Why is it the highest paid among us...

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can never bring their own *%$# stethoscope when they round on their patients?

What is an H.O?

House officer. covering doctor for that service

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Does not bother one bit when a MD, or even another nurse, asks to bother my stethoscope. Every once in awhile I forget my shears or pen and I have to borrow from someone else.

Who cares? If you don't want to lend out your equipment then say so, I personally do not lend my cellphone to people.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
Does not bother one bit when a MD, or even another nurse, asks to bother my stethoscope. Every once in awhile I forget my shears or pen and I have to borrow from someone else.

Who cares? If you don't want to lend out your equipment then say so, I personally do not lend my cellphone to people.

You'll have to pry my iPhone from my cold, dead fingers.

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Who cares? If you don't want to lend out your equipment then say so...

Who cares: Those who've been counseled when they "said so." Or those of us that resent being told that nurses who care about their patients will hand over their stethoscope, insinuating those of us that won't hand over our equipment don't care about our patients.

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Specializes in ..

There is a huge difference between a $.49 pen or a $4.95 pair of bandage scissors and a $200.00 stethoscope. Maybe I should hand over the keys to my car so someone can avoid the raindrops while going to lunch.

It could be that employees are 'counseled' when their refusal is rude; but it seems likely that the doc got his panties in a twist because he was told 'no', then went to the nurse's supervisor and complained. And, it doesn't really matter if it is a drug rep's freebie pen or a $400.00 stethoscope--if it belongs to someone it is that person's prerogative if they want to lend it, or not.

The problem with lending things is the risk is assumed by the lender--not the borrower. None of the possibilities are favorable: you need the stethoscope when the other person has it, or they bring it back broken, or they fail to bring it back at all. When one of these things happen, the loss is on you--the owner.

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suppose a nurse routinely approached you and asked you for whatever food you had in your pocket. "i didn't have time to get groceries/the cafeteria is too expensive/i didn't have time to pack my lunch, etc. are you going to continue to fork over your food because you want to be collegial?

i don't know if you're a pa/np/md, but the bottom line is you should come to work prepared. if the nursing staff can do it, so can you. be responsible.

lol, i am nursing staff. i'm an np, and i used to be a floor nurse. i've lent my stethoscope of 5 years many times, in both roles. when i finally lost it, it just seemed inevitable (based on the transient nature of my job which i've described in previous posts). i have no suspicion that it was stolen--there are about a thousand places it could be. i've checked a handful of floors' lost-and-found, and not had any luck (though i've found dozens of other stethoscopes which lie in wait for their owners to rescue them).

as i told wooh, no need for the condescension. i understand you don't like lending your stethoscope. but it doesn't need to go any further than that.

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@ho who doesn't listen to chests every day? big mistake, bud... your subtle little s3 will be the first pick-up on impending failure, and you can be a hero by catching it. never miss a chance to auscultate a chest.

i work on a team of many residents who round on the patients in the morning. then i round by myself in the afternoon evaluating around 25-30 patients. if there is some reason to listen to a chest, i listen to a chest. mostly i am looking at wounds. thanks for the suggestion, but i don't look for heart failure in a patient who has no history and is not showing signs of heart failure.

but good on you if you do.

also, and this is not meant to be snarky but just a statement of fact--i have never been alerted to an impending pathology based on a nurses' auscultation of anything. that does not mean that i don't think nurses are quite capable. it does reflect that cardiopulmonary pathology does not tend to turn up spontaneously in my patient population without good reason (i.e., history, risk factors, or event during hospital course)--in those cases, i have already listened (or someone from my team has).

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Ugh, I only lend out my stethoscope to the hot drs. One time I let a nurse borrow it and one of my patients crashed,without my stethoscope the pt was doomed, after much searching the dietary aide found that nurse IN AN ON CALL ROOM, with one of the drs who is dating a respiratory therapist! Thank god the supervisor QUICKLY unlocked the door with the magical keys that open everything. Nothing happened to the two of them but I was councelled on never lending out my supplies again and being unprepared. ( i dunno why I felt the need to post this)

Kanzi what do you cover? urology? plastics? ent? or gen surg? I realize you said cardiopulmonary but.......................

I work nights mostly and have paged for things such as pt with increased abdominal pain, no bowel sounds, hypoactive bowel sounds, abd firm/distended etc and my pt specific things I can't remember when earlier in the day these things were not present or picked up on by the mds or nursing staff. Sometimes drs will come down order a KUB, change treatment, get a chest x ray change the course of treatment because I alerted them to something I heard.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Based on the general tone of this thread, I gather that in general nurses get irritated when they ask to have their stethoscope borrowed. I will therefore try harder to find mine or save up to replace it. And I'll buy another clip.

