Little Doctor, Holy Terror

[VickyRN]

Most of our cardiologists are respectful/appreciative of the nursing staff, if not a pleasure to work with (we all have our favorites:) ).

[night owl]

I'm pretty sure that short little Italian guy moonlights for our facility one night a week, every Wednesday night and it seems that's when we have the most problems and have to call him. God only knows that we don't want to, but I found that you either give it right back to him or like the last time when I said, I'm really sorry for bothering you Doctor in the middle of the night, but you're getting paid just like the rest of us and the resident is really suffering with alot of pain!" His reply? "Ok, I'll be right there." And he was right there just as sweet as pie...the little devil.

[mattsmom81]

Originally posted by judy ann

Obstetricians are usually pretty mellow, but I worked with one that was not. You haven't had anything thrown at you till you are the target of I) obststrical forceps, 2) placenta! Yuk!

Sic OSHA on him. for the placenta...they'll stick him with a hefty fine...get him in his pocketbook where it hurts...LOL!:roll

And the first time a forcep gets thrown at me I'm calling the cops...

don't EVER put up with that! That is assault.....

[susanmary]

Careful out there -- I'm a short Italian!!!! But I really do know what you are all talking about! I'd never put up with "Tom Thumb's rudeness." Can you imagine if NURSES were allowed to throw things, swear at staff? He sounds like a spoiled brat having temper tantrums. How unprofessional. Staff needs to meet with your manager. If he/she won't address it, your staff needs to get together with documentation (I'd incident report EVERY time he swore/threw things." We all get stressed & have our "moments" -- but swearing at others and throwing things is way beyond acceptable behavior. (Make sure you all stand tall and straight in his presence.!!!)

I've learned to deal with difficult MDs over the years. Don't let up on ANY MD if my patients need something & believe me -- I quote MDs in progress notes if warranted.

Had a doc several weeks ago berate me. Asked him a simple question -- needed a order and it was not written 5 minutes prior. He stated loudly in front of several MDs and nurses "check the chart before you ask me stupid questions." Very calmly and in a voice that all staff in the area could hear "I can't believe you would say that to me. I would NEVER treat you disrespectfully and I will NOT be treated disrepectfully by you. Don't ever do that again. " He blundered and said "I was only joking." To which I stated "it wasn't funny, apologize and don't do it again." He did. We are not whipping posts for others.

We need to pick our battles (not our noses.) Peace.

[sharann, BSN, RN]

I may be WAY off base here, but if someone threw ANYTHING at me whether I was at work or in the grocery store, I might want to call the police and report this ASSAULT and/or BATTERY.

Verbal battery is terrible but physical tantrums are criminal in my opinion.

[robynrn2b]

I would like to know if anyone can give me some advice. I am an LPN who will be getting my RN soon. I have only had about two years of experience in a nursing home. My problem is, I too have to deal with ##^%&hole doctors who scream and yell. My question is--how do I get some testicular fortitude to stand up to these guys! I just lose my confidence when I have to call one and they scream at me! Any advice-or do I just need to "toughen up." We had a nurse who had faxed a question (this doc dosent take phone calls-he INSISTS you fax him) and we had conflicting times on SS insulin orders and the times for BS's. We simply asked if he would like to change the ss orders to coincide with the bs times. He writes back "Kind of a no-brainer, isn't it?" in huge letters on the fax. What an ass~! Any advice would be helpful.

[live4today, RN]

Originally posted by Healingtouch

Most of our cardiologists are respectful/appreciative of the nursing staff, if not a pleasure to work with (we all have our favorites:) ). Some are downright awesome with their clinical knowledge, skills, cardiac assessment abilities. However, we do have this one LITTLE doc of Italian-American descent (sorry, Mario), who can be a holy terror on the unit. Sometimes, if summoned after hours (I work night shift), he can appear like a raging bull on the unit, slamming doors, treating nurses (especially TALL FEMALE ONES) very demeaning, using profanity (you get my drift). I for one, am tired of his antics. If I am taking care of one of his patients and there is a significant patient care issue or problem that needs to be addressed to him over the telephone, I feel that I shouldn't have to endure his abuse ("twenty question" routine/made to feel stupid) just for paging him. I'm just doing my job as a nurse, and his aggressive/rude/belittling attitude frankly interferes with patient care (as we are all hesitant to call him--if his patients only knew....). Any advice out there from you seasoned troopers???

Thanx :D

Hi Healingtouch! :)

Oh, how I remember the days of a few medical holy terrors in my time of nursing.... I've returned plenty of their medicine to them, only in larger doses. I've called one in particular into the nurses break room for a one on one conversation -- so as to 'assist him in straightening out his attitude'. I've challenged another on declaring a patient dead because I knew the head doc was only using that patient's body for his trail of med students purposes. I've taken a female doc into an empty patient room on the night shift to 'assist her in returning to earth from whatever planet she thought she was being serviced on' (she got indignant with my nightshift staff when I was the nightshift Charge Nurse. I've called a Big Wheel Intern back down the hall and told him not to give CNAs orders that he should be directing to the patient's LPN or RN (he happened to have a trail of medstudents behind him as well, so he just knew he was being a bigshot in front of them until I shot him with his own bullet -- so to speak. :chuckle

Take those docs one by one. However they treat you, you take the stand of being their very assertive PSYCHE NURSE as you redirect their WANDERING ATTITUDE back to Earth for a finer tuneup! NEVER TAKE CRAP FROM A DOCTOR! He/she doesn't write your payroll checks, the hospital does! The patients are the ones who "write" the docs payroll check -- via their insurance companies and out of pocket expenses, so without nurses to take care of the docs patients, seems to me the docs wouldn't be in business for too long, what do you think about them apples??? :chuckle

[Huganurse]

All of the responses to your question are great. I'm a hanger upper too. I don't hang up though untill after I stand up for myself and demand respect.

What ever you do, DO NOT PUT UP WITH THIS ABUSE! Good Luck on this one, sounds like you'll need it!

[RNPD]

"BTW this guy is short, but he is a ********."-judy ann

Hi judy ann. I'm not sure what you are referring to here-perhaps you mean Hasidic-*******

[mattsmom81]

So true, Huganurse...and another good reason to document crazed episodes of behavior you notice in docs....I can recall 2 recently who were let go from the hospital 'for a sabbatical' very suddenly...whispers of drug addiction soon followed. Their behavior had been bizarre and had escalated, nurses had noticed and documented the problem well.... We should keep this in mind, as they are human and may need help.... :)

[fergus51]

Maybe this is a little passive agressive, but when a doc is really out of control rude on a consistent basis, we don't hang up on him. We call him A LOT more. You know, a call at 2:00AM to clarify if he wanted to give the patient tylenol or advil, another call at 3:30 to clarify his handwriting on his orders, maybe even a call at 5:00 to ask if I can give a different anti-emetic to a patient. I've only done this to 2 docs and they soon got the message and haven't bugged any of the nurses since that campaign.

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

Fergus...I LOVE IT!

[RNPD]

P-RN-I don't care that you editted my post to remove the offensive term for Jewish people, but shouldn't you have left the fact that the term IS offensive in there? My purpose was to educate judy ann that the term she used was offensive-so just delete the term & leave the rest of the post. Otherwise, by reading what you left of my post, judy ann may think that I just corrected her terminology, w/o realizing that the original wording was offensive.

Thanks!