Nurses expecting to do too much!

[CosmoRN77]

Hello there,

I have been a RN for 15 years now and there is something's that just gets under my skin and would like to know if anyone can relate.. As nurses at the bedside we have tons of responsibility and many tasks which I'm sure u guys are already aware of... Now here is my beef... More frequently I see where the hospital administration is pushing nurses to make sure the doctors are doing their responsibility such as making sure a post MI patient is prescribed a beta locker.. Now I'm all about nursing but I'll be damned if I'm gonna sit there and tell a doctor what he needs to be prescribing to his patients as he is the ultimate one responsible for medication reconciliation and proper medication ordering.. Another example is DVT prophylaxis... They are wanting us to make sure this has been done for patients.. Another no no for me.. I strongly feel this is overstepping our obligations as a nurse.. And I don't want to hear ANYONE mention well a "good nurse" would do this for the physician and patient.. Because I'm a damn good nurse but do not tolerate doing the physicians job.

Hope to hear some feedback!

Thank

[Amistad, RN]

While I think we need to be patient advocates, I also don't think it should be expected that doctors would regularly forget to put in important orders... Doctors should be expected to pay attention to detail. Just sayin. Are we supposed to follow doctors in the patients room and remind them to physically assess their patients too?

[Jules A, MSN]

While I think we need to be patient advocates, I also don't think it should be expected that doctors would regularly forget to put in important orders... Doctors should be expected to pay attention to detail. Just sayin. Are we supposed to follow doctors in the patients room and remind them to physically assess their patients too?

My guess is the repeated things that are missed by physicians per the OP are because physicians feel they are insignificant and don't intend to do them not that they forgot. Another guess is that admin doesn't feel like getting into it with the doctors and they know historically nurses will do whatever is expected.

[blackvans1234]

I typed out a long snarky post. This is the bottom line-

Management wants us to do more and more work with the same amount of time.

Our ability is based on our A) willingness and B) knowledge.

Many of the above comments are based on ivory tower nursing.