what do you think of the doctors you work with???

Bipley · Nov 16, 2005

...The worst was a cardiologist who would frequently go up to nurses after one of his patients coded and died and yell at them, "you killed my patient". Everyone worried that we would be his next target. One time he was upset that vital signs or something hadn't been charted on some patient's nurses notes and to make an example of it, he took the sheet of nurses notes and scotch-taped it to the head nurses office door, not with one strip of scotch tape, but with many. Everyone at the desk just looked on in awe as he has his little tantrum. ...

I went to a local hospital after work one day to visit a friend and there was a creepy, short, ugly, vile little man screaming at a nurse. He was sitting in a chair with his feet up on the desk making her read his orders to him outloud. As she read each order he would stop her and make her explain how to do each procedure (taking a temp, helping someone to the bathroom, etc.). He was enjoying humiliating this nurse and the nurse looked like she wanted to die.

I stopped and couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had just gotten off work (care home) and I was still wearing my scrubs. Before I realized what I was doing I had lit into him. Told him he was a creepy little troll who had a reputation to match is smarmy little attitude (heck, I didn't even know him to be honest). I went on to say something about the need for putting bells on his shoes to match the rest of his outfit and after that, it got ugly. I could have done so much better had I planned it but I was hearing my words along with everyone else. I was so angry.

He just sat there with this pooh eating grin on his face, it didn't dawn on me at the time that he thought he was waiting for me to hang myself. I was wearing scrubs... he thought I worked for the hospital so he just let me go on and on.

When I was done he demanded to know who I was, I rolled my eyes and walked away. He started *really* raising his voice and demanding to know my name. One of the nurses there was someone I knew somewhat and she was trying to calm him down explaining I was a visitor, I didn't work for the hospital. He actually followed me demanding to know what hospital I worked for.

I ignored him, in retrospect I wish I would have patted his short little bald head like a puppy dog and then walked away.

Most docs are very cool, I especially like surgeons. They are really into teaching and I LOVE OR!

grinnurse, RN · Nov 16, 2005

For the most part I love the doctors that we have at the hospital. There is one hospitalist that we have that d/c's everyone of the patients meds from home.............doesn't matter if it's for BP, DM or etc. Which is really irritating when you have a pt with known uncontrolled HTN that has a BP of 215/155!!! I personally wouldn't let him even think about looking at my dog b/c he is extremely dangerous IMO.

I find that there are more that I like than dislike and the one's that I don't I kind of treat them like I used to do my Mother when I was young...Let it go in one ear and out the other!!

bluestar · Nov 16, 2005

Most of them are pretty cool.

KatieBell · Nov 16, 2005

Well, there are a few that I think are less than intelligent, but for the most part, easy to work with, or to work around. I appreciate the respect given to me currently in my travel position.

rehab nurse · Nov 16, 2005

of all the docs i work with currently, there is only one that irks me because of her "holier than thou" attitude. she had a tantrum once on our unit (she's a physiatrist) because a little old lady who was blind, mistakenly thought she was a nurse and asked for assistance to go to the bathroom. she was ranting and raving at the nurses station "who does that lady think she is?! i'm not a nurse! i don't take people to the bathroom!"....as if being a nurse was this horrible, despicable *thing*. :rolleyes:

the other docs (geriatricians, internists, nephrologists, cardiologists, physiatrists and psychiatrists) are all very good with their pts, and i've learned a lot working with them. they all respect the nurses and value our judgement. and a couple are good friends who are just hilarious, breaks the tension at work when we can share a laugh.

of course, when i first became a nurse almost 10 years ago, i was scared to death to have to talk with a doc:imbar . now, it's no problem advocating for my patients.

Camelhappy1 · Nov 16, 2005

Wow - you guys are all lucky. We unfortunately have a physician who makes grown men want to cry (and has succeeded in this)... He is also one of the top docs, so not much will ever be done about it. He THRIVES on making people scared stiff of him... I have not been on this unit for very long, but not ONE day has gone by without him yelling his face off at someone (and I mean yelling/ screaming...) and belittling every nurse in site. He'll insult every little detail about you... likes to make you feel like your the most incompetent and stupid nurse in the galaxy. Today I witnessed a few of our male nurses being picked on by him.... they're voices were actually quivering when they spoke to him.... wow. To have that kind of control over people... How sadistic.

BUT I promised myself, being new to this particular unit, that I would not give him the satisfaction. He can kiss my @$$

hipab4hands · Nov 16, 2005

I like most of the doc's that I work with. We have had a few "medical dieties", but they don't last very long . We can report bad behavior to the medical director, who will remove the misbehaving doc.

christvs, DNP, RN, NP · Nov 16, 2005

In the 4 months I've been working as an RN I've had only a few docs with attitude problems, but no one extremely outrageous. I've found nearly all of them to be very intelligent, reasonable people who listen to what I'm saying & seem like they're really trying to help their patients out. Just yesterday one of them looked up a phone # for me cuz he was just so nice! :) And about a month ago, the chief of surgery (I didn't know who he was then) was being silly & was teasing me-he asked me where he was supposed to put in a chest tube on a patient since he's never done one before. Of course then later on I find out he is kidding & that he likes to tease the new nurses-very nice guy, dry sense of humor! :) So no real complaints here.

