impersonating a Dr. warning

[NurseStacey143]

Just a warning. Here in houston, we are on alert for a man whose posing as a physician and has assualted 3 women at a local hospital. We have a sketch posted for him, but even in other areas it could happen. My hospital is a teaching hospital and we have new residents and fellows all the time. Luckily our secretary at the front desk is very demanding of everyone having a name badge....flipped the right way. I am more watchful now...but must saw, I never thought of this before. The male had on scrubs a white jacket, stethescope..professional looking apparantly and had a flipped over badge so no one looked at him suspiciously.

[CCU NRS]

We had the same thing here in OKC about 2 years ago...wonder if our guy got out and migrated, it might be worth mentioning to your seurity people that the same MO has been seen in OKC and have them check the photo they might get a name...who knows

[caren19]

We have a pt's dad who IS a MD, and likes to wear his name tag from his hospital and carries around a beeper, etc. (He looks like a Doc) We had a big problem with him, families of other patients would ask him questions regarding their situations, and he would give them answers! Certainly not appropriate!

We also are having issues right now w/parents wearing scrubs and being mistaken for employees. Any policies or similiar situations elsewhere?

[mattsmom81]

If there was enough public outcry, hospitals would be forced to go to keyless entry security systems and secure locked units. This would be a good thing for everyone IMO. Hospitals are a free for all today and a recipe for disaster. They want so badly to pretend bad people aren't going to come into the hospital...well this kinda thing is what ocurs due to their attitude. They're likely looking hard for a nurse to blame for this creep's crimes.

[snowfreeze, BSN, RN]

Where I work our picture is on both sides of the badge as is title. Pic and title are smaller on the back as it also lists the fire alarm codes. The front of the badge also has a barcode we use to swipe in and out with so everyone has to have their badge at the beginning of the day if they want to get paid for being there. Two times in a row of forgetting your badge to swipe in is a written warning. If you loose your badge, you have to get a new one before 3rd time working without it.

As for intrusive and demanding family members, there have to be policies and they have to be inforced. We have meetings with and set specific rules for these type of people so our staff can actually do their jobs. Some people try to dominate all the staffs time and our staffs complaints are taken seriously.

Strangers in the nurses desk area are always questioned, we have wonderful and very territorial unit clerks. This is not a teaching facility so we know the docs who have patients here. Our doors are locked after 9:30pm although we do have a 24/7 visiting policy. Anyone wanting to enter the facility has to call from the front door to ask for access.

The facility I work in is a 325 bed specialty care center in a small town.