Return Pages:What's the longest time you've waited?

Ruby Vee, BSN · Dec 30, 2005

ok......when awaiting a return page what is the longest period of time you have ever waited for a return call from a physician and give any great excuses they used to explain the looonnnngggg wait?

three days. "i wasn't on call." (service said he was on call, partners said he was on call, wife said he was at the hospital. ended up getting his partners to cover the patient.)

suzanne4, RN · Dec 30, 2005

I do not wait anymore. Especially if it is a teaching facility with residents, no response x3 every 15 minutes, then next up the ladder gets called. And it is well documented. If need be, you call the attending or the Director of the Service if it is an attending, and let them be dealt with, if need be. If they ar elisted as being on call, it is their respsosiblity to check the schedule and find out if they are truly on or are not. Sorry, but not my responsibility.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Dec 30, 2005

I never wait, If i'm paging a doctor, that means he's got cases.

lberghood · Apr 4, 2006

I paged the attending dr on a child whose xray showed a fractured hand in a psych facility at 3pm She called me back at 11pm. No excuse and not unusual for her. I, of course, had already taken care of situation with another doctor.

sissiesmama, ASN, RN · Jul 29, 2007

While working on a busy med surg unit, I paged a urologist on a Saturday an about 9am. This was one of those docs that when you saw the call sch. for that group, we were praying "...please don't let it be him, please....". Well, I had bad ABGs and labs on a patient. We treated the patient while waiting, and repaged him over and over. Started calling him at home, and the wife answered. Wouldn't give him a message but didn't mind telling us "He is having a bowel movement and can't be disturbed...". Way too much information for us, and the excuses went on and on, BM, bathtub, ect. By 2pm and numerous calls to nsg.sup. that shift, the doc finally showed up after the ER doc coded and pronounced him. I don't think I've gone through that mny pages of nurses notes in a long time! And we weren't waiting on the doc to call for orders, we treated the abnormals and were attempting on the sups instructions to transport to the ICU, but it was just pitiful to hear his schedule of BMs and not even getting to relay messages. When he did arrive (after the patient was in the morgue, the expression on his face was self explanatory. Hard to explain to the wife of the patient, though!!

Anne, RNC:down: