Reading through the posts this morning I read something about cardiologists being hard to work with. For most of my nursing career I have worked with obstetricians and gynecologists and find the majority of them easy to work with. The specialist group I loath working with are orthopedic surgeons. In the few years I worked on a general med surg unit and had to deal with these guys I found them very hard to work with. The two worst of the worst would stand in the hall and bellow at nurses and one of them would stand right outside of pts rooms and very loudly scream at nurses about how "undesirable" the pt was and how he would never "get paid a dime for taking care of such trash." Also, he would scream and swear at me each time I called him and once he let the phone ring over 50 times....I can be persistent when I need to...before he answered the phone with "what the hell do you want now!"
Am I being skewed on my perception of ortho docs because of my bad experiences with them?
Who are your favorite and least favorite types of docs to work with? Just curious!
I work in a clinic as primary nurse for a general surgeon. He and his partners are extremely nice and good to work with. I do know, however, the nurses at the hospital see a side we usually don't.
I have found the cardiologists to be a bit high maintenance. In general I agree good and bad is spread evenly through the specialties.
Good point about seeing the different sides of someone...many of the surgeons I've worked with are great to the OR staff but I've heard stories about them on the floors. I've also had run ins with hospitalists and internists who were rude to the OR staff, but supposedly nice as pie to the floor nurses. I agree with the person that said you have to demand to be treated with respect...many of these arrogant docs will back right down if you stand up to them.
one doc that i work with everyday checks to see what color my socks are, and if they are in contrast with my scrubs. things bother him, like if i dont wear my hair the same way, or if one of the nurses takes her glasses off. he doesnt adapt to any kind of change at all.
Awww, he's got Asperger's!
In my experience, the most difficult to deal with are the surgery residents on their peds rotation. By the time they get to be fellows/attendings, they're usually okay. But when they're doing their month of peds, oh boy, do they think they're fancy. Leavin' charts out, snotting at the peds interns, sighing heavily when told that RNs don't do silo dressing changes...
i am a firm believer that you are treated the way you expect to be treated. i have worked with many doctors that other nurses had problems with and i can honestly say that i did not. all of my experience has left me with a "i will treat you with respect and i will receive the same from you" attitude. nurses need to own how important their positions are and how sometimes, their demeanor invites misuse from others. i tolerated no abuse from anyone and was my biggest supporter.
i hear many nurses complaining about how they are being treated by others and yet, i do not see them doing anything about it. stand up for yourself and express your dislike of certain treatment. taking your power back over your situation is very liberating and contagious.
if i could pass on any bit of info to young nurses it would be : this is your life to do with as you see fit; either mold it to your needs or move on and try another life style. never allow someone to treat you in any way that makes you feel uncomfortable or unappreciated. you are not helpless, you can do something. you always have a choice.
beautifully written and great advise. the only physycians that i've really become upset with were the ones who childishly threw something at me. i always through it back and told them my children behaved better than they were at that moment. thanks for the positive message!
I find myself constantly reminding myself of the old saying; "you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar..." You really have a chance to create the environment you are in. You can do it by standing up in a professional manner, or by treating a doc as you would want to be treated.
I actually once got a doc to apologize for snapping at me with a simple, silent raise of one eyebrow. That was sort of awesome.
But what Steve and several others upthread have said seems to be true: some of the time you can avoid problems by how YOU choose to interact with people. We have a surgery fellow who many people think is a big jerk, but I just play right back with him and we have a really good working relationship. Several of the interns who have huuuuuge problems with many nurses ended up coming to me and telling me how scared and stupid they felt. We had one girl who was a little overwhelmed, but pretty nice and doing ok. Then one night a kid started to go bad, and the nurse (who most of the other nurses can't stand at all, because she's neither pleasant to be around nor a particularly good/safe nurse) was so horrible to her that for the rest of her time on our unit she was an insufferable beast. We broke that doctor. Now, is it fair that she was awful to ALL the nurses just because of ONE? No, of course not. But we can all try not to be the one who makes a decent, if wobbly, intern into a nurse-hating attending.
Specializes in Recovery (PACU)-11 yrs, General-13yrs.
Orthopods who think they are neurosurgeons are the worst.
yup, that was ours too, he reckoned he indulged in "recreational orthopedics" as a break from spinal surgery! There was just too many times that he opened his mouth and proved he was the wa..er we all thought he was.
