Why is it okay for Doctors to yell at Nurses?

[GlowBear500]

I'm currently in Nursing School to get my RN license and I noticed something that is bothering me. Maybe I'm still naive, I just find it baffling to hear how it's almost seen as a given that doctors at times will be disrespectful to nurses. My professors, who are all experienced RN's, frequently comment on the fact that as a nurse you can expect to be yelled at by the doctors. In almost every lecture they will say something along the lines of "if you, as the nurse, don't do exactly what the doctor wants he will probably yell at you." What bothers me most about these comments is that nobody seems to find them shocking or is even a bit upset about it. In what other profession do you hear people talk about being yelled at in such a matter of fact way?

My other question is: why do nurses accept this kind of behavior? I've never been yelled at by a doctor but my natural reaction to somebody yelling at me would be:" I'm not sure who you think you are talking to, but you don't speak to me like this." Even if you made a mistake you could say: "I know I made a mistake but that doesn't give you the right to speak to me in this tone. We are all just human."

Maybe I'm missing something here and I hope some of you will enlighten me. What is the worst that could happen if you said something like that to a yelling doctor? He would probably think twice about yelling at you again. Please help me to understand, what are nurses afraid of?

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this from you guys. Thank you!

[Altra, BSN, RN]

Have never been yelled at, nor witnessed anyone else be the target of yelling.

Coworkers will, from time to time, be upset with you for justified or unjustified reasons, depending on your point of view. From time to time, you will in turn be upset with your coworkers for some of the same reasons. Life happens.

[Guest343211]

In my considerable time as a nurse, a doc yelling at me has been a very rare situation. I have also seen occasions where obnoxious nurses were yelling at other nurses, quite fiercely and loudly, in front of patients and family members. Shoot I have seen wacked out charge nurses do this. As hard to take as any of that is, what you see the most is stuff that is done to another nurse subversively. After all, most people don't want to openly look obnoxious and unprofessional. Their dirty needs are nasty just the same--whether open or by manipulating, bad-mouthing, or by misrepresentation behind the scenes. Ethical managers and nurses catch on; those are not as ethical rationalize the "secret" behaviors and let them slide. When you see this in your place of work, it clearly indicates very poor leadership, and to me, it's a sign to begin to look elsewhere.

As for physicians, listen, I have worked with many a tired surgeon, and still it happens relatively rarely. Of course there is always the exception to the rule.

[kim king]

There is a bullying law, where it is illegal to treat people in a bullying fashion.

In my RN career I only encountered one Doctor who was a bully, yelling, and derogatory to the staff. He even would throw ink pens at the nurses when he was upset. He tried to intimidate me, I responded with, "I truly would like to specifically understand what you would like of me, yet am finding this hard to achieve when yelled at." He smiled and did not yell at me nor throw ink pens at me.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

It's not ok. JCAHO requires that facilities have a Zero Tolerance policy for disruptive behavior:

JCAHO requires ' Zero Tolerance' for Disruptive Doctors and Administrators | Fox Rothschild LLP

I am apparently in the minority as I have been yelled at by doctors and have witnessed colleagues being yelled at by doctors. Certain doctors were known repeat offenders. I was yelled at by management way more frequently in my old job than by doctors though. I have not been yelled at since changing jobs 8 months ago though.

[T-Bird78]

One doc I worked for yelled at a nurse, and I'm talking about pointing in her face full-blown screaming, for something she didn't even do. He was frustrated (a surgical pack had been autoclaved with the wrong instruments in it, all nurses at the office sterilized the instruments so it wasn't her that did it and he had no set standard for what he wanted) and he just exploded. He never apologized but he never did it again. She just shrugged it off and the rest of us (we were all standing there telling him she didn't do it) were embarrassed for her, but we paid closer attention to his surgical packs!

I've heard it said that doctors don't have a God complex, God has a doctor complex. There are some docs that are like that but most will be fine. As others have said, they'll get annoyed or disgruntled because they're human, but most of them know how valuable we are and will treat us the same they'd want to be treated.

[DSkelton711]

I have been treated rather harshly by 1 or 2 docs. Most yelling and carrying on was handed out by patients and/or their families. That's really where most abuse comes from, IMHO.

[Guest343211]

In my considerable time as a nurse, a doc yelling at me has been a very rare situation. I have also seen occasions where obnoxious nurses were yelling at other nurses, quite fiercely and loudly, in front of patients and family members. Shoot I have seen wacked out charge nurses do this. As hard to take as any of that is, what you see the most is stuff that is done to another nurse subversively. After all, most people don't want to openly look obnoxious and unprofessional. Their dirty needs are nasty just the same--whether open or by manipulating, bad-mouthing, or by misrepresentation behind the scenes. Ethical managers and nurses catch on; those are not as ethical rationalize the "secret" behaviors and let them slide. When you see this in your place of work, it clearly indicates very poor leadership, and to me, it's a sign to begin to look elsewhere.

As for physicians, listen, I have worked with many a tired surgeon, and still it happens relatively rarely. Of course there is always the exception to the rule.

Corrections:

Should read: dirty deed, not needs.

