The tortoise or the hare? How do your docs rate?

dragonfly954 · Dec 23, 2003

I'm sure you will end up with a lot of comments about er wait times in general.Our local er (only 1 hospital) has to have the slowest doctors in town,some are slower than others. one doctor in particular will just mosey from room to room at a snail's pace,take his time writing orders,let the patients be in a bed for an hour or more before ordering any labs at all even if he has initially seen them...... :eek: Unfortunately,I frequent the er several times a year due to renal problems and severe infections.I dread finding out this md is there because i knowi will be there all night long,no matter if there is a trauma or 2 or 3 non-sick people coming in for a pregnancy test at 2 am.Even the other nurses roll their eyes at him. :rolleyes:

crankyasanoldma · Dec 23, 2003

I used to work for a tortoise. I'm a hare. Nothing I could do would improve the situation.

One day a patient said "Doc, I've been here for 4 hours!" The Doc said "Honey, I've been here all day!". Ugh.

luvbug · Dec 23, 2003

Hi. I guess I don't really have any saving advice for you., sorry about tht. The only thing we can usually do where I work is apologize, apologize. We also have gift certificates (to local restaurants and things like that) to give out to the patients who really wait a long time. Believe it or not, they seem to help. Anything for free, right? I actually don't work in an ER, but we are the only place remotely close to quite a few construction companies, so we do see our share of walk-ins with broken fingers, toes, cuts, etc. We do tend to get backed up at times, but for the most part, people don't get too upset. We do occasionally get the really irate person, but those gift certificates are wonderful!! Hang in there, and as belittling as it seems, keep apologizing if you have to, people like to be updated-just so they know WHY they are waiting. :stone

MAGIK GIRL · Dec 23, 2003

Originally posted by dragonfly954
I'm sure you will end up with a lot of comments about er wait times in general.Our local er (only 1 hospital) has to have the slowest doctors in town,some are slower than others. one doctor in particular will just mosey from room to room at a snail's pace,take his time writing orders,let the patients be in a bed for an hour or more before ordering any labs at all even if he has initially seen them...... Unfortunately,I frequent the er several times a year due to renal problems and severe infections.I dread finding out this md is there because i knowi will be there all night long,no matter if there is a trauma or 2 or 3 non-sick people coming in for a pregnancy test at 2 am.Even the other nurses roll their eyes at him.

your doc's must moonlight in the er that i work in. and don't you just love the "chart searchers". tho ones who pick and choose what they want to see? "ahhh let me see, i will pick this sore throat over the gi bleed. yea, let me sit down, write up half my eval on the t-sheet, check my email and think about getting up to see my patient! see the pt. and spend 20 min doing my 'med surg' h&p in the pt's room. then i will go to my chair, ponder another hour and finally write the rest of my t-sheet..........."

ya gotta love our job!!!!!!!

mg:zzzzz :zzzzz :zzzzz

huggietoes · Dec 23, 2003

I soooo know the frustration you all are experiencing. And, how about the MD that orders every test known to man including lab draws, ekg, ct scan and viola sinusitis is the Dx. Or the doc that lets a pt that you know just has "something" going on, however, the pt has been sitting in the room slowly deteriorating and ofcourse not one test has been done no h&p, no eval of any kind then they meander in and decide HOLY SH#T this pt is emergent get these 1,000 orders done STAT, and by now ofcourse you are pulling charts of like 5 other pts and you're incredibly busy and have to drop everything because now it is a "real emergency" apparently it was not a "real" emergency 4 hours ago while the pt sat in the room without a doctor's presence when there was actually something to be done for this poor person!

ensense · Dec 23, 2003

I can really relate to the scenario you spell out. We have a group of ER physcians and there are 3 that are very fast (we all just love working with them) then there is one that is close to retirement and can be fast but after all those years in the ER he doesn't really care, there 1 that can go either way depending on his mood, 2 that are just plain slow(the admit king and the "anything the patient wants" docs) then 1 that is so unsure of herself that she is slow for that reason only.

The sad part of the whole process is that as nurses our judgment is trusted (for the most part, there are a few that aren't) to order the tests before they are seen yet it is by the fastest docs. You need it with the slower ones. Most of the time we just do it any way.