Funny thing was, that those that knew his family said he was just like his father!!!
Seems to me that general surgeons yell the loudest.
I'm totally over the doc yelling at me thing.
One general surgeon called me from OR to yell at me because where was the patient, this was an emergency, and on and on he ranted.
Funny, the telephone developed a terrible connection and unfortunately, we got cut off.
I didn't call him back because I was trying to prep a patient for surgery, and it was an emergency.
I wasn't able to even read the chart to find out what had been done because the GI doc had it for over an hour. Maybe I should've referred the surgeon's tirade to him?
Oh, but no, docs don't yell at each other, only nurses. :angryfire
Oh, but no, docs don't yell at each other, only nurses. :angryfire
Actually, they do . . . if you were a fly on the wall during their meetings with each other.
I've only seen one time where a doc lost his temper in public with another doc and that was when the (liberal) doc was making fun of the supposed lack of intellect of soldiers volunteering in the military during this current war . . the (conservative) doc didn't yell but angrily disagreed with the former doc and let him have it.
I loved rounds in the morning - listening to the docs talk about politics or current events at the nurses' station. Very interesting because we had one very liberal "lapsed" Catholic, one libertarian "cowboy", one Jewish liberal, one conservative "lapsed" Christian, one Seventh-Day Adventist, one agnostic, one Reservist . . . .it made for great conversations.
Honestly, ever since I can remember I have stood up to bullies. I was brought up in a family where you either stood up for yourself or got swallowed up in the whole "Southern Lady thing". I was also in the service where one was expected to speak one's mind in a respectful manner. I can say that I have always stood up to overbearing doctors, nurses, managers, etc., and have come away from these encounters feeling good about myself. Granted, I have suffered some repercussions due to some conflicts but never anything that I could not handle or live with. I know that we all face a time in our lives where we must put ourselves and dignity in first place and it is not always an easy thing to do. And when I left nursing, I had the reputation of being honest, people knew where I stood, and I was sought out frequently for advice and evaluations. I am honest but not mean and I use as much tact as needed in touch situations. BUT I never back down when my principles or my patients' well being are at risk. Guess I have reached the age and experience where I truly don't care what others think as long as I like myself. Nice place to be.
My experience has been skewed, but then that's normal. Everyone's different. Cardiologists get consults on just about everything, so they do have to deal with a little of it all.
My bad experiences haven't been all bad. In general if I've smarted off and told a doc what I think, while at the same time doing everything I can possibly do for the patient, the relationship tends to improve. Of course there are exceptions! And of course, there is the odd chance that me saying what I think will just make that person decide I'm the queen of incompetent nurses, but that's outside the norm.
Generally I like hospitalists better than God. They listen and answer. (God, you know what that comment is about so just behave yourself.)
I'm fond of cardiologists 'cause my first job was tele so I just relate better to them no matter how they act. I view surgeons warily and they have to prove their ability to deal with humans as such, but that's now due to my current job. Any doc with nobody to cover his call time is going to be someone you don't wanna call, but you know, he could have coverage if he'd look for it. Not my problem!
What I like: Hospitalists, people who might have the chance at getting enough sleep once in a while, people who listen to me after they vent, people who didn't forget the words "thank you", people who believe the facts and observations that I'm telling them and don't argue with me over whether Mr. X's belly has turned blue at 3 am after vomiting all night, when I've been trying to get him to answer a phone for over two hours. I like folks who will take half a second to say why when they say no to a request. "No because of ----- side effect" is fine, it teaches me one more thing to be aware of next time. The doc who looks at a reference when faced with something tricky and has a discussion between me, the pharmacy and the lab about whether this test/drug combo is available gets kudos every time, especially when it turns out that it works really well and he thanks us.
I don't like people who automatically assume I'm stepping on their precious time/feelings every single time I pick up the phone. I also don't like devious people or those who talk about me behind my back. Tell me what you think and then shut up, please! Don't tell the patient's family that the nurses let their granddad go into respiratory failure, especially if you didn't know that the nurses have done everything short of having the attending arrested in order to get him to come see the patient while you were busy performing surgery on someone else. Seriously. Because the point where a person acts like that, is the point where the nursing service as a whole no longer has his back and could care less if the patients families know what we think of him.
Great, now I've gone and gotten mad on my off day. Argh.
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GadgetRN71, ASN, RN
1,841 Posts