Need advice in dealing with a "contrary" Psychiatrist

SarasotaRN2b · Feb 8, 2005

He sounds like a peach...not! I think that I've gotten to that age where I would confront him, albeit more professionally done than he had, and would let him know that I DO NOT appreciate being talked to in that manner or tone. That if there is something that needs to be addressed, that I would be happy to meet with him. You did nothing wrong. He just seems to have a "God Complex" thinking that he is the be all, end all. Is he your supervisor? If not, I would speak with the supervisor and get advise to best handle this.

Best of luck!

Kris

StuPer · Feb 9, 2005

Firstly I suppose you have to give him an opportunity to apologise, it sounds like it is'nt likely to happen but still you are showing courtesy that he didnt by giving him that chance.

Secondly does your company have an official complaints procedure, if so use it, however before you do ensure you have written statements from witnesses and any coroborating evidence which backs up what your saying. It has to be virtually written in stone that he inappropriately abused you infront of patients, fellow professionals and made statements which were untrue.

This Should make the company take action, if this fails I would then use any professional unions you belong to to put pressure on the company to act.

The biggest problem nurses run into in this situation is that comparatively nurses are 2 a penny comparied to psychiatrists, hence nurses can be seen as more expendable than doctors.... sad but unfortunately this can be a reality

regards StuPer

medpsychRN · Feb 9, 2005

Unfortunately I had something similar happen when a psychiatrist complained to the staff in the nursing station about me. I asked to talk to him privately when he came to the floor and he ..well, went nuts! He reported me to my supervisor, the head of the department (MD and RN). It was awful. I was not in any way inappropriate. We had to have a meeting over it. It was bizzare. So bizzare I turned in my resignation about 20 minutes after the meeting. Turns out this guy had a reputation for this kind of nonsense.

I'd try the supervisor route. Maybe they have some insight.

elkpark · Feb 9, 2005

I agree with everything the other posters have said about responding to the inappropriate and unprofessional treatment by the doc. However, I'm also struck by the other issue in your OP.

When the doc talked about the patient being "inappropriately medicated" are you saying that the issue was that the patient was given the increased dosages from the inpatient discharge instructions without the physician who treats the person in the group home on an ongoing basis being aware that the dosages had been changed? Because that is a rather sticky wicket ... Once the person leaves the inpatient unit and returns to the group home, those physicians are not treating the person anymore, and the physician responsible for the group home is.

I would not consider "discharge instructions" from the inpatient hospitalization to be valid "orders" for the group home staff to follow -- the inpatient unit docs have no authority or privileges to treat at the group home. Same as when a patient is admitted to an inpatient psych unit and has been taking meds on an outpatient basis -- the inpatient nursing staff can't automatically give meds prescribed by some psychiatrist out in the community; you have to get orders from the admitting or attending doc to give any meds to the person. Your situation at the group home is not really any different. Discharge instructions really are just "suggestions," not valid physician orders ... The argument could be made that the person was medicated without orders (from the legally responsible doc), in which case any licensed nurses involved would be well outside their scope of practice.

Does your agency have a policy about this situation (which must come up fairly often ...)? If not, maybe a policy needs to be developed (with the involvement of the agency MD) so that everyone will be singing off the same page in the hymnbook the next time this happens. Perhaps the agency doc needs to be called for new orders when clients return to the group home from an inpt. hospitalization, or some other system developed for making the transition back to the care of the agency doc (y'know, of course, there's nothing stopping him from picking up the 'phone and calling the person's inpt. attending or attending a treatment team meeting at the hospital to keep up with what's going on with his client, but we all know how likely that is, right?)

Again, I am not defending in any way the behavior of the doc towards you in this circumstance -- but the clinical issue is one that needs to be sorted out before the next time. Best wishes.

lucianne · Feb 10, 2005

That issue struck me as well, Elkpark. I don't think the psychiatrist handled it professionally, but he still should have been the one give any med orders once the patient was back in your facility.

peaceful · Feb 10, 2005

I would greatly appreciate any feedback/advice as to how to a handle a situation that occured today . I am currently working as a Nurse case manager for an agency that provides residential services for CMI patients. The Psychiatrist that oversees my clients is also employed by the company I work for. Yesterday at a routine appointment with a new admit he, in my mind, professionally berated me in the presence of the staff at the appointment, as well as the client.Staff reported to me today that he was quite verbal about the patient being inappropriately medicated. Some background... This patient transferred to our facility from another area, and 2 days later ran away from the Group Home. They were found darting in and out of traffic and very psychotic by the local police. Our agency through their Access folks obtained an immediate in-pt. stay for med stabilization. Upon discharge from the hospital, there were some medication increases. Nothing unexpected or greatly increased. Our Dr. proceeded to tell both the patient and the staff that I, and he used my name, had improperly medicated this patient. That the discharge orders from the in-pt. Doc were merely suggestions and HE is the patient's "attending physician". I have never had an incident like this occur in 14 years of nursing. I have always treated discharge orders as discharge "orders". I did not contact this Dr. as he was not familiar with this patient and had not seen them for initial intake. I am more than a little confused, and dismayed that he would make comments to the the patient and staff that were inappropriate and in reality not true. Would appreciate any comments/suggestions on what I might have done differently or better next time? ps I have only worked with this Doc a short time and have been told by colleagues that he is a little short tempered and "difficult" at times. Hellllpppp

Wow i feel for you on this one. Thanks for sharing because we all can learn from your experience. My first reaction is what the doctor is accusing you of is serious. Of course we follow discharge orders but we are to call attending doc as soon as back at facility. Do you have support from your supervisor? I would definately use the chain of command. Do not talk directly to him about this yet. Remain professional. If there is no policy on this at your facility, suggest that this topic needs to be researched and written. Do you think this is one of those situations that will go just go away?

