Meeting Up With a Doctor You Don't Get Along with

llg, PhD, RN · Aug 14, 2009

You're just going to have to set your personal feelings aside and act in a professional manner. Period. He will have to do the same. If either one of you chooses not to do that, then the other will be free to go to your employer and justifiably complain about the behavior of the other. Just be sure you are not the one who has anything to apologize for.

There are always people in the world (and in most workplaces) we don't particularly like. All we can do is to assure that our own behavior is above reproach. If the other person behaves inappropriately, then you will have to discuss that with your supervisor to see what support they can give you.

I wouldn't worry about it too much in advance. There is nothing you can do about it now. Nothing will probably come of it ... and there is no need to invest time and energy in problems that might not actually occur.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Aug 15, 2009

How would you know that some doctor has been "talking bad about me and acts like a complete jerk"? Did a doctor actually say these things to you directly? Or, are these things others have told you (gossip)? If you don't bring up your past dealings with any of these doctors why should they? How do you know you bruised some doctor's ego? If you are "not sorry for anything I have said or done" then why would you be "having some panicky feelings"? All these professionals slammed the phone down on you? That makes me immensely curious to know what you could have said to make more than one physician slam the phone down on you. That's pretty impressive to get more than one doc angry or disgusted enough to hang up on you.

You really have said nothing that indicates that you and this one particular doctor would not get along in a working relationship. I suspect that you are carrying around a lot of guilt about whatever happened and was said between you two. It's hard for me, an RN who has worked with many different doctors for so many years, to believe that a doctor would be so aggressive toward the mother of a former patient that decided to use the services of another physician. I would think he'd be happy and relieved to have you off his back and out of his hair. So, I think there is more to this situation than you are telling us.

DolceVita, ADN, BSN, RN · Aug 15, 2009

I have run into doctors of mine while I have been working in hospital -- they didn't know me from a hole in the wall.

If you do run into him, be a pro. I think you will be OK.

OCD_Mom · Aug 15, 2009

I know it is hard to believe but he actually told me he makes fun of me. It was only one doctor and his immediate staff. One member of his staff, social worker, insinuated I was a drug user. During a counseling session, "you know this type of illness usually occurs when a mother uses drugs."

Then my son had emergency surgery for a PD cath and the next morning he was acting odd. His eyes would drift up to the top of his head and he would "go to sleep." I kept saying something is wrong and they would say he is just healing from the surgery. 4 more days my husband and I argued and argued...even a couple of the nurses jumped in to help us out, we are talking yellowish discharge at the cath exit site, and the site was swollen, red and warm. Finally I had had enough (I was only 4 weeks post partum) there were 2 doctor's standing in the room calling each other names and I told him that they would do something to figure out what is wrong or I would toss them out the window of the hospital room. Reluctantly they tested the site around the cath then the next morning they started him on "post surgical antibiotics " we never got the results even after asking for days, turns out it was contaminated with E-Coli. I finally walked up to the nurses station asked for the chart and thumbed through the lab tests. A week later our son was discharged.

Then for 4 months, I kept coming in 2x a week crying that the medication they were giving him was making him terribly ill, he would chuckle each time and tell me I was an over reacting first time mom. When things finally got really bad they ran his labs stat and realized that what I had been saying all along was correct. They were causing his failure to thrive by over dosing him. The next day I came back in again and told me he wanted to place a new PD cath (the old one was removed, never used, because it was so clogged up from the prior infection.) I told him there was no way I would let them do it again because they didn't want to listen to me. The doctor's reply "you act as if you don't trust me or my staff." I told him I don't and reminded him of all of the reasons why. I told him I wanted a second opinion he told me he would be happy to refer me to another doctor but there wasn't much to chose from and I wouldn't be able to get the services from any other facility. He also referred to another doctor in town as one with little knowledge or expertise. I left telling him I would talk things over with my husband and get back to him in a few days. As we were packing up to leave he mentioned that we always come up in staff meetings on Wednesday afternoons. I looked at him very confused (at least the look was intended to be confused.) "Yeah we always joke that Mama (my last name) will always show us when we are wrong, she thinks she knows more than us." Ok I'm sorry but that was unprofessional. I was never being heard by this doctor and my son would have DIED had I not noticed the little signs and brought him to the ER 2x insisting he needed care. When they finally admitted him after a good blood draw his Creat was 5.1, Bun 120 and Na 105, again this took me 2 tries. They could not get a blood draw the first time and since he seemed to be alert and nursing they sent us home.

And yes there was the gossip end too. We had become pretty close acquaintances with several nurses on the floor, that's what happens after spending over a month there. We were talking and they chuckled that I had given Dr. X quite run over the last few months. He was frustrated that I wouldn't follow his standard protocol.

I actually get respect from doctors, they ask me what I see. With a child who now has a kidney transplant (from an out of state hospital, otherwise I would have to go back to this doc) I think I would have some expertise in how my child usually acts. I'm not asking for any more than that.

I still see this doctor, unfortunately he shares an office with my daughters dermatologist. Let's just say his demeanor in the halls is far less than polite, that or he has no customer service/ social skills.

I know it is hard to believe but this was an absolute nightmare of a doctor patient/care partner relationship. The fact that nurses even tried to help us and still went on deaf ears.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Aug 15, 2009

you actually can report doctors for this--like an incident report. i would go down to the medical staff office and ask them how you make or start a complaint or a peer review report (that's what its called) on a doctor. these reports are mandated by medicare. when i took him (health information management) classes we went over the physician peer review process. when a peer review report is generated on a doctor it gets investigated and the doctor in question must answer for his wrongdoing or misbehavior and the result of the investigation is usually reported to one of the medical committees. it may be too late to do this for what happened to your son 5 years ago, but for anything happening now you can certainly put the doctor on the carpet with his peers if he acts inappropriately with you. many nurses are not aware of how the physicians police themselves. however, peer review is something that medicare requires all hospitals to have. you might ask someone in the medical staff services office if you can see their bylaws. the physicians practice under different rules than the rest of the hospital staff, you see. while nurses and other follow what human resources say, doctors only follow their bylaws. you have to get this doc by showing that he is breaking his own rules and then hope that there are chiefs that will follow those rules and slap him on his hands when you report him for breaking the rules.

good luck.