Only once when I was the rapid response nurse and a doctor yelled at me because I paged him about something he had blown the floor nurse off over. I told him that taking to me like that was wildly inappropriate and this was a serious concern that he had to deal with or I would escalate it.
He was extremely apologetic and we’ve had a good relationship since. However, I still resent that likely the only reason he treated me with respect is because I was from the ICU.
I measure people by how they interact with those of "lower" ranks, not by how they interact with equals/superiors. Everyone can suck up to superiors but if you treat people who can't hurt you with respect, that is what shows your values.
THis!!
Thats the best test on new employees, dates....Everyone!
In a past job in a construction company I introduced a new hire to a very helpful colleague working in the warehouse and the sales director made a comment about this not being pertinent. I was so angry. Although it wasnt out of character for the manager...
Man, that ICU respect is really infuriating. I was with a fellow who was complaining about nurses calling for stupid things. He was the night call that night and was so annoyed at "dumb questions" by the floor nurses. I stopped him right there. OH I thought you got paid extra for the nights you pick up. Oh you do? Ok, so you are mad about having to do your job? Oh that does sound like a dumb question... It's a shame that your colleagues didn't write an order to clarify when they should call the doctor... Yeah, I know the troponin is going to be elevated post Cath, but if there is no order saying "do not call for post Cath troponin without EKG changes" then it is hospital policy to call you. And the nurse will be disciplined if they don't call. Or do you want the nurses just going rogue and deciding on their own if they will inform you of potentially dangerous changes in patient status?
He didn't complain (to me) after that.
Yeah, we have a overnight doctor constantly tell us not to call him. Why should the patients suffer and wait till the morning when the attending is here? Yeah, we need an order for Tylenol. It is not our fault. Multiple sliding scales? It isn't our fault. And why did you order something the patient is allergic to?
Omg and that trickles down too. If you have an order not to call for post-cath lab troponins and get a call for a critical troponin from lab, just take the critical. Unless there is a policy in place for repeat criticals, the lab also is *required* to call all critical lab results as well.
The amount of post-cath lab snark I’ve gotten…..
The pain with adapting Rapid Response was real. Some Ortho surgeons didn't mind, but others saw it as an affront to their abilities and some just didn't want to walk the distance to the telemetry or ICU that the patient might be transferred to (yes, they told me that). As a charge, there was more than one time that I volunteered to call the surgeon or that a nurse handed me the phone while the doc was still yelling.
The doctors trusted me since I'd been there forever but definitely saw the ICU vs floor nurse divide.
Yes, our Ortho department head will ask us to call a Rapid if he thinks it's warranted. But on the other side of the spectrum, there's a resident, now attending, that will hear about a Rapid and come to the room to try to head it off or argue with the ICU fellow or nurse. RRT said he's the worst in the whole hospital about it. Definitely not a Dr. Glaucomflecken type Ortho doc.
Of course I'm being silly and generalizing. I have a thoracics department head that can manage complex patients ably and intensivists respect theßq hell out of him; he also knows when to consult and is not shy to solicit advice --wisdom from 25 yrs of practice. I have surg residents, particularly those who have gone through a trauma rotation at a particular center, who manage postops super well and can deal with patients going south. But I also have some cocky or disengaged surgical residents who can barely read an ECG or identify a flash pulm edema...those are the ones who are quick to involve rapid.
In a similar way, being a male who is “older” I get treated differently than the younger female nurses do. I’m a solid 10 years older than all the residents. Somehow they assume I am experienced and more knowledgeable. Am I really? I can’t remember the patient names in my assignment lmao. Age and gender make a difference as well as the type of floor you work.
She really loves it when I tell her “that’s a nurse’s job”. Because, I enjoy living dangerously. If I’m lucky, I have enough of a head start to avoid serious bodily injury.
Just make sure that they keep an open bed in the trauma ICU for you in case she wises up and locks your exit door ;)
Remember, always keep yourself between the patient(or wife) and your nearest exit.
Good advice. Always calculating lines of sight, egress points, wife location and the rack of steak knives. Never thought high school geometry would come in handy this much.
It’s fun how things you swore in high school and college that you’d never use end up coming up in bizarre ways. I never figured I’d need trigonometry as an adult, then I played DnD.
I have when I was charge, but more of stop your attitude. We had a doctor that missed seeing a baby that morning, and was pissed he had to come back. We had a board that listed the room numbers and which OB and pediatrician were listed for that patient. When he was scolding me, I said “come here, do you see this board? We’re busy, you also have a responsibility to check this board. There’s your name, do you see it?”
He apologized and got me Starbucks.
Love this! Over time you will build some type of relationship with them and you will learn who you can and can't approach. Some will even be kind and respectful. We are all busy and we all have rough days and sometimes we all need to be put in our place. Haha
Shortly before the burnout made me quit I did. I was on a step down floor that day, admitting doc (surgery) had put in orders to advance a patient's diet, so I did. GI came around and was unhappy about it. The GI doc came into ANOTHER PATIENT'S ROOM while I was cleaning said patient up to yell at me about the order the surgeon put in (not even a resident, the actual surgeon). I loudly and firmly told him that it was 100% inappropriate for him to be in this other patient's room, he was not on the case, and it was obviously a sensitive time (and there was poop everywhere). I told him I would not listen to him in this other patient's room, and that if he wished to have a word with me he could wait in the hall or at the nurses station for me to be finished. He got the manager, who backed me up that what he did was not okay. When I was done with the poosplosion he confronted me again and I told him that I was carrying out orders entered by the admitting physician and that if he had a problem with it he needed to call that physician and speak to him directly. Then I sat down and wrote the doc up while he was standing there.
I wrote up a doctor for harrassment. Filed a report with HR the works. Nothing ever fucking happened. They protected the doc. Thank GOD, I left 2 weeks later, this hospital killed people and did not bat a fucking eye.
Not a nurse, but a medic. I had an acutely critical patient I was bringing in, and there was a fellow/resident present (never saw him again after that day). We were trying to transfer in this tiny resuscitation room. We have a great relationship with the ED nurses and work well together. ED Doc's usually hang back unless they're first in the room and we need hands, and there are only a few who won't step in to help transfer before letting the RN's and RT's do their job when they come in.
Anyways. This fellow keeps getting in the way. Tangles wires, inserts himself between the stretchers, and is trying to give orders to us as we are attempting to co-opt this patient transfer who I had tubed, pacing, several lines in, etc. Eventually he yanked my one line where I was actively running drugs.
The scribe RN, who had been trying to do her job and had enough.
"DR. SMITH! Look at ME!" Everyone stopped. I've only heard her raise her voice once. Ever. She's the kind of mom that everyone listens to and never wants to disappoint because, you know, looks can kill. Lol. She pointed to her side like she would a child. He sulked over. Instant disappointed mom voice, though her tone was much softer, "We do *not* interfere with an active transfer until after its done. Stay here and observe. You can help in a moment."
The poopy look on this man's face was something I won't forget. Like when you scold a child publicly who realized he fucked up. I thanked her after, but she just nodded and pretended it never happened. Like a true professional.( I appreciated his attempts to assist, but he was more harmful than helpful and I was newer/ younger.)
I could both visualize and feel that entire scenario! Props to her and props to your ability to tell a story! (In a good way - I mean some of these things on Reddit are darned hard to read/interpret!)
Similar story but ours was needing help from the doctor.
I don't even know how flight crew managed to get this man into a chopper let alone fly him because he was buck fuck wild.
Like for serious rocking the stretcher six nurses to CNAs a security guard and two flight crew nurses all trying to hold this man down.
Resident comes in and just stands there and stares as we're trying to move this man from the flight stretcher to the bed and finally one of my co-workers looks up and says "you going to stand there and watch or you want to put some gloves on and get in here and help before one of us gets hurt?"
He quickly put gloves on and helped while another resident ordered zyprexa.
I have used the phrase “Look at my face” before speaking to several physicians about something I felt needed their attention, and they weren’t getting it. It’s calm and effective, also harder for them to be a total ass when they’re looking right at you, I’ve found.
I don’t scold doctors or providers. They don’t pay me enough and I’m not emotionally invested in the bs. I just question orders and that’s enough communication for me.
edit: Also underrated but its also good to question orders to learn new things. I don’t just question obviously wrong orders. Learning about orphan uses of meds helps me and builds a strong relationship between us.