CharlieRN · Feb 10, 2005

Elkpark has it right. Discharge orders are suggestions. In following them rather than orders written by the attending at your facility, you are simply wrong.

Worst case: charged with practicing medicine without a license. Theoretical jail time, quite possible loss of your RN. Best case: you are following established but, possibly not written, facility policy. You could approach your supervisor about that but I'd recommend you go through the policy book carefully before you do. Picture going in all huffy about how you had been mis-treated and being shown chapter and verse of company policy requiring that meds be given only according to the orders of the attending!

I have had personal experience with following 'established practice' that was not accepable within the policys of our facility.

I work in admissions and when we had out of control patients in the unlocked admission area we were in the habit of admitting them directly to the locked unit and doing the assessment there.

Then one of my peers got reamed for doing that by one of the psychiatrits. We were all indignant since we felt we had been acting to maximize our own and patient safety.

But admission legally is by doctor's order only. By physicaly putting a patient on a locked unit, we, not the doctor, had admitted them.

There may be cases where, after assessment, we present the case to the doc and he determines that there is nothing we can do for a particular patient, or that inspite of fuss they were making in the admissions area, they don't meet level-of-care requirements for our facility. Perhaps the Doctor has had this client before and knows he has a history of intentionally disrupting the treatment of other patients, and does not want him back. If the patient is on the unit already we are stuck with him. If he is inappropriate for our facility, admitting him is malpractice. Understandably doctors like to make their own mistakes, not just be responsible for ours.

Sorry to rain on the parade.

maureeno · Feb 12, 2005

we call the attending doctor

informing of the discharge meds

which are usually continued

at least until the client sees our doctor

medpsychRN · Feb 12, 2005

I've been thinking about this post for several days. Yes, the OP should have followed policy and procedure regarding meds. Yes, the worst case would be she'd be fired and lose her license. But does the crime justify the punishment? No.

There's something wrong here. The doc's behavior is way out of line. I would go to my supervisor admit my mistake and describe the incident. This is probably not the first time the doc has acted this way.

Nikilea · Feb 13, 2005

I have also been contemplating the many replies to my dilema. Maybe I wasn't too clear. The patient in question had been at our facility approximately 2 days; had not been treated as of yet, by of our out-pt. Psychiatrist when she went into the hospital. I know of no policy at my agency regarding notification. I have made several attempts to notify this Doc about the patients he is familiar with and usually end up getting no response, or a casual response if I am at the office where he sees our clients. As for "suggestions"vs orders. The "suggestions" I received from the Hospital were on legal prescription pads. I am having a hard time understanding how any nurse could feel that it is better to go back to the old drug regimen pre-hospitalization for a stabilized patient while awaiting a reply from the out-pt. doc? I have the support of my superiors on this situation, as it has not been an issue with any of our other Docs. I do understand how this may be a protocol in certain systems, but our system is pretty scattered with no Docs doing in-patient rounds at any of the facilities we use. I think the lesson here for our agency is to develop a protocol that ensures the highest quality patient care!

steelcityrn, RN · Feb 13, 2005

IM sorry, but I totally disagree with those here saying what you did was wrong. In the first place, this impatient order was written post inpatient stay by the physician that seen him. I am sure this DR did not wright "AS A SUGGESTION" on his dch orders. For you to have excepted another physicians order, first off that hospital would have to have written permission to except or even share info with this patient. You stated this physician had not even seen this patient yet. This should even further release you from any fault, since this physician had not even physically seen this patient yet. Sure it sounds like communication could be improved in the future from this, but you in no way have done anything wrong here ...to me...I would not discuss this with the physician, just your manager and maybe brainstorm how if this very same situation were to occur, and after reading it several times I can see this would be rare, you two can think of a ways to improve the communication.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback/advice as to how to a handle a situation that occured today . I am currently working as a Nurse case manager for an agency that provides residential services for CMI patients. The Psychiatrist that oversees my clients is also employed by the company I work for. Yesterday at a routine appointment with a new admit he, in my mind, professionally berated me in the presence of the staff at the appointment, as well as the client.Staff reported to me today that he was quite verbal about the patient being inappropriately medicated. Some background... This patient transferred to our facility from another area, and 2 days later ran away from the Group Home. They were found darting in and out of traffic and very psychotic by the local police. Our agency through their Access folks obtained an immediate in-pt. stay for med stabilization. Upon discharge from the hospital, there were some medication increases. Nothing unexpected or greatly increased. Our Dr. proceeded to tell both the patient and the staff that I, and he used my name, had improperly medicated this patient. That the discharge orders from the in-pt. Doc were merely suggestions and HE is the patient's "attending physician". I have never had an incident like this occur in 14 years of nursing. I have always treated discharge orders as discharge "orders". I did not contact this Dr. as he was not familiar with this patient and had not seen them for initial intake. I am more than a little confused, and dismayed that he would make comments to the the patient and staff that were inappropriate and in reality not true. Would appreciate any comments/suggestions on what I might have done differently or better next time? ps I have only worked with this Doc a short time and have been told by colleagues that he is a little short tempered and "difficult" at times. Hellllpppp