Should read: those that are not as ethical. . .

[merlee]

Things have changed immensely in recent years. I have been screamed at, and witnessed more than a few bad behaviors over the years. This includes thrown charts, when everything was paper, and thrown phones. One doc actually hung up a wall phone so hard that it came off of the wall. But no longer - these behaviors are no longer tolerated.

Once I was floated to an area that I was not familiar with, and apparently there were some unwritten but well-known post-op protocols that the permanent staff just 'knew'. But none of them were there that day, and I did not 'know' that the patient was supposed to receive a particular antibiotic as soon as she got to floor post-op. The pt knew she was supposed to get it, but there was no order. I called to the OR, he was too busy on his next case to take the call. Despite repeated messages, it was at least 3 hours before he came to the floor and then screamed - yes, screamed - at me because she had not rec'd her med. He stormed down to the DON to demand that I be fired. Luckily, when she came up to the floor she realized that I really didn't know about his unwritten protocols. When I wrote a letter of complaint about his treatment of me, it ended up in MY personnel file, not his. That was about 30 years ago.

So glad it is different now.

[Guest343211]

It's not ok. JCAHO requires that facilities have a Zero Tolerance policy for disruptive behavior:

JCAHO requires ' Zero Tolerance' for Disruptive Doctors and Administrators | Fox Rothschild LLP

I am apparently in the minority as I have been yelled at by doctors and have witnessed colleagues being yelled at by doctors. Certain doctors were known repeat offenders. I was yelled at by management way more frequently in my old job than by doctors though. I have not been yelled at since changing jobs 8 months ago though.

I'm sorry you have had to go through that. There's probably a lot of stuff my subconscious mind has chosen to forget. It's been rare, by I have been on the receiving end of some really unprofessional, down right abusive behavior. One woman was a charge nurse in a SICU I was working in. She flipped out big time over the most inane thing, and the surgical fellow thought she was a lune. Amazingly, a number of other nurses blew this charge nurse's behavior off, b/c well, apparently they accepted it as her just being her. That's nonesense. I don't know what flipped inside her brain, but I ended up having to get the supervisor in order to get her to stop acting crazy. I don't even know if she still practices nursing. You have to know how I roll. I try to deal with each person directly, and I am not one to want to get someone in trouble or run "to the principal's office," or use situations in order to move ahead. And I have grown some tough skin. But clearly this poor woman had something else going on, and I was the recipient of her displacement. Thing is, if she had been effectively addressed on it earlier in her tenure there, rather than allowing it to be ignored, it would have been better for everyone. The patients that were out of anesthesia that heard her thought she was a chook. She, however, actually believed it was her right to behavior they way she did--in a leadership position, worse yet.

I think, however, I would rather be yelled at like that than dead with the underhanded backstabbing stuff. With the subversive stuff, people seem to avoid accountability, at least for a while. They don't tend to get the wrongness of what they are doing until it then turns around and happens to them. If we could only work this mentality out of many nursing areas, what a great thing that would be. I try to set an example. A nurse started to say negative things about someone the other day, and I changed the subject; b/c she has done this before. I was kind; but I gave her a look, and I think it made the point.

[PRICHARILLAisMISSED]

I have a question.

I see a lot of post in many topics on AN about Nurses being mistreated. Is it really so bad that it can't be brushed off (I mean mistreatment by pt's and families btw. I wouldn't put up with a coworker looking down their nose at me either)? When I was a Marine, I took a side job as a bouncer, and I had a temper back then too lol. But I immediately realized that any yelling or threatening towards me was them threatening a "Bouncer," not me personally, you know? Keep in mind I'm not saying anyone is doing anything wrong, just curious-Is the yelling from Pt's and their families really that bad?

[anotherone, BSN, RN]

I haven't heard a doctor yell. Be rude, sarcastic, snippy yes. If a doctor is annoyed and makes a rude comment about something which I was right to page about , for example, I can be just as sarcastic back. I have never seen a doctor yell or thorw charts or anything of that nature. 99% OF the yelling is from patients and their family. and in most cases you better shut your mouth because the customer is always right. If needed you can call security ( which only seems to happen if the pt is not oriented , at least where I work)l. the fully oriented are allowed to yell at staff. lol.

i think what alot of people term yelling is actually not yelling.

[NurseDirtyBird]

Can be. There are certain things you know to take with a grain of salt. You don't see people when their life is going absolutely swimmingly, you see them when they're sick and frustrated and tired and angry at the world and/or God. Then again, sometimes they cross the line. All you need is one awful day where nothing is going right and you hear, "You G-D- S-for brains nurse, you'd better get in here and GIVE ME MY ********* PAIN SHOT! IT'S BEEN 3 HOURS, 12 MINUTES AND 37, NO, 38 SECONDS SINCE MY LAST ONE!"

And then the families...they looked it up on the internet and they're positive it's whooping cough or cholera, or whatever happens to be on the front page of WebMD that day, and what's that pill you're giving her? Is that GENERIC? How dare you give their mother generic medications!

We could all write pages and pages of stuff that patients and families do that gets under our skin.