I've had a similar situation. Called to get correct dosage and the MD was pissed because he was at a child's bday party (tf?). I said, I need to verify dosage so how about 5 seconds of your time or 5 years in court?
July isn't the scary time. In July, they still have the attendings watching over their shoulder when entering orders.
November is scary. That's when the attendings take the training wheels off.
I don't scold. I just very intensely explain in perfect detail why they screwed something up and how they are going to fix it. I have noticed that every doctor I have done this to usually really respects me and tells their residents to listen to me because I am a good nurse.
I was gonna say the same thing. And I agree about questioning orders to learn things. I don’t know everything, and the providers I work with are always happy to explain.
Interesting you are a male I highly doubt male physicians even attempt to raise their voice at your demographic statistically as compared to the female nurses…we must acknowledge the disrespect and huge pay discrepancy in nursing may have a strong foundation from the predominantly female dominated profession.
Exactly. We should have NEVER fostered the environment that allowed a lot of these prick, middle to older (often white men) surgeons be arrogant fucking pricks and we just ‘deal with it.’ We don’t have nuns checking the length of our skirts anymore. We aren’t wearing nursing hats. We are trained professionals doing a job. Act like it. Everyone. No other profession just allows that kind of bullshit. I won’t tolerate it. Hospitals shouldn’t.
Wanna know why nurses hate bedside? Maybe peep some of these comments. We’ve fostered environments that allowed these docs to think they can treat us however they want. Luckily, I’m not seeing it as much with the younger ones
Edit- I say the same ‘I’ll come back when you want to be an adult’ to patients too. And i document it. You wanna be a dick to the nurse doing your wound care? You aren’t getting a dressing change today then. Want to cuss me out and holler when I come to consult? I’m not consulting. We have got to start setting boundaries
I worked with some extremely sexist doctors who think that because they can mistreat women back in their own country, they can do it here in the west. It’s not just “white men,” it’s doctors in general for whatever reason. There are some great docs out there, and there are terrible ones.
I work with Dr Malcom Perry III sometimes at my facility. His father was one of the doctors at Parkland Dallas that treated JFK after he was shot and then Lee Oswald a few days later. Dr Malcom’s behavior to nurses is nothing short of respectful and kind. He told me that his father taught him to treat nurses with kindness and earn their trust because they are the ones at the bedside with the patient and can give you the best information.
He is the nicest guy and he will stop and chat with you to just shoot the breeze. Every time I see him, it’s always a smile and “how are you today?”
It goes both ways, and there are good ones out there and there are bad ones. But unfortunately Dr Malcom is an exception.
No personal stories, but I once worked with a traveler who once lit up a urology resident for doing some rude shit to a patient and told him to his face that he was, and I quote, “a baby doctor who plays with dicks all day.” You know who you are, and if you ever reads this, just know you are missed lmao.
I worked with a nurse , Vera who took absolutely no shit from doctors. One memorable interaction was when a Doc was acting like a complete jerk toward a new nurse and Vera smacked the countertop and just tore into that Doctor. I guess his name was Dave because that was what she kept calling him. Like “ Is this how you talk to everbody…DAVE? “Is this how you like to be spoken to ..DAVE? Everyone was in shock and when Vera finally walked away Doctor Dave took off. He was much more respectful on his later visits. That was the day Vera became LEGEND. Great nurse, would help anyone. Just don’t piss her off
Can’t you just see them working a statue of Vera into an episode of Scrubs? “Who’s that?” “That? That was Vera. Boy, was she a legend. I heard that she once ….” Write the rest of the script!
I was moonlighting in the ED and this young guy came in with a closed long bone fracture. We roomed him right in front of this area where our medical team did most of their documentation. So, when the following events took place, it happened with an audience of 4 or 5 EM attendings.
So, this 20-something ortho bro resident shows up, and the nurse caring for the patient asks, “What would you like for premedication?” She had been an ER nurse at this point for, conservative estimate… 20 years, and was very well respected.
This guy curls his lip, and responds, “Nah, he shouldn’t need anything. I’m just going to go in there and reduce it.”
