Some MD's can be a bit thick

[2shihtzus]

Ok....so I get a patient tonight who is having probs with his PEG tube that was just replaced yesterday. I got in report that he kept throwing up his feeding (which was going at 20cc/hour). Kept throwing it up out of his NOSE no less. So I go into assess him and I decide to verify placement with an airbolus.....guess what happened? Feeding shot out of his nose! So I turn off the feeding and page the GI doctor, who of course didnt return my call. So I call the primary, who is SUCH and ******, and tell him what happened....hes like, "I cant do anything about it! Turn off the feeding." Well DUH.....so I say to him, "Can I order an abdominal xray at least?" He says, "Fine. Go ahead." and hangs up on me.

So guess what the xray said? PEG tube is laying above the upper abdomen.

I call the primary (because GI is STILL not returning my calls) and he says, "You need to tell GI!" I holler back, "I know that! Hes not answering my calls, so I have to tell someone!" He says, "Fine!" and hangs up again.

ARRRRGHHHHHHH!!!

*deep breath*

K, I feel better now.

[DDRN4me]

I know you are frustrated and angry but calling someone "retarded" in that manner is really demeaning to those who suffer from developmental disabilities... they cant help it.

[2shihtzus]

True. Point taken.

Interestingly, I would never call someone with a mental disability "retarded." Where I came from it was extremely impolitically correct. It actually took me a long time to get used to the term when I moved to the US.

Anyways, I would edit the topic so as not to offend anyones tender sensibilities, but for whatever reason, it wont let me.

[XB9S, BSN, MSN, EdD, RN, APN]

One of the things with an international community is that some words and expressions have completely different meanings and offense can be caused without intent. There are words that I read sometimes here that make me cringe because in the UK they are really rude but in the US they are acceptable. We live and learn.

I have edited the title for you now

[XB9S, BSN, MSN, EdD, RN, APN]

Ok....so I get a patient tonight who is having probs with his PEG tube that was just replaced yesterday. I got in report that he kept throwing up his feeding (which was going at 20cc/hour). Kept throwing it up out of his NOSE no less. So I go into assess him and I decide to verify placement with an airbolus.....guess what happened? Feeding shot out of his nose! So I turn off the feeding and page the GI doctor, who of course didnt return my call. So I call the primary, who is SUCH and wanker, and tell him what happened....hes like, "I cant do anything about it! Turn off the feeding." Well DUH.....so I say to him, "Can I order an abdominal xray at least?" He says, "Fine. Go ahead." and hangs up on me.

So guess what the xray said? PEG tube is laying above the upper abdomen.

I call the primary (because GI is STILL not returning my calls) and he says, "You need to tell GI!" I holler back, "I know that! Hes not answering my calls, so I have to tell someone!" He says, "Fine!" and hangs up again.

ARRRRGHHHHHHH!!!

*deep breath*

K, I feel better now.

It's so frustrating when you know your patient is not right but you can't get anyone to listen.

Document, document, document.

Our doctors would get into huge trouble if they didn't answer their bleeps when they were on duty

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Not answering calls is a big deal. I hope you documented with an incident report. This happened to us the other day.

(Don't feel bad, I was well into my 30's before I found people were offended by that word, and I was calling my self the word. Since moving to Florida, I learned other offensive phrases that I used, such as "you people". )

[DDRN4me]

Thanks for understanding!! one of my little "personal battles":p

[NeosynephRN]

I am sorry that your GI would not answer..but I never tolerate that. LOL. I had one a couple weeks ago...would not answer would not answer...so I tracked down his cell phone...and called that. Needless to say he was not all that pleased. I "gently" reminded him that if he would have answered his pager I would not have called his phone. Nuff said, business as usual after that.

[santhony44, MSN, RN, NP]

I expect that the primary doctor was quite frustrated himself. The GI doc gets paid the bigger bucks to take care of that particular problem. Whether or not the primary doctor can do anything about the GI not answering his pages depends a lot on the politics of the institution. He may be the very low man on the totem pole.

I understand your frustration, but the real problem in the situation was the GI doc, not the PCP.

[MikeyJ, RN]

Definitely not the primary's fault in this case and I can actually understand where he is coming from.

[TazziRN, RN]

Not the primary's fault but he didn't need to pull the attitude with her. She told him in the beginning that she wasn't able to reach the GI.

[rn2bnwi, BSN, RN]

as the parent of a child with a developmentally disablity, i will agree and chime in that medical professionals never use the term 'retarded' or mental retardation with us ....... however, . I really appreciate you editing your post as i really dont think people realize how rude a term it is even if they do not mean it that way. I seriously report and talk to mangament of EVERY person i hear use that term when they are on duty and i am a customer. So if i hear a clerk at a grocery, i write coporate AND talk to their manager. if im at a hospital and heard that while there as a patients parent i would write the coporate and department head with names.

I do not do that with co-workers or classmates because its a different relationship but it is good to know because Im not the only person that does that. lol and if you tick the wrong parent off that has the right connections you will have about 600 parents write your boss. i have seen it happen through our networking group and people loose jobs over such things on more than one occasion.

Sorry about the jerky drs.