Has A Surgeon Ever Thrown An Instrument At You?

Specialties Operating Room

Published

I remember working at a hospital in Washington, DC and a Surgeon threw a key elevator at one of the nurses who worked there and it hit her in the head. He was upset that they didn't have the prosthesis he needed. She happen to be a friend of mine and I will never forget it! Neither would the surgeon because he came close to losing everything. The nurse was injured with a busted head and was rushed to the ER. Talk about chaos! Could you imagine? She recovered quickly (back at work two days later) and ended up suing the doctor. Two months later I went on my first travel assignment to get away from all the crazy things happening at that hospital. It's enough to write a book! Has any OR nurse ever encountered such a thing?

George Traveling with Hospital Support

Well said!

Specializes in Community, Renal, OR.

I have found reading the literature that only now that there is shortage of perioperative nurses that management is looking at the work environment. Lots of research has now confirmed that surgeons attitutes to nurses are a major reason for failure to retain staff. I was a perioperative nurse for 15 years, mostly vascular/cardiothoracic, and I finally reached breaking point 4 years ago. I almost left nursing, but settled for trying another specialist area. I have been working as a renal nurse for 4 years now, mostly in haemodialysis. Occasionally one of the staff will complain about a patient, how selfish/badtempered/offensive he/she is, and I just laugh and say, compared with surgeons, these patients are angels. No one can believe the stories of abuse I have seen over the years, and no one can believe I stayed in the OR for 15 years. But I just loved the work, until I decided I had enough.

Joanne

Specializes in Community Health Nurse.

Has a surgeon ever thrown an instrument at me????

Only in his/her dreams! :rotfl:

Never had an instrument thrown at me. It's amazing all the tantrums I've witnessed firsthand, all the verbal abuse directed at me and my collegues. These docs at my facility stop short of throwing things at nurses. I wrote up one particularly nasty orthopod and with the help of PT's complaints, the doc was reprimanded. Don't know what administration said to him, but he took his group and his patients to another facility. This was after we remodeled and enlarged an OR room and bought helmets, very expensive equipment and instruments just for them. I had the unfortunate opportunity to cross paths with him at another facility and he made my skin crawl. I would just LOVE to see him in an everyday setting and embarrass the hell out of him. Or see him get hit by a bus. "-)

Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

Wow, how appaling. Glad she sued his behind. Sometimes these folks are so smart but lack common sense :clown:

I did have one throw stuff on the floor and yell at me when I was scrubbed in.

He would yell at all the nurses and scrub techs.

I politely told him that non of the other nurses or srub techs were NOT willing to work with him and unless he started treating the staff with respect and started acting like a decent human being, he was going to find that he would be loosing lots of money since the manager had to pull teeth to staff his cases and his case schedule would be in jeopardy.

He shaped up real quick.

Yep, hit 'em in the wallet.

Specializes in M/S, OB, Ortho, ICU, Diabetes, QA/PI.

I've not had any surgeon throw anything at me but (if this sounds familiar, it's 'cuz I posted this story on another thread) the surgeon I worked for told us a story about when he was in his ortho training there was some mean old surgeon who, in a fit, flung a scalpel towards the floor but it didn't hit the floor - it lodged itself in the top of his foot!!! Apparently, he finished the case, saying as little as possible, closed, removed his gown and gloves and walked out of the OR with the scalpel still in his foot.

He managed to hide somewhere to remove it himself............

Could you imagine??? Ouch!!! Oh well, he brought it on himself.................

Specializes in M/S, OB, Ortho, ICU, Diabetes, QA/PI.
Since one of my hobbies is knife throwing, the surgeon would be in a hell of a lot of trouble if he/she even thought about throwing something at me. Another surgeon would be needed to extract the thrown instrument from their forehead!!!!

my smilies aren't working - don't know why but I have to say:

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

that's hilarious!!!

I've never had anyone throw any instruments at me. For what ever reason the jerk docs all seem to like me. I don't know if its because I am a guy or if its because I shave my head, have earrings and tattoos. Or if its because we jerks seem to attract our own. :rotfl:

Anyhow I did use to work with this real piece of work who had some scrub threaten him. So instead of changing his attitude the doc hired a body guard. I think that is a pretty sad way for someone to live. I also heard about some instance where a dif. doc got so mad that he took the harmonic scalpal and activated on the female scrub in the cases breast. The sad part is just sat there and took it. I gotta be honest if someone degrades me. I will quickly correct them. One thing that comes to mind is I had a doc flat out call me a liar over there preference card. So instead of accepting it. I just asked the nurse to grab the pref. card and read it off to the doc. I just don't put up with anyones crap. Which is why I try not to treat anyone like crap. It doesn't matter what there title is. Even though being a housekeeper isn't in my job description, I will always help them out when I have a chance to.

As for anyone throwing an instrument at me, I would just ask who saw that in the room and then congratulate the doc on their new lawsuit. Or atleast that is what I would like to do. In reality I would probably snap and either throw the instrument back at them, or do something else. There is no place in any work environment for people to act like that.

I've never seen a doc throw instruments, they will slam them down on the table sometimes, but never throw. I think that it's really dangerous to throw instrumets or knives or needles, we take such effort to avoid getting stuck with contaminated sharps and to deliberately put someone in danger of hepatitis or AIDS is unthinkable.

We have one doc that has quite a red headed temper and one day he messed with the wrong nurse lol. This lady has been nursing in the OR longer than this guy was alive. Anywhoo, he started giving her $hit about not taking care of the music and putting his CD's in the player. Well she was busy doing patient care (gasp!) and said to him "I'm not a DJ". Well he hit the ceiling and told her to get the f--- out of the room. She headed straight to the dept. head's office to write him up. LOL.

We mostly have to take verbal abuse from the docs. A lot of their anger is justified but they tend to take it out on the wrong people. We've had cases booked wrong and not know until we get in the room, or certain instruments that the doc wanted for a case weren't communicated to us when the case was booked. That sort of thing.

Oh lord the stories I have. I started in the OR 10 years ago and one of my first cases was with, whom I now call Gollum...(from Lord of the Rings). We were doing a Lap Chole and the endocatch wasn't working...Now, this was a doctor that people hated to work with because of his tantrums...and here I was new...only been there about 2 months. Well the endo catch hit the wall beside my head and fell to the floor. Before I could even think about what I was doing, I had it in my hand and had walked up to him shaking it in his face, My words astounding all in the room.....*The next time you throw something at me, I promise you it will be up your a** sideway....Understand?* From that day on, he requested me in his room, supported me through RNFA class and has given me glowing recommendations....and NEVER threw anything else at me. Though I still call him Gollum....it has become habit...as he calls me Ms. B.....*snickers*

The funny part is I have since left there he has been in Anger Management twice.....there is no one to take my place....pity after 10 years no one has learned how to deal with him huh?

No, but when I was in paramedic school and anethesiologist hit me with a laryngoscope...he asked for a Miller blade, which is what I handed him...after looking at the patient more closely, he decided he wanted a Mac...I guess I didn't move fast enough when I was changing the blade...he smacked me in the head with it!

He was a jerk...he made half of the medic students cry...:(

+ Add a Comment