The Docs Who've Got Your Back

[Music in My Heart]

I was reading through another thread and it started me thinking about how much I appreciate the docs who have the nurses' backs.

In the ED, sometimes things get chaotic and urgency sometimes leads to confusion... either with the implementation of verbal orders or even just misinterpretation of COE orders. Generally speaking, the nurse is at the end of the line and can be left holding the bag in the case of confusion in the midst of turmoil. I've got a few docs who can be counted upon to provide orders to cover the nurse (within reason, anyway) in such events... who recognize the huge liability that we nurses face in trying to handle evolving cases with multiple providers... who see that we sometimes make mistakes and will give an ex-post-facto order to give us cover (again, within reason)...

Or the doc who will assertively confront a patient who's abusing or threatening the nurse... sometimes to the point of saying, "OK, we're done. You're discharged. Leave now."

It is a joy to work with those kinds of docs... there aren't many of them but they are gems. It so nice to work with a doc that's got your back.

[~PedsRN~, BSN, RN]

There are a few that are awesome that I work with. Generally, the ortho team rules. They listen to their nurses, they ask us what we want, they understand when we disagree. I love ortho patients because the team is great to work with. :)

[MECO28, BSN, RN]

I love most of the docs I work with and am friends with a few outside of work. There is always the occasional jerk but they are few and far between. Most are nice and some even bring us donuts. :-) I'll never lose weight on my unit...

[SeattleJess]

If God ever gave me a gift, it is getting the plugs out of trachs. It's an unusual gift, I admit. Anyway, my first week in the hospital on the cardiopulmonary floor, a guy came in with a really difficult plug. I start working on the guy, and apparently some of the things I did were new to folks, as a whole crowd starting gathering around me. There must have been ten or twelve people around me. After a few minutes, this young resident kind of shoves me aside and is all like, "Stand aside, missy, I'm going to save the day!" A little old guy behind me, that I had barely noticed, roars at him, "WHAT THE **** DO YOU MEAN BY INTERRUPTING ONE OF MY NURSES! DON'T YOU EVER TOUCH ONE OF MY ******* NURSES AGAIN! THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING AND YOU SURE AS **** DON'T, YOU *** *** ***... etc." and chased the poor guy out of the room and down the hall, while the patient and I are both cringing back against the bed, looking at each other like paralyzed rabbits. All I could think was, "I'm sure glad I'm one of his nurses, whoever that was!" It turns out the pulmonary doctor on that floor had a reputation as a man-eating terror. He was always nice to me, but he had a real rep for looking out for "his people," staff as well as patients. And by looking out for them, I mean completely shredding any one who had the audacity to interfere with his floor.

I like this little old guy!!!

:anpom:

[SeattleJess]

I knew a cool doc once. He was very intelligent but incredibly unassuming and went by his first name--quite the outlier, especially in a military facility. Our first conversation went like this:

*Ring ring*

Me: "Oncology, LT Soldiernurse."

Dr Awesome: "Hey, this is Doug. What's up?"

Me: "...uh, I dunno, Doug. Can I help you?"

Dr Awesome: "Oh, maybe we haven't met. I'm Dr. Awesome. But please, call me Doug. I'm the night cover for white team. I was paged."

Me: "Oh, wow! OK, Doug. I did in fact page you. I have a patient up here who's having back pain and I'm going to need some IV push medication for breakthrough as his next dose isn't due to 0400."

Dr Awesome: "Sure! What would you like?"

Me: *dumbstruck, but recovering* "Uhh...well, he had 2mg Dilaudid earlier yesterday morning, and that seemed to do the trick."

Dr Awesome: "Got it. It'll be in in a sec. Everything else going OK?"

Me: *falling in love--before I met my husband, I might add* "No, I think we're good. Thanks, Doug."

Dr Awesome: "No problem, Soldiernurse!"

Never met another quite like him. He was always in a good mood, always willing to come assess the patient, never yelled, never got mad, and would do just about anything you asked him (within reason), relying on the clinical judgment of the nursing staff instead of puffing out his chest and questioning our every move. Others have been fun to talk to and good with patients, but Dr. Awesome was the complete package. Nurses across the hospital were conspiring to clone him by the end of his residency.

Wow. I'm in love just from sniffing the second-hand smoke from this post... and I've already met my husband.

:redbeathe

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

The docs I work with our great. Some of them have been around forever and will listen to me when I call and ask for things.

We have a couple of fresh new docs lately, but as they have been trained by the old ones they listen to us too. We have a great partnership! There is one older doc who you need to prove yourself too, but once you gain his trust, life is good.

One of the new docs Eve said to me once " I love your older nurses. I learn so much from you" (ouch)

[FLAlleycat]

When I worked L&D, one of our nurses admitted a walk-in with no prenatal care. The covering OB was the department head and was also a lawyer. The pt's husband was acting like real jerk and constantly yelled at the RN saying he was going to sue her, the doctor, and the hospital . . . we never could figure out for what. In giving report, the RN reported this to the OB who, in the middle of the night, came in to see the couple. As he was talking with them, the husband again made his lawsuit threats. The OB told him he would not hold the spouse's attitude against the wife and would deliver her optimal care throughout her stay. The OB did, however, slap down his lawyer business card on the bedside table and told the spouse to feel free to call him but he did not yet have any grounds for a lawsuit. That shut the spouse up and the RN was able to refocus her attention to monitoring and caring for the laboring woman.

[RN58186]

Our doctors are great. I have heard attending doctors tell residents that "nurses who have been here a while know more about renal than you ever will unless you become a nephrologist - listen to them!" The medical director of our program has been known to tell a resident that "if a senior nurse tells you to come, don't ask why. Just get your butt in there." And recently when a resident from another country told one of our staff doctors (with me in the room) that it was bad enough he has to listen to a female medical director and there was no way he was going to spend the next few years taking orders from "a bunch of nurses - and female nurses at that". While I tried to figure out my reply, our staff doctor just looked at this guy and said "One thing you have to learn right bloody now. This is a NURSE run clinic, and WE are here to do what THEY need. THEY call the shots around here - not us. Our job is to facilitate whatever needs to happen so the nurses can do their job. If you have a problem with this, then perhaps you should re-think this position and return home." I work with the best doctors.

[Mandychelle79, ASN, RN]

Our main psychiatrist has my back all the time. I send him an unit update on what is going on the weekends he is not on call and he puts orders in from home when the covering drs are not listening to us. Actually most of the docs I work with are very easy to get along with for me. But I do have the reputation that if I am calling them about something I have exhausted all other options.

[OCNRN63, RN]

I remember an ED doctor I worked with years ago. I was new to the ED, though not new to nursing.

One day, about a week or two into orientation, we got a call on med-command that there was a code in progress being brought to our ED. My mouth suddenly felt like the Sahara, and I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. Dr. G said, "Come with me," and he took me into the trauma room where we were going to put the patient.

He spent a few minutes asking me questions and preparing me for what to expect, then told me one of the most important things I ever learned working in the ED: If the crew brings in a patient who is coding, the patient is dead. You don't get worse than dead, so you really can't hurt the patient.

He would quiz me on rhythms and save interesting strips for me, go over different ABGs with me...all kinds of stuff to help me get more comfortable working in the ED. He was a good egg.