The need for medical doctors on staff on a geropsych floor

[futurn23]

Hello Everyone:

I currently work on a geropsych unit. Over the past month, we have had to transfer several patients to the medical floor for medical care. I am developing a plan for the unit to possibly have a medical doctor on staff who can come in and assess patients right away to determine the next plan of care. Often times, nurses page and page and await callback but then when the doctors do call, they don't really give appropriate orders as they would if the patient was on a medical unit. I believe that some medical doctors do not respect the psych unit and therefore do not respect the nurses who care for the patients. For example, i called a medical doctor once because a patient was not eating or drinking and had a low urine output. The doctor asked, "are you calling from the psych unit?" When i said yes, the doctor stated, continue to monitor the patient. Has anyone experienced this before? I need journal articles to support my plan and information about medical doctors and their perception of the psychiatric unit or geropsych patients.

[Simply Complicated]

Is your unit part of a regular hospital? Or is it a separate facility? When we have a major medical issue that requires anything, they just give us a medical consult order. Or if it is more emergent we call the rapid response, who is a PA or NP who will come assess the patient right away. We never have a problem with them treating them unfairly. They handle them the same way they would a regular medical patient. Sounds like it may be more the doctor than your system.

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

Rapid Response Team

Ours will be attended by an APN, an ICU nurse or two, respiratory, and a transporter with cart.

They take over, assess the patient, call the the doctor for orders, arranges transfer to a critical care unit if needed.

It's really great when you need immediate eyes-on, hands-on, and the MD isn't immediately available.

Cuts through the red tape, cuts down on the Code Blues, too.