-Christine

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Nov 16, 2005

i am still a student, but i have had some really really bad experiences w/ doctors and i was wondering what the experiences were of nurses working w/ docs on a professional level? so everyone vent your frustration or praise them...just let me know what you think :)

You need to know that in all circumstances, you have control over your responses.

Since you say that you've had "really really bad experiences" with docs, then I would have to think that you're now fearful of having any interactions with them. This can so severely hamper your function as a nurse that I suggest that you get into a class for assertiveness training.

At our hospital, we can write the docs up if they treat us badly. They are not god and they are not at the end of the chain-of-command.

I notice that some docs will be very rude to nurses who call them because they think it'll make us stop and think twice before we call them, and we do, but they need to realize that this can also backfire in a big way on them with a bad combination of a patient who's crashing and a new or very timid nurse.

allnurses Guide · Nov 16, 2005

My hospital is just about the same ol, same ol' I guess. We have doctors here that are absolutely FANTASTIC to work with. Very friendly, very respectful of us nurses, easy to talk to on the phone... just all around great. Then we have some that are so-so. They are nice most of the time, but definately have their moments...

Then we have... three that I can think of off the top of my head, that are almost ALWAYS nasty, especially when they are called. And you know what? They don't get any respect from anyone. They just get laughed at for the most part. One of them in particular is a gastroenterologist, and just a few days ago I was taking care of one of his patients. This gentleman was refusing to drink the last half of his big bottle of NuLytely, saying that it just made him want to throw up (and he actually DID throw up once). I told the doc about this and he goes into this big tirade about how society had changed over the past ten years! Why... ten years ago you could sit a four gallon bottle of GoLytely in front of ANYONE, and they would drink it right up without question!! :rolleyes: Yeah. Sure.

Then we have this ONE doctor that is just.... God. Or at least, he thinks he is, and so do most of the nurses and unit clerks on my unit. He is actually a very good, well respected doctor and actually is rather nice, about 70 percent of the time. But when he doesn't get his way... he's like a spoiled child.

**RosesrReder, BSN, MSN, RN** · Nov 16, 2005

In eighteen years of being a nurse, I've only come across four docs that I would have loved to take to the woodshed for a beatin' due to their bad manners and rudeness towards nurses. One of those docs is a female. Another doc was rude to staff, his patients, and the patients parents.
All in all...most docs are pretty decent. They are people just like nurses, and we know the hot attitudes we come across in working with SOME nurses, and other ancillary staff, now don't we? They make me wanna drink...and I don't drink. :beer:

LOL Renee. Glad it has only been 4 :roll

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Nov 16, 2005

Some years ago, in one of the nursing journals or a seminar I took on Dealing with Difficult People, the topic of doctors shouting at nurses or having tantrums at the nursing station was addressed. The suggestion was made that a Code ___ (can't remember the name) be announced over the intercom for the members of the unit. Everyone was to come and stand around the doctor in a circle and just stare at him while he had his tirade, but say nothing as a gesture of solidarity for the nurse getting yelled at. They said it often stopped the doctors and that the sheer number of people standing around would be very intimidating to the doc. I think they also recommended laughing as you walked away from the doc. It sounds like an appropriate end to the situation anyway.

Over the years we had a few docs who would deliberately throw a chart at the desk or on the floor. Every page of the chart, of course, flew out in every direction. The suggestion was to leave it as is until the doctor picked it up himself, but sometimes that wasn't practical. I had heard of nurses that would stand forward and tell the doc to "pick that up because I'm not going to do it."

Something I came to realize after I had been in hospital supervision awhile is that doctors are far sneakier than most other employees. When they want to side step a rule or policy they are incredibly creative. I believe that most docs who have these tantrums are very much aware of the intimidating effect they have over others and use it to their advantage. They study psychology and do rotations in psychiatry during their residencies, so they are very much aware of these things. Most doctors know very well that many nurses are a little fearful of them and use and manipulate that fact to get what they want. It's childish to say the least, but once I grasped this, I have never been afraid again to go toe to toe with them.

However, it is true that back in the 60's and 70's when docs ran the hospitals, they really did have the power to fire a nurse. Times have changed. I think a lot of it has to do with the way people are chosen for seats in the medical classes. The older crowd got into medical school because they "knew" somebody, because dad was a physician, or perhaps they came from wealthy families who had donated tons of money to a school. It was a status symbol for a lot of them to go into medicine and some were forced into it by their families because it was a status thing. Currently, however, the docs going into medical schools want to be there and work hard to get in. I think that has made a big difference and accounts for the better attitudes I have seen in the younger docs.