But Woo, you are totally disrespectful here, assuming I'm unprepared to do my job, that I "mooch" off others, that I "expect" nurses to pay for supplies so that I don't have to. Way to be awesome on a nursing board.

Don't the nurses, in general, make less than you? I think it's disrespectful for you to assume you can use other nurses equipment to perform your tasks. Do "your" residents or other members of "your" team carry one? Then you can Borrow theirs. Personally, I don't like other people using my stethoscope or using someone else's from a gross and germ aspect. I think you are being disrespectful.:nono:

I have chased many MD/NP/DO/resident/nurse/therapist for them to return my expensive stethoscope and have joked that it has Lojack for it's return. If someone wants a stethoscope..... I will hand them one of the isolation ones and encourage them to purchase their own if they wish to have a more sophisticated model.

I have assessed many heart tones in my time and I listen to the patients lungs chest as a part of MY assessment of the patient. I am called to many patients bedside in the middle of the night to assess the situation. I was just a "lowly" night supervisor on the north shore in MA for a large community hospital that performs open heart and I have had nurses call me to assess a patient that developed an S3 or murmur in the cardiac setting.

I was also a cardiac anesthesia nurse in the OR at a Harvard hospital in Cambridge and when I evaluated the open hearts pre and post op......I listened to their chests as well as assessed their lines and post anesthesia course. So, if your specialty is cardiopulmonary I am surprised that you don't take a quick listen just to be on the safe side.

My one expensive stethoscope has traveled with me from Chicago and is probably 20yeas old and refurbished many times over by the company I bought it from. I have my own pocket pulse OX as well as in a crisis one can never be found. I don't lend that either.

I am sure that you have been alerted that a patients lungs sounds are......or the abdomen is distended and the bowel sounds are.....so I think you have, somewhere along the line, been notified about change in condition from something a nurse auscultated with her stethoscope.

I am sure you didn't mean to be condescending yourself and as this is a nurse board there are many strong opinions here. We love a lively debate but like to give gentle reminders that we can agree to disagree without being disagreeable. (Gerald Ford)

Peace:D

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Specializes in ..

Who else remembers that book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? In a nutshell, these are life lessons that are incredibly simple when distilled to the basics:

  • If it's not yours, someone is doing you a favor (not an expectation) in lending it to you.
  • If you borrow something, give it back promptly and in the same (or better) condition as it was when they handed it to you.
  • You have the right to request something from another person.
  • You have the right to say 'no' to requests made by others.
  • It's nice to share.
  • It's not nice to take advantage of others.
  • If someone trieds to steal your toys the first time, don't let them do it the second time.
  • No matter what you say, it should be polite. If you can't muster 'polite' at least be civil.

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Specializes in Acute Mental Health.

Well said Esme!

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I am sure that you have been alerted that a patients lungs sounds are......or the abdomen is distended and the bowel sounds are.....so I think you have, somewhere along the line, been notified about change in condition from something a nurse auscultated with her stethoscope.

I am sure you didn't mean to be condescending yourself and as this is a nurse board there are many strong opinions here. We love a lively debate but like to give gentle reminders that we can agree to disagree without being disagreeable. (Gerald Ford)

Peace:D

I wasn't condescending. There has not been an instance in my experience where a nurse relays a finding to me that was based on his/her exam with a stethoscope that reveals to me new information about a patient. That's pretty specific. To clarify, nurses alert me to at least half of the issues that are going on with my patients. When my team passes on info to me about patients, I'm guessing that at least half of it is also coming from nursing assessments. I don't really want to say what surgical service I'm on, because I'm starting to feel conspicuous. I will say that my patients are generally not critically ill. When they DO get sick, and a nurse pages me about a sat, or behavior change, or respiratory rate, or syncope, or UOP, tachycardia, or fever, or "generally looks like he##", I am there right away. The nurses that take care of my service know the population very well--we see a lot of hematomas/VTEs/infections. Stethoscopes are not the most useful tool in diagnosing these.

I hope you don't think I've been disagreeable. I've been a bit put-off by being called a "mooch", or told I am "unprepared for work" by people that haven't met me and I've said as much. I also think I've explained my situation pretty well. I also said that I am replacing my stethoscope (!) since I truly was unaware that it bothered people so much. (I still don't think I bother the nurses I work with, but I miss subtle signs sometimes. I don't want to make my colleagues feel taken advantage of).

Also, the nurses where I work often make more than me. I'm still kinda new, I'm not in it for the money. And no one has ever offered me a free stethoscope. They give me a $5 meal coupon for the cafeteria as a Christmas bonus (think the nurses get the same). It. Is. Awesome.

;)

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