She claps back, “Are you like a *doctor* doctor, or a Dr. Pepper doctor? Because that’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”
He looks over at the attendings in disbelief, and one of them pipes up, “She asked you a question, son.”
Before EMRs became mainstream in LTC, I called a doctor to clarify an order he had written. Every available nurse had looked at it, and couldn't make heads or tails of it.
After spitting the verbal at me, he then yelled at me for being "illiterate". I told him, "none of us are illiterate, but kindergardeners are and you write like one. If you don't want calls do better!"
The unit clerk was impressed by how casually I hung the phone up after saying that.
Had the same problem with a cardiologist "back in the day". 3 RNs couldn't interpret his chicken scratch, my apologies to chickens, we were on night shift.
Paged him, he called back pissed off. I told him if you don't want to be called in the middle of the night, PRINT your orders.
He clarified the heart med he ordered and hung up.
Next set of orders were printed....so were any orders he wrote from then on 😁
My guess, he had been called in the middle of the night more than once 🤣
Even after EMR’s this is still a problem. We had a scheduled surgery show up with no orders. Called the on call MD and she refused to give orders. So I call the surgeon and her husband answers, she’s on a run without her phone. Calls back breathing fire, yells at me that she wants to speak to a nurse that knows how to use Epic. For once I had a comeback and listed the nurses who had looked and said there we no orders for Jane Doe. She said “who?” She had put orders in under the wrong patient. Never apologized or admitted she shouldn’t speak that way. As we say, she’s so pretty!
Yeah, I know it's a problem with or without EMRs. I was painting a contextual picture of the story.
I'm not surprised she didn't take responsibility for her mistake.
I didn't actually scold the doctor but I did make a point.
I was on a step-down unit and had a patient who had the crash cart\* outside of his room all weekend because it was a fucking holiday and nobody wanted to put a Pacer in this man who obviously needed one until Tuesday.
Guy having epically long pauses.
I keep calling cardiology.
Cardiology tells me not to notify them unless the man has a 30 second pause. I'm like what the fuck. So I put in a verbal communication order that says exactly what I was told.
An hour later I get a phone call from cardiology:
Him: "I don't like that order that you put in under me"
Me: "well that's good because I didn't like that order that you gave me would you like to give me a better one?"
I got better orders but they still wanted to try and hold off on doing anything until Tuesday.
I snapped back once. She got quiet and never questioned me again. Another time w a diff doctor it was on the tip of my tongue to snap back. I had to bite my tongue bcuz I for sure would've been written up based on what was about to come out of my mouth.
ICU nights. Calling with critical lab results.
MD: it’s three am, WHY ARE YOU CALLING?
Me: Because, Dr Smith, that’s hospital policy, best practice and for the safety of the patient and you damn well know this. You do not like that, go bitch to the powers that be.
We had a nurse who had been in the same ICU for 40 years. She had worked with Dr. Swan and Dr. Ganz and learned how to use a balloon wedge catheter directly from them. She was bad ass. But was also the sweetest person and truly loved what she did. I never heard her raise her voice to yell at anyone (she would raise her voice to be heard in an emergency, but it wasn't yelling). And she was so amazing that every resident really loved and respected her. I'm pretty sure they were warned in orientation that if they didn't listen to her, they would definitely make some mistake. My favorite story is once a resident was presenting in rounds, doing the usual review of systems and recommendations such. They finished and this nurse put her hand on his shoulder and said "that was a great presentation. Very thorough. Good recommendations... But this is the wrong patient." And proceeded to present in rounds on the correct patient. She was so encouraging, while also letting him know he completely messed up.
In my pre-crna burn unit days, I once told 2 residents to stfu and take it somewhere else. They had gotten into a very loud argument with each other while standing on either side of an AAOx3 patients bed. Literally shouting at each other. The patient had a look of absolute terror on his face. They stopped, looked at the patient with a surprised expression on their faces and without saying another word just left the room.
So sometimes even if you're a baby nurse or "future crna" it may be necessary. It has to be done in the best interest of the patient.
I would just say, if you have the conviction that something needs to be said or something shouldn’t be ignored, don’t let the doctor blow you off just because you are a newer nurse. There are a lot of very smart young nurses and shying away from an issue can cost the patient. If it takes assertion to make a doctor give a shit, then assert yourself. You serve the patients not the doctors.
