Well, I am a doctor

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Had a patient tonight who is aspirating his tube feed. His wife is FURIOUS that I would not give him 2 cans. I told her, he has a temp of 101.7, lungs are full, skin pale and clammy, he has aspiration pneumonia, I am sure of it. Sorry, cannot and will NOT give him two more cans of tube feed, he simply cannot tolerate it any longer. An hour later, his daughter from England (in the service) called and attempted to ream me out. When she found I wasn't going to back down, she threw out the "Well, I am a doctor" card. I replied, "Ma'am, I am well aware your a dentist. However I am still unclear as to how that affects this situation." She hung up on me:banghead:

let me preface this post by stating my 18yo dtr is an avid reader.

when i brought her to my dentist last year, tiff studied his face and name, then asked, "did you write a book around 30 yrs ago?"

dr. p looked at her and said "why, yes i did young lady".

tiffany blurts out, "DO YOU STILL DO MUSHROOMS????":rotfl:

evidentally he mumbled something incoherent and started the drill.

*snort*

leslie

That is amazing.

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even if the family member is a bonafide physician, PA, or NP -- they should be talking to the patient's attending -- not the RN -- even if they are credentialed by the hospital in which their loved one is a patient.

it's not legal for them to give an order -- and certainly not legal for us to carry it out. :no:

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Specializes in Infection Preventionist/ Occ Health.

Good for you! I hope that your hospital has a recognition program for nurses such as you who advocate strongly for their patients in the face of strong opposition.

I once had a patient whose mother was an attending pediatrician at our hospital. Not knowing her very well, I was initially concerned that she might throw her weight around or give me a hard time as some physicians are prone to in these situations. However, she and her husband were some of the nicest parents I've ever had the pleasure of working with. She was also very kind to the residents, CNAs, and everyone else who came into the room. We all had a tendency to run everything by her more than we would with most parents because we were aware of her background as a pediatrician. However, she never asked for more consideration than any other parent.

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Good for you! I hope that your hospital has a recognition program for nurses such as you who advocate strongly for their patients in the face of strong opposition.

I once had a patient whose mother was an attending pediatrician at our hospital. Not knowing her very well, I was initially concerned that she might throw her weight around or give me a hard time as some physicians are prone to in these situations. However, she and her husband were some of the nicest parents I've ever had the pleasure of working with. She was also very kind to the residents, CNAs, and everyone else who came into the room. We all had a tendency to run everything by her more than we would with most parents because we were aware of her background as a pediatrician. However, she never asked for more consideration than any other parent.

That is good on both sides. You ran things by her more because she would UNDERSTAND more, thus she is able to make informed decisions better then a "normal" parent.

Her attitude is also good because she treated you with the respect you deserve as a professional.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

i just love the college professors who play the "doctor" card. it's gotten so if i don't recognize them, i'll ask them "what service." usually shuts them right down. but i had one years ago admit he was on the "history service" and still want to give me orders. that sort of ended when i insisted upon "updating" him first -- i threw in as many acronyms and numbers (manufactured, of course -- wouldn't want to violate "hipaa") as i could think of and totally bamboozled him. later, i heard him out in the hall trying to convince the wife he knew what he was talking about . . . . she didn't fall for it.

"you've been talking to ruby, haven't you?" she said.

he admitted that he had been.

"well she knows a lot more than you do, so quit trying to push her around."

later she told me that she'd been wanting to do that to him for years, and bragged to all her friends about how "ruby fixed don's obnoxious department chair." i later heard that he went back to the department of history and tried to tell some of the staff there that he knew all about what was going on with don -- only he was so ignorant that everyone caught on that the numbers he was throwing around were meaningless!

congratulations to the op for having the instestinal fortitude to call her on her "doctor" status! dentists have a lot of education, and they should be able to grasp the implications of pneumonia and feeding tubes!

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Specializes in ICU, OR.

I had this happen last summer. Pt's son from out of town called the wife of the pt (pt is post cva and at home with sitters and home health) and "changed" the tube feeding orders to 1/2 tube feed and 1/2 ......Propel fitness water!!!!!! Had to explain to patient's wife that this cut his caloric intake to less than starvation rations. Found out that this oh so helpful physician son is a plastic surgeon! Ha!:lol2::lol2::lol2:

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Gosh...pulling the doctor card makes me want to barf.

Recently the dentist I work for had to go out of town for a few ways to be at the hospital with his dying grandmother. The grandma (RIP) was 88 years old...from what I understood she was basically dying of old age...her organ systems were shutting down one by one.

When he got back, he was grieving (of course)...but that didn't stop him from bragging to his staff and some of his patients for the next few days about how he pushed the nurses around and how he insisted on seeing her chart and reviewing her meds and demanded new nurses from time to time, and demanding that they call the physician after hours etc. and telling how the "doctors" would back him up when he had a concern (implying that the MD thought the dentist knew more than the nurse). Puh-lease!

