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.
Good for you. For too long, nurses have been on the receiving end of doctors' arrogance. For some reason, some doctors believe they have the right to abuse and denigrate nurses - it is workplace bullying and should not be tolerated. Shame on your manager for not supporting her staff.
Don't get mad; get even. Open warfare with a physician is always a losing proposition for a nurse so be sneaky: Buy some bird seed and spread it liberally all over his car in the physician's parking lot. Then every time you see him, you'll smile.
And in the heat of the moment, I agree with ktwlpn: lower your voice in direct proportion to how much he raises his. He'll have to strain to hear your response and the wrong people won't be able to hear what you said. Once he figures out that getting louder isn't working for him, he'll quiet down.
Whatever the circumstances, it does not give the doctor the right to humiliate her in front of 15 other people. If he felt slighted, he should have met with her and the manager somewhere private and discussed the issue there. There are very few workplaces where that sort of behaviour is condoned and hospitals should not be any different.
Who amongst the working RN's hasn't been in this very situation?
I know I have. And I know what I said to the pt. I said, " Are you listening to Dr. So&so?" , etc.
And who amongst us, hasn't had a jerk reaction from another RN or Doc? I know I have had that too. And done it as well, I'm certain!
Sometimes we react just right, and other times we react poorly.
The OP ought to be able to come back here and report which it seems to be. And what I mean is this; If she overreacted, she'll be told so and it'll appear or manifest-itself that way in the work environment. If she reacted poorly, BUT it seems to have calmed the Doc down towards her and others, then that should also come to light in succeeding days/weeks.
So yes, sometimes at first blush it will appear that we reacted poorly and we may in fact have, but there also can be positive outcomes from the darnedest things.
Secondarily, much of this discussion comes under the subtle and hidden subheading of: Manipulation.
Very very few of us cannot be manipulated. I know I can. Give me a compliment and watch :)
And the same it goes for others in and out of the work place. I admit to using that over the course of time. Especially when it serves me. When in nursing-shoes, serving me means serving my pt.
I tended to have better relationships with Doc's vs. Nurses.
And the reasons are many. I traveled, so there's that (You travel nurses know what I mean).
Also I tended to get along with folks that were secure in themselves too, no matter their job.
And as for the Doc's. . .a kind word goes a long way.
So OP, follow thru with your PIE note here and give us an eval of the outcome.
I am amazed to read all these postings coming from nurses that support bullying. What happened to this free country? Freedom of speech??? If more nurses will stand up for themselves, maybe, we will be respected and appreciated for the hard work and dedication for our patients, and bullying will be eliminated. Nurses should be united no matter what.
We all make mistakes because we are humans and making mistakes differentiate us from robots. Who never made a mistake, please, throw first that rock! When everybody will learn to behave as a professional, then, you should be blamed for standing up for yourself.
I had a similar situation when I was doing clinical rotation at Mom & Baby. The lactation consultant had just talked with the mom about breastfeeding etc. The mom asked me a question totally unrelated to breastfeeding (it was about laundry detergent). I answered the mom with what I used when my babies were little...I was asked to leave the room by the lactation consultant, she also left the room. She dragged my clinical instructor into the hallway and reamed us both out! I relayed the information to the clinical instructor, and I told the lactation consultant she had no right to disrespect me....she began another tirade, calling me "uneducated" etc. My clinical instructor calmly told this woman she needed to "behave in a more professional manner" and we both left. I was told later that the lactation consultant tried to write me up, but instead she was written up by my clinical instructor.
I had the rest of the shift to spend with the mom, so once the lactation consultant left, we discussed breastfeeding, bottlefeeding, etc. The mom never wanted to breast feed, as she had to return to work (in a chicken processing plant)...pumping would be near impossible.
Now that I've been an RN for 3 years, I've only seen this type of unprofessionalism once, during a code between the RT and the doc running the code. It got ugly before it got better.
We no longer tolerate that behavior where I work, no matter who is involved (family or patient to doc, rn etc, doc to rn, rn to rn, etc.)
Don't get mad; get even. Open warfare with a physician is always a losing proposition for a nurse so be sneaky: Buy some bird seed and spread it liberally all over his car in the physician's parking lot. Then every time you see him, you'll smile.
And in the heat of the moment, I agree with ktwlpn: lower your voice in direct proportion to how much he raises his. He'll have to strain to hear your response and the wrong people won't be able to hear what you said. Once he figures out that getting louder isn't working for him, he'll quiet down.
This reminds me of some secret revenge I once indulged in. We had a temperamental nurse anesthetist who loudly reamed me out at the nurses station in the morning, yelling from 20 feet away, all because I called him in the night appropriately. He was well known for his temper tantrums.
I was discussing this with the house supervisor sometime in the week after. We were looking through magazines and I was pulling out those subscription cards that are so annoying. I laughingly mentioned that you can send in those cards to subscribe to magazines, then they bill you later. She pulled out a phone book and we looked up said offender's address, LOL.
Somebody just may have had over twenty magazines arrive in the mail that month.
There are laws about workplace violence and if he truly came storming at you like that and yelling, he is being aggressive and abusive. If it is as you say - both your behavior and his - then your charge should have recognized that. It is best to be calm - been there myself and I know it isn't easy. Problem is in some hospitals they are still seen as the money makers - of course without nurses, there wouldn't be any hospitals either.
My favorite revenge was on a thoracic resident who was a complete horse's ass. After a run in with him, I decided to have some fun at his expense. I was a night nurse so paging somebody at 0400 wasn't a problem for me. It is pretty much the peak of the physiological lull most people experience when they are least alert.
Anyway, back in those days you could get any number in the the hospital by dialing just the last four digits in their phone number. So I paged this jerk to 9911 a few times in the wee hours of the morning, trusting that he'd fall for it more than once due to exhaustion.
9 got him an outside line; 911 got him the police emergency dispatcher. I doubt they were nearly as amused as I was. And I was...quite a bit.
Thank you for standing up not only for yourself but, implicitly, for the entire nursing profession. And by that I mean the class of self-respecting, confident, assertive, autonomous and yes, even iconoclastic nurses. As for the sanctimony of your critics, they belong to the dare-nots by whom history is never written, a drag in the struggle of nursing to become a more dignified, truly autonomous profession. In my 20 years of nursing I've never seen a doctor be abusive to another doctor, physical or occupational therapist, or pharmacist. Yet, too many doctors (only the most insecure ones I'm sure) seem to see it as their god-given right to be disrespectful to nurses. Not acceptable. Ever.
Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.
I had to stop reading after 2 pages because I was so disgusted with some of these responses and they show why nurses get so little respect from their employers and MD's.
The O/P was absolutely right to calmly and professionally tell this MD they were not being respectful and until they were she would not be able to have a dialogue. The MD was clearly out of line. The patient isn't to be ignored and the nurse "shouldn't speak". Seriously?
The saddest part is that the charge and other fellow nurses are acting like the OP did something wrong.
Croweater
10 Posts
Good for you. For too long, nurses have been on the receiving end of doctors' arrogance. For some reason, some doctors believe they have the right to abuse and denigrate nurses - it is workplace bullying and should not be tolerated. Shame on your manager for not supporting her staff.