM2010, BSN]

I work with a surgeon who sometimes throws things, but not at any of us. I wouldn't put it past him, though. He has kind of thrown a hemostat down on his patient when he was mad at us, though (because he was hot and sweating and no one noticed and came over to dab his forehead, poor little fella...anyway...), and when he asked me for a stool and I went for the wrong one, he kicked it out of the way and got the one he wanted with his feet...I said, "Okay, you get it."

Anyway, I hear his patients tell me how wonderful he is, and people who go to church with him say he's so wonderful... and I think to myself, "if only you saw him in the O.R....". He must be a Jekyll and Hyde type of person... But anyway, there is stuff about him that's likable so I am a little forgiving. If he ever throws something at me it will be the last time...