"Pardon Me, May I Kiss Your Feet?" Stories of doctors who want to rule the Earth

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i've only been nursing a short time, but have been struck by how many doctors are so incredibly 'above' being civil to us 'commoners' (aka. nurses) (aka. the ones who do their dirty work). Reminds me of a joke i once heard:

q. What's the difference between a doctor and God?

a. God doesn't think he's a doctor

Thought i'd start a post to share tales of the docs in our lives who want their ass kissed but are more deserving of having it kicked..

I had a patient a few nights ago on IV antibiotics, and soon after i gave her her 8pm dose, her cannula started leaking, so i whipped it out and paged the doctor to come and resite it. When he called back, our conversation went something like:

me: Hi, i have a patient due for antibiotics at 2am who needs her cannula resited. would you be able to come up and do it sometime before then?

him: (in a very irritated voice) what does she need a cannula for?

me: her previous one tissued

him: (sigh) yes, but why does she need a cannula?

me: for IV antibiotics

him: (sigh) does she need it now?

me: no, she's next due at 2am, so anytime before then's fine

him: right. i'll come before 2am then. make sure everything's ready when i get there. (hangs up on me)

I got the IV trolley out, made sure it was stocked, placed it just outside the patient's room, and made sure the night nurses knew to expect him, as he hadn't materialised by 11pm. Next day they told me he arrived, demanded assistance to cannulate this lady, stood looking at the IV trolley SEARCHING for something to be missing, and eventually barked at the night nurse 'who stocked this trolley? where the hell are the scissors?'. The night nurse then proceeded to shift a packet slightly to one side and 'walla!!'

Even the patient said to me that morning 'who was that doctor last night? he thought he was awfully special..'

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Ugg. I once worked for a Dentist with that attitude. I wanted to stick my foor right up his tail.

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What do you expect they're very busy people. :chuckle :rolleyes:

This thread has a potential to get nasty, just as long as it's all in good fun and theres no Dr bashing. ;)

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What do you expect they're very busy people. :chuckle :rolleyes:

yeah. the doctor on duty on a very quiet night in A+E is much too busy to be civil when a nurse requests that at some point in the upcoming 6 hours they pop up to the ward to do the very job they're employed to do.

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i've only been nursing a short time, but have been struck by how many doctors are so incredibly 'above' being civil to us 'commoners' (aka. nurses) (aka. the ones who do their dirty work). Reminds me of a joke i once heard:

q. What's the difference between a doctor and God?

a. God doesn't think he's a doctor

Thought i'd start a post to share tales of the docs in our lives who want their ass kissed but are more deserving of having it kicked..

I had a patient a few nights ago on IV antibiotics, and soon after i gave her her 8pm dose, her cannula started leaking, so i whipped it out and paged the doctor to come and resite it. When he called back, our conversation went something like:

me: Hi, i have a patient due for antibiotics at 2am who needs her cannula resited. would you be able to come up and do it sometime before then?

him: (in a very irritated voice) what does she need a cannula for?

me: her previous one tissued

him: (sigh) yes, but why does she need a cannula?

me: for IV antibiotics

him: (sigh) does she need it now?

me: no, she's next due at 2am, so anytime before then's fine

him: right. i'll come before 2am then. make sure everything's ready when i get there. (hangs up on me)

I got the IV trolley out, made sure it was stocked, placed it just outside the patient's room, and made sure the night nurses knew to expect him, as he hadn't materialised by 11pm. Next day they told me he arrived, demanded assistance to cannulate this lady, stood looking at the IV trolley SEARCHING for something to be missing, and eventually barked at the night nurse 'who stocked this trolley? where the hell are the scissors?'. The night nurse then proceeded to shift a packet slightly to one side and 'walla!!'

Even the patient said to me that morning 'who was that doctor last night? he thought he was awfully special..'

I'm interested in where you practice because where I work the nurses start the IV's.

I think every profession has jerks - the docs I work with are all pretty much great. An occasional bad day but usually they will realize their mood changes are not good and will apologize.

I had two RN's and a CNA with bad attitudes recently - it ain't just docs. :D

steph

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I don't know why you think some Docs want to rule the earth. I think you are wrong. I believe the correct term is UNIVERSE. lol.

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g

forgive me maynmom. my mistake.

and i practice in a hospital in Tasmania. Doctors or cannulation certified nurses cannulate, and it has to be recorded who the patient was cannulated by, and cannulation certified nurses have to do a certain number per year to remain 'in practice' and therefore competent. This is so the cannulations can be tracked and we can be sure that cannulations are done safely according to protocol. it also allows us to see trends between the cannulator (if that's a word) and problems with their cannulations.

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g

forgive me maynmom. my mistake.

and i practice in a hospital in Tasmania. Doctors or cannulation certified nurses cannulate, and it has to be recorded who the patient was cannulated by, and cannulation certified nurses have to do a certain number per year to remain 'in practice' and therefore competent. This is so the cannulations can be tracked and we can be sure that cannulations are done safely according to protocol. it also allows us to see trends between the cannulator (if that's a word) and problems with their cannulations.

Thanks! I had a feeling you practiced in a different country. Didn't know what "Tassie" meant though.

I start all my own IV's - all RN's do.

steph

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i agree where is this country,,,there are times when I wish the physicians did start the IV's,,it would be a great help in an emergency situation where you dont have enough Registered Nurs's or enough LPNC's on. In a small rural hospital where I work I am the only night charge Rn..so if I get a cardiac in..and protacol dictates 2 iv's then I have to husstle to get them started, so I can give the medications the physician orders.. Our doctors that I work with are overall great. They have bad days just like nurse's do....

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i agree where is this country,,,there are times when I wish the physicians did start the IV's,,it would be a great help in an emergency situation where you dont have enough Registered Nurs's or enough LPNC's on. In a small rural hospital where I work I am the only night charge Rn..so if I get a cardiac in..and protacol dictates 2 iv's then I have to husstle to get them started, so I can give the medications the physician orders.. Our doctors that I work with are overall great. They have bad days just like nurse's do....

We have emt's in our er . . . they can help start IV's.

steph

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we are very rural so we dont have a staff for the Er...if it gets really tight we call in nurse's who are on call for such things.

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Hmmm. I had a resident who was real difficult to work with. Would order a ua, then call back in less than 5 minutes and wonder why it wasn't sent, "well, we just clamped the foley, and are waiting for urine to collect in the tubing." Once told the charge nurse to "get up, I need that computer". Tried to write another nurse and pharmacist up for questioning his order, "sorry, we can't give IV potassium that fast without KILLING the patient."

After I explained that IV push potassium is one of the main ingredients in "death by lethal injection", he started to listen to the nurses.

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