I have noticed a dangerous trend of fellow nurses just flat out ignoring doctors orders. I'm not talking about wrong/dangerous orders like giving the wrong amoutn of medication. I'm talking about stuff where a doctor orders a CBC on a patient and the nurse just flat out ignores the order and doesnt do it.
I believe that if a nurse doesnt implement a doctors order, then you'd better page/call them and tell them why not. For example, say a CHF patient comes in and the doc orders daily weights. Its very common in my hospital for the nurses to just ignore that order and not take daily weights because they dont want to bother with it.
If a doc orders something wrong/dangerous such as an obviously wrong medication, then of course nurses have to step up and say no we cant do that. But as long as the order is correct then its absolutely inexcusable for the nurses to just ignore it. IF you have a problem with the order, then page/call the doctor and talk to him about it.
So whats your protocol? If you ahve some kind of reason for not implementing an order, then you call/page the doc and explaint it to him, right? I think its unethical, unprofessional, and dangerous to just ignore a doc's properly-written order without talking to him about it.
queenjean was talking about routine VS overnight. This was often a topic of concersation in the MICU during my years there. If my pt had a medication that affected VS, or was unstable or any reason I could think of they got the VS taken, err on the side of caution. If not the telepak or hardwire would have to suffice for 4 hours. If the docs had a problem there would be a phone call for a SBP 1 point over call orders every time. Really I never remember arguing with a doctor about it.
Of course you dont give a stool softner to a pt with diarrhea or beta blocker to pt with HR
but putting the smack down on doctors orders is completly differenct. Might be funny to watch though.
mak2
86 Posts
queenjean was talking about routine VS overnight. This was often a topic of concersation in the MICU during my years there. If my pt had a medication that affected VS, or was unstable or any reason I could think of they got the VS taken, err on the side of caution. If not the telepak or hardwire would have to suffice for 4 hours. If the docs had a problem there would be a phone call for a SBP 1 point over call orders every time. Really I never remember arguing with a doctor about it.
Of course you dont give a stool softner to a pt with diarrhea or beta blocker to pt with HR
but putting the smack down on doctors orders is completly differenct. Might be funny to watch though.
Come on, I know you know the difference.