NOW does the public understand?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

This news item made it to the Keith Olberman show yesterday and got curious. I picked this up from the local newspaper called The Journal.

Particularly sad is the reported statement the doctor made at the time of his arrest... ""I am a (expletive) medical doctor and you are below me,"

Nurses put up with this attitude every day. Perhaps now the public will understand just a little what we put up with.

http://www.journal-news.net/news/story/0516202006_new03_DUI_051606_n.asp

Specializes in home & public health, med-surg, hospice.
What do you do when doctors treat you like this?? Just take it?

Hasn't happened too many times in my experience but when it has, I've confronted them..."Excuse me, what did you say?" And look 'em square in th' eye when I do it with most likely my hand on my hip. ;)

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I'm a nursing student now.. I still have at least a year and a half left, and haven't started clinicals yet or anything.. so I haven't had to deal with doctors yet. What do you do when doctors treat you like this?? Just take it?

I'm a student as well, and as a student I would take it, then inform my instructor.

As a nurse, I think I would pull them aside and very politely tell them that I respect how hard they have worked to get where they are, but they don't have the right to verbally abuse me. No one should have to put up with abuse inthe workplace. Nurses or anyone else.

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Specializes in ER/Trauma.
I'm a student as well, and as a student I would take it, then inform my instructor.

As a nurse, I think I would pull them aside and very politely tell them that I respect how hard they have worked to get where they are, but they don't have the right to verbally abuse me. No one should have to put up with abuse inthe workplace. Nurses or anyone else.

Good point :)

As a student - I've never really had a bad experience with doctors or nurses.

Maybe they just sense my aura and decide not to mess with me :p

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Just refuse to take crap off of anyone! I had a Dr.go off on me when I called him at 11pm one night to get clarify one of his poorly written orders. When I let him have a piece of my mind about his attitude, I could sense his jaw dropping open on his end of the line, but he straightened his attitude and gave me the information I needed to take care of his patient. Stop being timid! We have to put a stop to this master/slave relationship garbage if we are ever to be taken seriously as professionals.

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Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

My first job the Docs and interns acted like that and boy when things were most unexpected..the nurses got them and got them good! From making one interns life a living heck by doing something for a full week monkey related to him (he said a 'trained monkey can be a nurse') like locker full of banana's, flung feces on his car...stuff like that....to bowing and falling about to our knees for a few days for a doc that decribed himself akin to Jesus! Even the patients got into it...a few would even say "oh man I died...I see Jesus!"...oh man that doc was kind after that I tell ya....he was so tired of walking into patients room and have a nurse drop to their knees and pray, patients saying something too...LOL!!!!!!

Now..I am so very happy to say I have not run into that at all! The hospital I work for teaches respect for all, and it shows! Very happy place, and the doctors involve the nurses and treat them like valued members of the team! They are actually quite fun, and most are quite the jokesters too! It is wonderful!!!!!!!

So maybe it is a locational and management thing...our adminstration isn't perfect, but they do try very hard to make everyone feel valued, respect and care about their staff, understand professions, and allow for individuality! It is fun to work there!!!!!!!!

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The article didn't specify how he raised bail. Presumably nurses passed the hat to raise bail for him..... or not.

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Just refuse to take crap off of anyone! I had a Dr.go off on me when I called him at 11pm one night to get clarify one of his poorly written orders. When I let him have a piece of my mind about his attitude, I could sense his jaw dropping open on his end of the line, but he straightened his attitude and gave me the information I needed to take care of his patient. Stop being timid! We have to put a stop to this master/slave relationship garbage if we are ever to be taken seriously as professionals.

Rhinojogger-Good For You! You echo my thoughts exactly; by tolerating this Nurse/Doc Subservient atitutde for Decades, this is why Nurses find themselves, at times, in this uneviable position. The Docs need to be called on their Behavior when they step beyond the realm of professional Behavior. Then and only then, will their atitude change!

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Specializes in PACU, ED.

A nurse died and went to heaven. St. Peter was showing her around and introducing her to different folks. This is Ghandi. Over there is Susan Anthony, and so forth. They saw a tall man with flowing beard and white gown with a stethescope. The nurse asked, "Who's that?" The reply, "Oh that's God, sometimes he likes to play doctor."

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Rhinojogger-Good For You! You echo my thoughts exactly; by tolerating this Nurse/Doc Subservient atitutde for Decades, this is why Nurses find themselves, at times, in this uneviable position. The Docs need to be called on their Behavior when they step beyond the realm of professional Behavior. Then and only then, will their atitude change!

I'm loving this thread ;) . So many posts I have seen by nurses and students about how they are treated bad by Doctors, Admins, and even other nurses and thought, "if we only start standing up, all of us, THAT is what will change these problems." Yes, we need to have the public educated, but that will not change as much as if we refuse to be treated badly. I don't mean be rude in return, though that is how some manage it, but by respectfully saying that it is not apporopreate to treat me/us this way. I beleive if we can get the poor attitudes by Docs, Admins, and each other fixed, we won't have a nursing shortage.

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To be honest, I am not a nursing student; I am a psychologist in training. I am at this forum to understand where nurses are coming from and so that I can keep up with the things in the world of nursing.

Sincerely,

-=Victor Ly

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It seemd that this physician is way out of line. Also sounds as if he is burned out and frustrated. I think maybe we need to take a second look through at why doc's behave this way. Some of them maybe ego based. But maybe its not about US(nurses), maybe it is about their own frustrations, feelings of inadequcies, or that so many people look for the quick fix and then demand also. A little understanding and listening may get them to open up and not be fearful of being human. Of course if we all treated each other this way instead of having over infalted expectations, we could work as teams to give the best of patient care.

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I had a Dr. go off on me over the phone once using language that would start a fire. I politely informed him I did not use that kind of language and I would not listen to it from him. I then informed him the purpose of my call. He was very quiet and then politely apologized and answered my questions about his patient. I never had any trouble with him after that.

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