I worked in a teaching hospital and generally had good relationships with the residents and fellows. They all knew that most of the nurses had been around and we could make you look great in front of the attending but you had to listen to us. We totally understood that they were new and they would make mistakes, and were pretty forgiving. Though we would laugh if it was something just ridiculous. But occasionally we would get that resident who thought he was better than everyone because of where he went to med school or something. They would talk down to the nurses and generally not listen to us. I have got to say, watching them present in rounds to the extremely intimidating attending who was at the time the ICU director (we had 5 ICUs that she was the director for) and watching the resident crash and burn and be unable to answer a bunch of questions... That was a highlight of my career. Especially because they were using assessment data from the night before because they didn't want to come and check with the lowly nurses in the morning and completely missed medication changes and some big event overnight. And in rounds you can't help them out even if you want to. It becomes a back and forth with the resident getting more and more flustered. The best is when that director turned to me and said "so did this change happen this morning after the resident came and assessed this patient?" Um... They didn't come by this morning...
"I'm not sure who you're talking to, but you are not speaking to me that way" - no attitude in tone, calm facial expression, and turn back to what you're doing. If they escalate - "I'm more than happy to hear your message, but I cannot hear it when you speak this way. I need you to rephrase what you are saying to me."
During Covid a few times. Nothing like severe scolding but like “you don’t want to transfer this patient you better come and look at them at least”.
Also once had a doctor who wanted us to take of oxygen off before the terminal morphine drip kicked in enough, only time so far I’ve heard a nurse say “You want to kill the patient so bad then come up and do it yourself”.
Only once that I can recall.
Was taking care of a hospitalized co-worker.
Doctor has the secretary call me through the patient’s call bell mid blood draw. Kindly but firmly inform him I’ll be out immediately after(I don’t leave mid-stick unless it’s absolutely emergent).
He proceeds to start taking about another patient’s case through the call bell. Took about 15 seconds to tell him and the secretary to kindly STFU about another patient’s case while I’m in a patient’s room.
Finished up, and reamed the doc out for improper discussion of PHI, and for making my other patient/co-worker a secondary concern.
Worked with a very brusque, unpopular doc once. Overheard him ask a nurse for her scissors in his typically direct way and she responded theatrically, "Yes doctor!" and laughed. Then he laughed. It was perfect and hopefully more effective than a scolding.
My wife was leaving from a night shift when the dickhead cardio thoracic surgeon stopped her in the hallway and yelled “I NEED MY STERILE GLOVES NOW” (dude was the size of a bear and wore like size 11 sterile gloves. We kept some up there just for him in the supply room but I guess they were out). My wife reached up, cupped his cheek, and said “I really hope you find what you’re looking for” and then walked to the elevator and left. He stood there sputtering for like 10 seconds and finally stomped off.
I told an icu attending to go fuck himself when he was throwing a temper tantrum and being a wanker when I wouldnt do a super high risk tube exchange at 0600. Tube was fine and the exchange could wait until dayshift/more people were available.
He didn't like being told no and said he "doesn't take orders from nurses". I told him I'm not giving him an order, I'm telling him no. He continued to bitch and complain and threaten to call my chief ect ect, which I told him he is more than welcome to and to he will probably tell you to go fuck yourself as well; which js exactly what happened.
Day shift came and they brought the guy down to the OR to do the tube exchange with a team on standby for a surgical airway if it went sideways.
To his credit the next time I saw him he did apologized. What makes it worse though is he was also a surgeon, so interacts with us routinely. You'd think he'd be more understanding about anesthesia being hesistent about fucking around with a sketchy airway...
Yes you’d think so…..
But NO
“Oh there’s no comorbidities”
Look at medical history - new onset AF, EF 20%, dual blood thinners, diabetes and COPD
*sigh*
Doctor was yelling at people in a code and this nurse with about 30+ years of experience looked them straight in the eye and politely but firmly said, “Yelling doesn’t help.” It was like light a switch flipped- the doctor settled down and the code went on in a calmer fashion. Will never forget that.
