Recently, at our small community hospital, the only hospitalist on the 7p-7a shift wasn't answering his pager when a CCU nurse was looking for him about a patient. After several attempts to reach him, she went looking for him, thinking he might be sleeping(that's allowed) Upon hearing voices behind the sleep room door, she summoned the Nsg supervisor, who found the door to be locked. She in turn got a maintenance man to unlock the door. Behind the door, she found quite a sight. The hospitalist and an off duty nurse. She was naked, he scrambling for his clothes. Both are married--not to each other.
She was given a mere 2 days suspension. He works for a physicians group that staffs hospitals, and we have not seen him since.
She has worked for the hospital for many years. What do YOU think should happen to her?
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
nurse156 and I are of the same generation of nurses. Regardless of your moral belief, this is something that our generation learned how to handle, especially if you worked in an academic facility. That's just the way it was sometimes.
You also knew if the docs had any dirt back then because there weren't pagers and cell phones. The answering service called the doc's home phone to reach the senior resident and attending they were on call. So....... if they weren't going to be at the hospital or home, they told the night charge nurse on the floor exactly how to get in touch with them. Didn't want the hospital calling their home looking for them when they were supposed to be at the hospital.
Come to think of it , that may be one of the reasons that relationships seemed less adversarial between nurses and docs long ago. We knew all the dirt and they knew it.
That might just be an aha moment in the decline of nurse-physician professional relationship........ the advent of the cell phone. LOL
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
JadeLPN you forgot about the part that "CCU nurse" didn't think to try to open the door herself. lol! I guess that's why the directions to any troubleshooting guide say "make sure the device is plugged in". If they get a landline they should get one of those old-school answering machines that enable the callee to hear the message. "Dr Hosp? I know you're in there! Answer your page right bleeping now or I'll call swat to kick your door in. Have a pleasant evening."
All of it could have been avoided if he'd just answered his page. But I'd be less than impressed if I needed urgent orders and the CCU resident was "too busy" to call me back.
I am really surprised at all these folks defending the right to have sex at work. The doc was getting paid to be on call, not to be LAID on call. The off duty RN was clearly not too bright. The saying that comes to mind is that you don't squat where you eat.
Write them both up and follow whatever formal protocol there is for disciplinary action. I don't care that they're both married to other people, that's not my business, but I do care that this is a safety issue. The MD was on call and didn't answer the page. They locked themselves into a room - what if somebody needed to get into that room for patient care purposes and could not?
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
as to what i would have done? i would have knocked really hard on the door and said loudly, "dr. so-and-so, you are needed in icu (or wherever)." as someone else said, it really isn't too hard to figure out.
this reminds me of a scene from downton abbey, when the head housekeeper heard noises from behind a door. she unlocked the door and found a soldier and a maid in delicto flagrante. in this case, nothing happened to the soldier, but the maid was sacked.
BOTH have moral issues and lack of judgment. But that is not against the law and you cannot reprimand unless it is against policy. The BON might be interested, but I would recommend contacting AMA as well.
My dude works as a registrar in a very large ED on nights.
As he says, "It is a meat market in there. You'd think we were all at a night club."
I've experienced this first hand as his crew of people sometimes go out to breakfast after shift, and a married coworker (secretary) approached him one morning and suggested they get a room because no one would "ever find out." He thanked her for her interest, told her he was flattered, but explained to her that it violated his morals and that even if no one ever said a word I would know. He told her that his girlfriend was like a psychic detective and that eventually I find out everything.
In all seriousness though it comes down to patient care. How focused can we really be on care if we're busy trying to get busy? I won't judge either one of them for the infidelity because it's not my place but I will say that both of them are cheap and should have paid for a hotel.
I still can't believe all the people here who are defending their behavior. I suspect some people in this thread who have done exactly what this couple did.
There is a time and a place for everything and having sex at your place of work is unacceptable....unless you are a Media star. What is wrong with some of you?!?
I am a very young nurse but I have always believed that sex & the work place do not mix. I learned this at my very first job when I was 17 & worked at an office w/ a married couple. They often brought their own marital/home problems w/ them to the office & things got nasty for everyone as a result. Ever since then, I've been of the opinion that relationships & sex do not mix well w/ any work environment. I know single people are going to meet at work & when you have the schedules that nurses & drs do it's quite likely that if you're single the only realistic place you're going to have time to meet someone is at work. However, I still believe sex & the work place should not go hand in hand. Yes, some relationships are going to start at work & if both people can be professional & mature about it then that's ok. But the moment it starts to negatively impact patient care then something needs to change. Having sex in the actual work place is just unprofessional & stupid. What if a dr is receiving a very important page but he/she is too "busy" to answer it? That is not safe for the patients. And sadly stories like this do just reinforce all kinds of stereotypes about nurses & drs that are mostly not true (at least not in my area b/c we are too busy actually working to "get busy" w/ each other). I know some affairs are going to start at work also, but leave it outside the work place. Regardless of our positions, we are all at work to take care of patients in some format. Leave the sex at home.
Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN
20,908 Posts
It's an epiphany....