I have been a nurse for a long time and have a very thick skin when it comes to being treated rudely by doctors. I try to be very respectful and call only if it is absolutely necessary. I don't like having to take time out of my busy shift to call them any more than they wish to be interrupted by a call from me so I do so only when what I need absolutely can't wait until normal business hours.
My problem is this. The hospital I work at now is staffed primarily by hospitalists. They go into this job, I presume, knowing that a large part of their responsibility is to pull call. So, why is it that they get angry no matter what you call for? Seriously. And they sigh and carry on obnoxiously to the point that I can barely maintain my courtesy. They are difficult to understand and will barely stay on the phone long enough to mumble an order at you. Forget reading an order back. They've hung up on you before you get the first syllable out.
All of this is assuming they are awake to hear you. On two or three occasions now I have had doctors fall asleep on me while getting orders from them. One night it took me about 5 minutes to take a simple medication order because the doctor kept falling asleep on me. There were literally 40 second stretches of complete silence on the other end.
I really try not to have an us against them mentality when it comes to doctors. I'm sure they could tell some crazy stories about getting called at ridiculous times of the night for things that could have waited until the morning. However, I don't feel like this gives them the right to be CONSISTENTLY rude when you are calling them for legitimate concerns.
Here's how a call went last night. This was the impetus for this vent. First, let me explain that there are three nurses on the floor that all have the same name, me being one of them. We'll say the name is "Mary".
My phone rings. It is a callback from Dr. Y.
Me: "Hello Dr. Y., this is Mary and..."
Dr. Y.: "Oh my God!!!! Do you realize that you call me more than anyone?! You called me at least six times last night!"
Me: "I'm sorry but that was not me. I didn't work last night and there are three nurses named Mary on this floor."
Dr. Y.: "Well, whatever!!! It doesn't matter! What do you want?"
Me: Going on to ask for an anti hypertensive to address a pt.'s BP that had been running consistently in the 170's to 180's systolic for 2 days without being addressed.
Dr. Y.: "Why are you calling about this now? Why didn't they do something about this during the day?"
You get the idea. There are many responses I could have made to that question. Main one being, why didn't you notice the pt.'s BP for the last two days (this happened to be his patient) was sky high and adjust the meds or write for a prn or WRITE SOME DING-DA-DANG CALL PARAMETERS so I wouldn't have to be calling you in the first place.
It is very aggravating. They really treat us like dogs. Any decent human being would have apologized when they realized they had flamed out the wrong Mary. I feel like pulling him aside the next time I see him and very diplomatically addressing the issue. We are all here in the best interest of the patients (or so we hope). Even the Mary who can be a little over zealous with her calls.
How do you guys handle this and do you notice that some doctors are worse offenders than others? Have you ever pulled a rude doctor aside and, if so, what was the response?
I'm sure this topic has been beaten to death but I felt the need to vent about it. The place that I'm working at now is by far the worst. I've been out of hospital nursing for 4 years until 8 months ago when I started this job. Is it a hospitalist thing? That's the only big difference btwn this hospital and others where I've worked.
This is one of the differences between military and civilian nursing that worries me. In the service I'm called Lieutenant Soldiernurse. Rank, Last name. Pretty easy. The docs are either Doctor Last name or Rank Last name. Makes it so much nicer. With this arrangement, I never hear my first name at work. If I do, it's usually one of the civilians playing around with me. With the past (ahem) years of my nursing career spent in the service, I am accustomed to the very culture of the military reinforcing that we're coworkers or patient/nurse and will respect each other as such by using the rank/title + last name system. Even for civilians, it's Mr./Mrs./Ms., never First name unless you're friends. I don't think I'm going to like being called by my first name. I associate that level of familiarity with friends and family, not coworkers, docs, and patients.[/quote']
I was an A.D. military nurse for 6 years and worked three more as a civilian RN n a military hospital. I also enjoyed being addressed by Rank Name. I also noticed more respect between MDs and nurses simply due to rank structure. Oftentimes the more senior nurses could outrank the doctors so folks tended to check themselves...before they wrecked themselves. (ha,ha...had to throw in a little Beasty Boys there)
I was an A.D. military nurse for 6 years and worked three more as a civilian RN n a military hospital. I also enjoyed being addressed by Rank Name. I also noticed more respect between MDs and nurses simply due to rank structure. Oftentimes the more senior nurses could outrank the doctors so folks tended to check themselves...before they wrecked themselves. (ha,ha...had to throw in a little Beasty Boys there)
Yessss...exactly.
I loved it when some cocky intern/resident mouthed off to a nurse on my old ward and found themselves up to their armpits in doo doo when they turned around to see the (nurse) lieutenant colonel in charge of our ward staring down their captain's bars.
annie.rn
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