So, about two weeks ago I had a very unpleasant interaction with my patients primary provider. I was in the patients room with him and they were talking about the care plan, when the patient directly asked me a question. It was nothing medical related, and not anything relevant to what they had been talking about, but I answered the question. I then went to the nursing station to chart while they continued. The doctor came raging out and started to yell at me for undermining him in there. This is in front of about 15 people. According to him, I should not even talk when he is in with a patient. In the middle of his rant. I interrupted him and frankly said, " There is no reason for you to be so disrespectful towards me, and if there is anything else you need to let me know, feel free once you decide to behave like a professional." and left. I was later pulled aside by my charge (who witnessed the entire thing) and told that it was unprofessional for me to "point" and raise my voice in front of everyone.
I just cannot believe that I was pretty much being told not to stand up for myself.
The MD probably had little time to spend with the patient while rounding, even if the patient started the conversation with you, perhaps the best thing to do is tell him you would address that question after the doctor was done. You calling him out as being "unprofessional" only added fuel to the fire. Perhaps it would have been best to ask him to step into your supervisors office to continue the conversation there. Or say "Dr.so and so, I see you are very upset, perhaps we can discuss this at a different time.
Your approach can only leave you in a bad light to the MD, your supervisor and coworkers.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Your charge nurse was there; we weren't. So I'll take your charge nurse's view that you WERE, in fact, inappropriate. Remember that you have to work with these guys -- raising your voice and pointing (in public, no less) is not the way to forge a good working relationship.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
The patient asked me about how he was going to be transferred to the long term facility he was going to be transferred to. I explained to him that ems will come and prepare him for transport and he will be transferred in an ambulance. The doctor was literally mad because I talked while he was in the room. Me talking was undermining him. I guess he wanted to explain that maybe?? I don't know.
I don't think the main issue in this particular case, is you talking while he was in the room. It was a bit rude (though not unusual) for the patient to interrupt the doctor conveying important information to ask you a relatively unimportant question.
Perhaps this patient changing the subject midstream gave him the impression the patient wasn't listening, which means the patient is at high risk for being a "the doctor never told me that" patient.
If he has an established pattern of publicly humiliating nursing staff, your facility should have a policy for complaints of that nature. It may not mean anything in places that condone that behavior from medical staff, but it's worth trying if the alternative is putting yourself on your charge nurse's radar. Whether it's unconscious or not, any minor issues you may have going forward will be filtered through it.
Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
I think you should stand up for yourself when necessary. I didn't hear that the physician put you down though. I got that he yelled, was angry, and felt that you undermined him. If he called you names or put you down in some other way, I think you should stand up for yourself.
In addition to pointing and raising your voice I also think you should not have spoken over the doc and said "once you decide to behave like a professional." This is a demeaning way to speak to someone and is in fact unprofessional. You should seek to maintain a civil relationship to facilitate communication. You do this for the patients.
A better way is to listen through the raised voice and anger at what the doctor wants. Repeat it back to him in your own words so that you get it yourself and you show him that you get it. If you can give him what he wants, do it. If you can't or shouldn't give him what he wants tell him you won't and tell him why, politely and with confidence.
Example: "I see that you don't want me to answer a patient's non medical questions while you are in the room because it wastes time. Next time I will explain that you have important information and excuse myself." or "I see that you are upset that I talked to the patient while you were in the room. I don't see how I could have avoided that situation as the patient had a question for me."
If the doctor was posting I would suggest that he take a deep breath and use as civil a tone as possible before expressing a complaint, for the same reasons. But he's not here.
Sometimes you gotta do the right thing even when someone else doesn't.
Specializes in Med Surg, Cardiac Telemetry, Pulmonary.
No, you didn't do anything wrong but you know how hospital politics go...the doctors are "never wrong". I am a PCT and in my case the RN or DR. is never wrong. it's a chain of command type of thing. I do know of a RN that went to HR on a Dr. before and he was written up and she still has her job so there was no retaliation in her case but She is in a position that she doesn't need her job, she just chooses to work.. I don't know your situation but My advice to you is to pray about it and let it work it's self out. God sees all!! If this Dr. was so quick to ly off the handle over something so simple, he's bound to do it again!! I am so sorry that THAT Dr. disrespected you! Please don't let it effect your work ethic!!:)
As others have said, when the pt. stops his/her conversation with the doctor, the best response would be "we will talk about that after the doctor is done." I can see the doctor's point of view. I know there have been times that I am speaking with a nurse/PCT/secretary about something work related, and they go off on a tangent before the topic at hand is finished. This can be frustrating, so I am not surprised that the doctor was upset about the interruption of an important conversation.
