Need a Rant

[choughlesRN]

Alright, so, I just need to vent into the air for a second. I was at work 2 hours after the end of my shift dealing with a ridiculous, unsafe situation. A patient came into the ER after a fall with an SAH. Not sent to ICU because she wasn't a full code. The doctor noted as her admitting is not the doctor the family tells me is her primary. I contact the admitting doc and immediately tell him who the primary is (he rounds at our hospital), when he tries to give me orders. He (naturally) has me change the admitting doc. I call him, and apparently his wife is in labor. He says to contact the first doc, who says "If the patient's been admitted, I will accept her, but I'm not covering for him." Looking back through the notes from ER, one of the hospitalist groups was ALSO notified of this admission. When we call that doctor in an attempt to clarify who's accepting the patient, she wants to know 1) why the first doc is giving admitting orders, and 2) what's going on with the primary. We notify her that the first doc had agreed to accept the patient.

But seriously?! How. Unprofessional. RAWR!

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

I can commiserate with you this one. Was recovering a post cath patient who was assigned to a community GP (this was before we had hospitalists). The poor fellow started wheezing asked for albuterol, which wasn't ordered.

I called what I thought was the admitting doc, who wasn't even taking hospital patients and demanded to know who told me she was. Called back to ED, and of course the doc who had seen the patient was gone, and its not their problem right?

I paged the cardiologist on call who had not done the cath, and he doesn't want to be involved.

I almost called a code just to get someone to respond. The cardiologist walked in, and begrudgingly saw the patient, took care of immediate needs and helped to arrange for N admitting provider.