Rounding with Physicians?
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The other night I went into work. I got my report and I was merrily on my way into patient's rooms, assessing, blablabla (You know the routine). Anyways, I was in this patient's room setting up his CPAP for him. I had just gotten started pouring sterile water in the container when one of my nurse-for-30-years-about-to-retire coworkers popped in. "Hey, Dr. X is here. He's going into Patient Z's room." I said, "okay, thanks." I finished pouring the water and started to connect the tubing. My coworker said, "I think that Dr. X is more important than that right now!" (the patient was in the bathroom and didn't hear any of this). I shrugged and said, "okay." I dropped what I was doing. Mind you, this was a completely stable surgical patient that had a very uneventful stay.
I left the room and went across the hall to where Dr. X was. Anyways, I went into this room with Dr. X. He proceeded to give the "same ol song and dance" to this patient.
Dr.X-"Hello, how's it going?"
Pt-"Great"
Dr.X-"blablabla we'll get you out of here tomorrow"
Pt-"blablabla okay great"
Dr.X walked out and proceeded to write a bunch of orders while I stood there. In the meantime, Pt CPAP's call light was going off because he needed assistance getting out of the bathroom. After writing a progress note, Dr. X made some witty comment before walking off the floor. The order read something like, "Pt may leave if OK with other physicians", or something to that effect.
Kind of a bla routine thing, right?
This isn't the first time something like this has happened. What is the big deal about rounding with physicians? Everytime I round with them nothing really interesting or new comes to light. They just write their orders and leave. Most of the time if I have something to tell them I catch them when they first come in and explain what's going on - Or they can read it for themselves in the progress notes (and if they miss something, then I guess they can get a phone call @ 3am; they'll learn eventually right?). Seriously, is this just a holdover to the old days? Or is it something that is really necessary? Maybe it's just the floor I work on and the physicians that place their patients here? I'm not trying to say that I am against rounding with physicians, but at the same time why should I be bending over backwards to track them down? Shouldn't it be vice versa? Maybe an older nurse can explain this to me.