He doesn't know that I am trying to go to nursing school :nurse:(yeah, if he did know he'd fire my butt in 2 seconds flat!) It all made me so disgusted with him...but I guess that was just his immature way of dealing with grief.

I have a dental patient who is a doctor of sociology and he insists on being called "Dr. so and so" ...meanwhile the couple of patients I have who are actual MDs let me call them "Jerry" or "Steven" and they are both class acts.:wink2:

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Recently the dentist I work for had to go out of town for a few ways to be at the hospital with his dying grandmother. When he got back, he was grieving (of course)...but that didn't stop him from bragging to his staff and some of his patients for the next few days about how he pushed the nurses around and how he insisted on seeing her chart and reviewing her meds and demanded new nurses from time to time, and demanding that they call the physician after hours etc. and telling how the "doctors" would back him up when he had a concern (implying that the MD thought the dentist knew more than the nurse). Puh-lease!

He doesn't know that I am trying to go to nursing school :nurse:(yeah, if he did know he'd fire my butt in 2 seconds flat!) It all made me so disgusted with him...but I guess that was just his immature way of dealing with grief.

I think, if I were you, when I graduate nursing school and handed in my resignation I would be telling him, "Remember the stuff you pulled when your grandmother was dying? Don't even think about pulling that stuff with me if our paths ever cross."

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Specializes in Peds, PICU, Home health, Dialysis.

During one of my first clinical rotations in nursing school, I was helping a nurse care for an elderly woman who was on a morphine PCA pump. Well her IV infiltrated and my nurse paged the IV team (still not sure why my nurse didn't attempt to put in a new IV herself). The patient was obviously in some pain but her vitals were not so elevated that my nurse was too worried.

15 minutes later the patients mother came roaring out of the room telling the nurse to get her mother morphine. The nurse explained she paged IV team and they would be there within 15 more minutes. The lady was upset and said "can't you give her one of those IM morphine shots? afterall, I am a doctor... OB doctor". My nurse calmly explained that to get an IM morphine injection would take at least an hour or two for pharmacy to prepare it and she wasn't going to do it because the patient had a PCA. The IV team started the new IV about 10 minutes later. I found it funny when I thought back that I had educated the daughter on her mothers condition and what a PCA pump was because she didn't know. Hmm.. some doctor. :cool:

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Specializes in neuro, ICU/CCU, tropical medicine.

It wouldn't matter if the person on the other end of the phone was an MD. Physicians can be just as clueless as anyone else.

Besides, she/he is not writing orders and therefore is not putting her/his license on the line. If something bad happens, it's your fault and no one else's.

In other words, "So what?"

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This post has really made me laugh, I used to teach Dentist's in the UK as they were part of our teaching hospital. Taught them emergency care and first aid.

Let's just say I am not surprised, there were a few that were great but I had such a hard time from the majority of them because I, a nurse dared to try to teach them Dental Surgeons anything.

Not sure what your dentists are like but they are a law unto themselves here. :D :D :D :D

When I was in pharmacy school, I had several classes with dental students. You know those kids in high school that nobody really liked but people hung around with them because it was cool to be seen with them?

I don't know about other dental school classes, but that's what a lot of them were like.

:bowingpur or so they thought.

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During one of my first clinical rotations in nursing school, I was helping a nurse care for an elderly woman who was on a morphine PCA pump. Well her IV infiltrated and my nurse paged the IV team (still not sure why my nurse didn't attempt to put in a new IV herself). The patient was obviously in some pain but her vitals were not so elevated that my nurse was too worried.

15 minutes later the patients mother came roaring out of the room telling the nurse to get her mother morphine. The nurse explained she paged IV team and they would be there within 15 more minutes. The lady was upset and said "can't you give her one of those IM morphine shots? afterall, I am a doctor... OB doctor". My nurse calmly explained that to get an IM morphine injection would take at least an hour or two for pharmacy to prepare it and she wasn't going to do it because the patient had a PCA. The IV team started the new IV about 10 minutes later. I found it funny when I thought back that I had educated the daughter on her mothers condition and what a PCA pump was because she didn't know. Hmm.. some doctor. :cool:

The OBs where I work all order PCAs; it's a standing order for c-sections but they also order them during labor for fetal demises and women who cannot have an epidural for whatever reason. Of course, they are also ordered for their GYN surgical patients as well.

My dad has some health problems, and he's compiled lists of various classes of drugs (bouncing them off me, of course) and then goes to his doctors and asks for them. Drives them crazy and me too. No, I don't recommend this or that; I simply answer his questions about them.

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