It has been a couple days since this happened and I thought that I would have cooled off about it by now, but I am still kinda ticked off so I decided to get it out here.
I work on a mother/baby floor and we take gyn surgeries as well. Some of the gyn surgeries have no business on our floor, but that is another rant all together.
The other day I had a pretty complicated (for our floor anyway) gyn patient and we were trying to rule out PE as the pt was having SOB and needed O2 to keep her sats up. The doctor asked me to call in some lab results as well as fax them to his office..... no problem so I fax the results and then call to let him know they are on their way. His (I think, I never really did identify what she did in his office) secretary answers the phone and says she will tell him the results are there and was there any message for him as he was in with a pt. I told her to point out the PO2 to him and asked her to have him call me with any new orders.
About 30 minutes later I get a page ovehead to tell me that I have a doctor's office on the phone for me. I run to the desk, thinking that this is Dr. X going to give me new orders and I get the same lady on the phone and she says that she has some orders for me from Dr. X. I am instantly confused and asked her her name. She gives me her name and and I ask whether she is an RN or LVN. She says and I quote "I'm just his girl."
I politely tell her that I cannot recieve orders from her if she is not licensed and she LAUGHED at me and snorted. It immediately ticked me off. I said, " Look I'm not trying to be a jerk, it is hospital policy that I cannot take orders from you, so I will either hold for the doctor or you can have him call me back when he is finished." She says, "FINE! Hold on!" I wanted to hang up right then, but I waited. Dr. X gets on the phone and very politely gives me his orders. So, this leads me to believe that he KNEW that he wasn't supposed to give her orders to give to me, but did it anyway.
UGH! I'm really ticked off. Policy states that we can take orders second hand from a licensed nurse as long as it is documented affectively. It comes in handy when a doc is in sugery and you have an emergency. The doc doesn't have to break sterility and the nurse can relay orders so the emergent pt is taken care of. Seriously though.....she really thought it was ludicrus that I would npt take orders from her.....Does she know what kind of legal trouble she could put the doc not to mention myself in? And thank god I asked her her title before I took orders down.
I just had to get this out.....I swear pretty soon these docs will be giving the visitors their orders and wondering why we aren't carrying them out. UGH!
I was the first nurse hired in a cardiologists office for just that reason. there had been an assistant there and had been there for 15 yrs. The doc hired a nurse because he got in trouble for letting an asst call and give orders. The first time I heard her give orders over the phone I reminded her that she couldn't do that anymore. She had been told that when I first came on. Anyway she exploded and began screaming at me. Both docs and the officemanager came to the back just about the time she threw and hit me with a chart.(Paper)
It went flying everywhere. The office manager wasn't going to fire her and the older doc was gonna let it slide too. The newer doc said "Oh no she is going" and told me if they didn't fire her, for me to file charges. This was in front of everyone too. they let her take an early retirement.
...this "letting it slide" stuff is what happens when we allow an unlicensed person to get away with giving orders for a doc. Thank God for the new doctor!!!!
You did exactly the right thing. Sometimes I think MD's need a refresher course in procedures. These procedures are in place not to give a hard time but to assure patient safety.
You should check your state Nurse Practice Act. In Nebraska, it is legal for Nurses to take telephone orders relayed by an unlicensed person. A couple of our docs don't have any nurses working for them in their office, just medical assistants.
I had an assistant call me with orders. I told her I didn't think I could take them from her, and she immediately handed the phone to the doc who was apparently standing right there. Why couldn't he have just given them in the first place? My impression was that they knew that it wasn't the right way to do things, but that plenty of nurses didn't question it.
mom4josh
284 Posts
We had a doctor's wife try to give us orders one time... gimme a break! Nearly laughed her off her chair!
:roll