Pet Peeves with Doctors

[BeenThere2012]

What drives you crazy or hampers your work when it comes to doctors' behaviors? This certainly is not an urgent issue or one to dwell on, but I just thought it would be fun to hear your stories and vent a bit. Now, having said that, there actually can be things we run into on this topic that could be a serious issue not to be taken lightly. I'm just curious as to what your experiences are and how you deal with them. Here is one of mine:

Usually a surgeon...You walk into your patient's room to find their dressing taken down, wound exposed, a mess left on the bed or bedside table. The patient tells you, "oh yes, doctor so and so was just here. He said you'd take care of this.". No communication from Dr. So and so. No attempt to find you and let you know he is planning to check the wound so that you can be there and assist, Ask your questions on the care from there, if you have any, etc....No clear order on how he/she wants the wound dressed, etc...

Now before you all tell me what you would do, such as..."Well, call the doctor and ask him.". Duh....

Not the point. We all know what to do, just wanting to hear your situations. And if, they are serious concerns, as opposed to just annoyances, All the better.

[BeenThere2012, ASN, RN]

My biggest pet peeve is lack of communication. I had a patient's wife frantically call me saying that her husband called and told her the doctor might be moving him to another hospital, that's the first I heard of it. I also had a surgeon come in and tell me to medicate my patient. Looked at me like I was rude or stupid when I had a confused look on my face because he just told me he wasn't in pain. He basically snapped his fingers at me to get the meds, NOW, without just saying he is gonna come back in an hour to change his dressing (he didn't show up for 6 hours after). My patient had to tell me why he needed to be medicated for the dressing change.

Gottcha! I didn't do well in my mind reading class in Nursing school!