Dumbest thing a doctor has done/said to you

Nurses Relations

Published

I'm very curious. I'm sure we've all been there. We've dealt with doctors from all spectrum and mindsets. Most are very good at their jobs and have sound ideas!

But sometimes docs just say and do the craziest things

My example: at my last LTC facility I had one doctor seriously outright refuse/fight giving and prescribing pain meds (for patients who really, really needed it/were on vents/dying) because he honestly believed that these residents who had been stuck in a bed for years were going to get better and go out to buy/smoke crack cocaine.

According to him "prescribing narcotics leads to methadone and crack usage." These poor residents have been here for years taking the same medications and pain meds for years...just WHAT?

What kinda crazy stuff has your doctor done?

Specializes in Cardiac, Home Health, Primary Care.

Had a middle aged pneumonia patient tripod-ing and de-satting well into the 80's on a non rebreather despite having just finished an updraft. RT was there and thought or would benefit from BiPap. I called MD on call about the situation and with the recommendation. MD said "just watch him." Uhhhh...ok. Then we can rapid respond him within the hour, transfer to CCU and make you come in.

I was a new nurse on a bad night where two of us new nurses were the SENIOR nurses. Supervisor was on the floor (thankfully) who agreed with BiPap. He was able to convince MD to let us put the guy on it. His sats came up and never had to RR him.

I can understand being iffy on something invasive but a BiPap for a pt with obvious respiratory distress?? Especially when RT recommends it.

I was working med surg my first year as a nurse. Doc wrote an order for a med my patient was allergic to. I brought it up and asked for a new order. Doc started yelling at me to stay in my lane and get out of his face. I started walking down the hallway to the nurse manager's office and he chucked the hard chart at me, which bounced off the back of my head.

Nurse manager told me that this particular doc often made "mistakes" like that and she would speak to him... yeah... he never got in trouble for that one, nor did he ever apologize for chucking the chart at me. It makes me glad we have EMRs now :p

Specializes in Peri-op/Sub-Acute ANP.

Dumbest thing a doctor has ever done to me? Pissed me off!

I remember when I had a post-op patient that started to feel ill after a few days in the hospital. She started complaining of abdominal cramping and then later that morning loose stools that when I entered the bathroom I was willing to bet money that she had developed c-diff. I called the doctor's office that just happened to be one where the doctor was too good to talk to the hospital staff. We instead got to explain the situation to his MA who would later get back to us with his decision. My charge nurse took the call (because I was up to my elbows in diarrhea smelling like roses) and stated that the actual message returned was, "No C-Diff culture. He's been waiting for that poop." Of course me being my sarcastic self asked, "What, so he thinks that it's just got all the classic characteristic specific to c-diff because it's stale?". A couple days later a medical resident saw the need to order what I had originally been denied and the results were positive.

I started walking down the hallway to the nurse manager's office and he chucked the hard chart at me, which bounced off the back of my head.

Assault with a paper chart. I've seen a lot of interesting outbursts before but this is a new one. Watch out for that guy when he's carrying a laptop/tablet:blackeye:

I remember when I had a post-op patient that started to feel ill after a few days in the hospital. She started complaining of abdominal cramping and then later that morning loose stools that when I entered the bathroom I was willing to bet money that she had developed c-diff. I called the doctor's office that just happened to be one where the doctor was too good to talk to the hospital staff. We instead got to explain the situation to his MA who would later get back to us with his decision. My charge nurse took the call (because I was up to my elbows in diarrhea smelling like roses) and stated that the actual message returned was, "No C-Diff culture. He's been waiting for that poop." Of course me being my sarcastic self asked, "What, so he thinks that it's just got all the classic characteristic specific to c-diff because it's stale?". A couple days later a medical resident saw the need to order what I had originally been denied and the results were positive.

Ugh. The smell of C-Diff is not one you can mistake *shudder*

Specializes in Hospital medicine; NP precepting; staff education.

Gave me an order for both two drips that counter acted each other. I can't remember which ones now, which stinks, but one was to keep the blood pressure from bottoming out (like Levaphed) while the other was to keep it from getting too high. Cardene maybe?

I did not understand the order and told him so. He changed it completely.

Now, I am open to being educated on this order if it makes sense to anyone with more critical care experience than I, but I'm scratching my head on that.

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Had a middle aged pneumonia patient tripod-ing and de-satting well into the 80's on a non rebreather despite having just finished an updraft. RT was there and thought or would benefit from BiPap. I called MD on call about the situation and with the recommendation. MD said "just watch him." Uhhhh...ok. Then we can rapid respond him within the hour, transfer to CCU and make you come in.

I was a new nurse on a bad night where two of us new nurses were the SENIOR nurses. Supervisor was on the floor (thankfully) who agreed with BiPap. He was able to convince MD to let us put the guy on it. His sats came up and never had to RR him.

I can understand being iffy on something invasive but a BiPap for a pt with obvious respiratory distress?? Especially when RT recommends it.

I am amazed that in this day and age something like that can happen! In my area there would be an RRT team (in my hospital's case the RRT "team" is just one well trained and experienced RN) who can put patients on rescue bi-pap on their own based on protocols and standing orders. I know of other hospitals that have similar standing orders or protocols that are implemented by the respiratory therapists. In any case it should never be up to a physician who is at home and NOT at the bedside to decide weather a patient in respiratory distress gets rescue bi-pap. Those that do not have such a protocol have an in-house physician 24/7 (or several depending on the size of the hospital) who would be expected to come to the bedside in that kind of situation.

I think any facility that doesn't have a policy for something as basic as rescue bi-pap must be hopelessly out dated and unaware of this new thing we have call EBP.

As stupid as that physician acted, your hospital is SERIOUSLY irresponsible for putting you and that patient in that position.

Either they staff an in-house physician who is available to come to the bedside 24/7 OR they have a protocol to allow RRT, RT or something similar to apply rescue bi-pap. Anything else is simply criminally irresponsible.

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
I was working med surg my first year as a nurse. Doc wrote an order for a med my patient was allergic to. I brought it up and asked for a new order. Doc started yelling at me to stay in my lane and get out of his face. I started walking down the hallway to the nurse manager's office and he chucked the hard chart at me, which bounced off the back of my head.

I once had a cardiac surgeon throw a telephone that hit me in the head. He wasn't throwing it at me, he was just in a rage from whatever he had just been told on the phone and ripped it off the desk and hurled it. I happened to be walking out of a room and caught the phone on the side of my head. Dropped me like an ox.

I came off the floor pissed off and ready to kick his butt. He saw that and took off running. I called the cops and they went over to the medical center where his office was. I got a phone call from him and he told me the cops were in his office and how sorry he was and what could he do to make it right? Lets just say we came to an understanding and he wasn't arrested and I got taken care of.

Ugh. The smell of C-Diff is not one you can mistake *shudder*

I always thought that with c-diff the lab test was more of a formality. Once you've seen it a few times (or in my case probably a few hundred times) you can determine positive or negative practically by look and smell, but of course we should always test to verify. I couldn't believe that I couldn't even get a culture...at least humor me (he can rub it in my face if I'm wrong, and I wouldn't say that unless I was pretty darn sure).

Put an order in to make sure ketchup was on the patients dinner tray. 😡

+ Add a Comment