Sadly enough the ones with the higher patient volumne have the lowest patient satisfaction scores( yeah I'm still on that)

Since there is nothing we have found to speed up the snails I have just got to where I dread working those nights. Last night I worked I got into it with one of the slow docs because a patient was chewing me out for having to wait so long to be seen by a doctor when our docs ( 2 of the slow ones together,eghh) were dragging their heels getting anything done. It got him up finally but at what cost, we were mildly hostile for the rest of the night, glad he doesn't hold grudges.

Wish only type a personalities were allowed to work in the ER sometimes. Oh well , life goes on.

Rapheal · Dec 24, 2003

The tortoise docs are the ones who admit a patient to my floor from ED- WITHOUT ANY ORDERS. Then I am paging them and they say they are on the way- but I get them 2 or 3 hours later. And of course the patient is really angry because they want to eat- and "I have been in the ER all day and they didn't give me anything to eat- and I am in pain, I want some pain medication".

AARRGGGHHHHHHH...........

athomas91 · Dec 24, 2003

i work w/ both fast and slow doc's - i must admit the slow one - although tediously slow is my favorite - he is an older doc - who is the most intelligent and up to date doc i have ever worked with - and he is slow because he actually does a full physical exam on every pt - rather than recording that lung feilds were clear w/o listening or even taking a stethescope in the room like other doc's i work with - but here is how we even out visit times

we have protocols that are initiated at triage - ex : an abd pain pt - gets an iv, labs, urinalysis, and possible a ct or sono depending on pain location and labs, perhaps a pelvic if a female

a cp pt gets monitor, iv, ekg, labs,portable chest and nitro protocol

the list goes on and on - should a pt come in needing immediate attention - he is of course diverted into that room - when a kidney stone pt comes in - i tell him - i need and order for dilaudid, phenergen, and toradol - and he writes it...so no pt goes w/o the immediate tx they need

so, by the time he gets to my kidney stone pt - the pt is pain free, all labs are back and he has had a ct to locate the stone - then dispo is immediate - so the times even out...

ERKev · Dec 25, 2003

Originally posted by athomas91
i work w/ both fast and slow doc's - i must admit the slow one - although tediously slow is my favorite - he is an older doc - who is the most intelligent and up to date doc i have ever worked with - and he is slow because he actually does a full physical exam on every pt - rather than recording that lung feilds were clear w/o listening or even taking a stethescope in the room like other doc's i work with - but here is how we even out visit times

we have protocols that are initiated at triage - ex : an abd pain pt - gets an iv, labs, urinalysis, and possible a ct or sono depending on pain location and labs, perhaps a pelvic if a female

a cp pt gets monitor, iv, ekg, labs,portable chest and nitro protocol

the list goes on and on - should a pt come in needing immediate attention - he is of course diverted into that room - when a kidney stone pt comes in - i tell him - i need and order for dilaudid, phenergen, and toradol - and he writes it...so no pt goes w/o the immediate tx they need

so, by the time he gets to my kidney stone pt - the pt is pain free, all labs are back and he has had a ct to locate the stone - then dispo is immediate - so the times even out...

As I've said before, I work agency, but strictly ER. Lately I've been working in a Detroit teaching Hospital (which shall remain nameless). They are the absolute slowest I have EVER worked with! They will order NOTHING until examined by themselves and then hope that pain meds are not needed! Unless it's sickle cell crisis, everyone gets MS 2 mg SC/IV.... no matter whether they're 200# or 110#....

But, I'm outta here VERY soon..... Thank Goddess!!!

ernurse2244 · Dec 25, 2003

I work in a small hospital with a small (5 bed) ER. Our docs: one fast, one medium, one slow, and one with ADHD. The fast one...believe it or not...realizes with a stroke of the pen he can give me 30 minutes of work. He will actually call lab or x-ray, fill out requisitions, etc. (I just had to brag about that one first). My question on how you handle the slow one. He does a thorough exam, then sits down and writes up his assessment...on the sheet with my orders on it. I can sometime read over his shoulder to see what I should be doing, sometime am too busy to hang around to see what he is checking. Sometimes he will give me some verbal orders, then add written ones later when I am busy elsewhere. There is a second order sheet usually covered up so I can't see it. When I am busy doing what I know he wants done...I don't have time to prowl through the chart to see what else he has ordered. Suggestions?

SpnshEyes1975 · Dec 26, 2003

Our docs are all different as night and day, but they all have their good qualities. One in particular, however, likes to run every test known to man on every single patient. There is even a joke about how he performed a rectal exam while we were coding a guy!!! ROFL But hey.. at least he's thourough, right? Hee hee!!

Rachael :roll