Babette777

Hi! I'm a registered nurse working in a private practice in Australia. The Doctors that I work actually encourage their patients to call the clinic and get their results. I would say about 80-85% of our patients do call back for their results within a few days of having their tests done. I the patients don't call back and the results were considered "normal" by the GP's then I guess the no news, good news rule applies to these patients. If the patients don't call back for results and doctors are concerned with the outcome of the tests they get us to call the patients in for a f/u. We have a computer program that is always linked with the pathology lab that do the tests for us and the results are downloaded automatically into our system 5 times daily. So, when patients call we can look up the results on our computer in a matter of seconds... if the computer is happy that day. If we can't get the results from the computer we call the pathology and get the results faxed over ASAP so that the patient can have piece of mind. All this is very time consuming but all part of being in private practice. The patients really appreciate knowing what is going on ... be it good or bad.

I have just started working in a very busy medical clinic in Australia. The work I do as an RN at this clinic is varied and quite interesting. One of my duties, among many others, Is to contact patients over the phone and give them results of their pathology test (blood, x-rays, urine, etc.) when requested by their treating Doctor. Most of the time the Doctors just want me to call and ask the patients to come in for a follow-up on their results.... that doesn't bother too much. My biggest problem is with the INR results. The Doctors review the results when they come. They then write a comment on the pathology report. Sometimes the comment just says to continue with treatment as usual and come in for another INR in a week. But, some other times the Doctors write out a change to the presciption on the report itself (ex.:increase by 1mg for a week and then back to the regular prescription) ... I then have to phone the patient, tell them the result of the INR and verbally instruct them of the change to the prescription when applicable. I do not feel comfortable with that one bit. I feel like I am put in a situation of high liability and that the Doctors are also putting themselves in a dangerous situation. As far as I know they don't even write the changes to the prescription in their notes, they just scribble a half prescription on the pathology report. Not to mention the errors that could occur and be damaging to the patients. I am in a tough spot really. That's how the Doctors want things to be and if I try to discuss this with them they will probably just tell me to find another job! What do you think about this and what would you do if you were in my shoes? Your comments would be much appreciated.