However, the doctor was totally out of line to yell at you and embarrass you in front of others; it would have been inappropriate to yell at you, even if it was not in front of others. While he may have been frustrated (and had a right to be frustrated) about the interrupted conversation with the patient, there is absolutely no defense for how he treated you.
Finally, I think you, the OP, realize that you did not handle your response to him in the best manner. There is never a reason to raise your voice back and/or point at someone in anger. I like what some said earlier--just stand there, look strong--people will realize that you are the one being professional that the doctor is one being unprofessional. If you still feel like you need to speak with the doctor about the situation, allow a cooling off period and speak with him later in private.
OP, you were not being reprimanded on standing up for yourself, you were being reprimanded for raising your voice and pointing. It is extremely unprofessional. Pointing at someone is very bad manner as well as unprofessional. Do you remember the old phrase, Didn't your mama ever teach you not to point? It's because it's considered bad manners. You need to look at what your charge nurse said to you. I think you were probably still angry from him yelling at you, and still are, and not really hearing what was being said. That or I'm assuming you were never taught manners growing up. But seeing as how you managed to get hired as a nurse, I'm sure you were taught proper manners.
Should the doctor have yelled at you in the hallway? No, not at all. But the way you responded to the situation makes both of you at fault here. You may have seen the doctor get in some hot water if you had responded appropriately. The charge nurse may have taken the situation up the ladder and that may have fixed this situation. Maybe the doctor would have walked away, cooled down, realized he was a jerk, and come back and apologized to you. You will never know now because I am sure you made him even more angry.
I would go back to the charge nurse and apologize for my unprofessional behavior and that you learned a good lesson out of this that there were better ways to assert yourself when that doctor was yelling at you. I'm not telling you to stand there and take it. I'm telling you there was a better way of doing it.
I'm disappointed that so many nurses here are supporting his Special Snowflake-ness, completely ignoring his unjustified raging in front of so many people.
Your charge nurse was there; we weren't. So I'll take your charge nurse's view that you WERE, in fact, inappropriate. Remember that you have to work with these guys -- raising your voice and pointing (in public, no less) is not the way to forge a good working relationship.
As if yelling at a nurse in front of 15 people over answering a patient's question with a doctor in the room is a way to forge good working relationships.
Docs walk in, don't say a peep to the nurse, interrupt patient teaching, med pass, etc., and don't bother apologizing.
teamwork in healthcare is so dysfunctional, and this just perpetuates it.
Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
As if yelling at a nurse in front of 15 people over answering a patient's question with a doctor in the room is a way to forge good working relationships.
Docs walk in, don't say a peep to the nurse, interrupt patient teaching, med pass, etc., and don't bother apologizing.
teamwork in healthcare is so dysfunctional, and this just perpetuates it.
TEAMWORK in healthcare????Brouhaha....there is no TEAmWORK in healthcare!!!It's every man for himself....And the people who earn the most money for themselves and the hospital are at 're top of the food chain
Yeah, pointing, raising your voice, and talking over someone is rude. It's pretty low on the continuum - you could have spit on him, or told him where he could put his stethoscope, or driven your thumbs into his eyeballs. So, you did something a little unprofessional. Try to learn from it.
The MD sounds like a jerk (assuming everything happened as described). Anyone who expects me to be silent when they walk in the room has a rude awakening in store for them. I'm not a physician's accessory, like a pen light, that turns on and off when they want.
You'd be pretty hard pressed to find a conversation that was totally unrecoverable after what sounds like an extremely short interruption. If the patient was so tense they needed to break the tension by asking an irrelevant question they probably weren't absorbing anything anyway (called the Yerkes-Dodson law). If they weren't paying attention because they were internally preoccupied with how they were getting back to the facility they probably weren't listening... you see where I'm going with this. Additionally, I bet everyone has been interrupted a million times while doing patient education. You know how many times I've had to start over diabetic teaching, which is pretty f-ing important, because the MD, or PT, or SLP, or CNA walks in and interrupts? If you don't go into a boiling rage every time the vocera interrupts your patient teaching, you should expect the physician to have the same control of his faculties.
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Michnurse03
21 Posts
The MD probably had little time to spend with the patient while rounding, even if the patient started the conversation with you, perhaps the best thing to do is tell him you would address that question after the doctor was done. You calling him out as being "unprofessional" only added fuel to the fire. Perhaps it would have been best to ask him to step into your supervisors office to continue the conversation there. Or say "Dr.so and so, I see you are very upset, perhaps we can discuss this at a different time.
Your approach can only leave you in a bad light to the MD, your supervisor and coworkers.