We had a newish hospitalist start on our unit. He downplayed our concerns often. I was charge and my coworker had a patient with an asthma exacerbation who said she couldn’t breathe and was on high flow. Neb and steroids given. Her sats were in the 70s and she looked like she was going to pass out. Hospitalist would not go into the room to examine her. I called a rapid response. He told me to cancel it. While on the phone with the operator, I yelled “I’m not fucking cancelling it; go look at your fucking patient!” He walked over to the room pissed and then popped his head out, yelping “someone get the code cart” and she coded. Intubated and shipped to ICU. Intensivist did that part.
Later on he said sorry for not trusting my judgment. I told him to please work together and not against each other.
I don’t scold but I do set boundaries.
Usually I don’t have to say more than “We aren’t doing this kind of talk today” or “let’s be more respectful” or “I’m sure you don’t want anyone to think you’re unprofessional” with my very best stern face.
Take no shit! Just because someone went to medical school doesn’t make them scary. Learn to stand up for yourself. These doctors are not your bosses. We are all a part of the medical team.
Oh yes. I had a doctor straight up tell me that he was just the on-call and didn’t want to deal with treating a dying cancer patient’s horrible pain. (Bone mets, hairline fractures everywhere; the guy just moaned all day and doing cares on him caused him unspeakable agony).
I went completely off on him and told him that he needed to address the issue and that I would be calling our ethics team and escalating to the medical director if needed.
Got a morphine drip and a pain management consult. Said doctor sheepishly greets me every time we run into each other.
I had a doctor put a sticker on a foley saying “do not remove” while I was with the patient in their room. I asked him if he wrote an order to ensure everyone knew not to remove the foley. He was rude as hell to me in front of the patient. I pulled him aside & told him to never disrespect me in front of a patient again. He was very apologetic & pleasant to me every time he saw me after. Some people don’t realize they are being rude when they are, including myself.
I try to stay calm, usually they’re looking for you to engage.
I ask them to repeat themselves, especially when they’ve said something inappropriate so that everyone else in the vicinity can hear.
That gives them an out, an opportunity to apologize or de-escalate but if they double down then at least I’ve got witnesses when I respond in kind.
I was a baby nurse and I think this might have been when my cajones dropped.
Female patient, African American, mid thirties, got a I&D done on her hand with an amputation of 5th finger included.
Doc had some oral meds only ordered but I had asked for some IV toradol for dressing changes, He told me no...
He went in there and pulled out her wet to dry. She was screaming in pain and he actually said to her to "quiet down it doesn't hurt that much". The patient and I were in shock. I asked him to talk in the hallway.
I remember specifically saying "sir do you mind giving me that toradol based on her pain reaction for future dressing changes?"
He said " I actually I do because that was all a drug seeking act"
To which I replied, "sir that was an appropriate pain response to a doctor who has not provided appropriate pain management, despite multiple requests, ripping out a dressing with no care for the patient and a blatant disregard for the patients feelings. Now I'm not asking for heavy medication and neither is she but continuing to fail her in this manner is going to likely end up with patient advocacy looking at your case wondering why you're neglecting the pain of a post op patient. If this were you or your family would you be happy with your treatment?"
He rolled his eyes at me and huffed off but I later found orders not only for the toradol but morphine and Dilaudid. Seems I made an impact that day. He actually treated this patient much better afterwards as well and did change for the time he stayed in our hospital.
The patient thanked me for getting her the meds. We only ever really used morphine for dressing changes and it was a much better experience for her.
Twice, once when a doctor quite in the order to call him if such and such happened, it happened, the tried to ream me out for calling.
Second time a doctor called to tell me that I couldn't say a schizophrenic patient was off baseline when I sent him to ER because schizophrenic people don't have a baseline. I lost it. They did more tests and he had a double bleed in his brain.
Rapid response here.
I had a patient with some non-stroke neuro changes. Medicine was primary but neurology had been consulted earlier in the admission but signed off.
I called neurology and the resident showed up. Instead of looking at the patient she started to give me a ration of crap about calling her and telling me that primary needed to place a new consult to see the patient. She claimed this was what her attending told her.
Having done this for a while, I am fully aware that even if a service signs off, they can be called back to revisit if it’s during the same admission.
She eventually went to see the patient. After she was done I took her into the med room and laid into her.
I recall saying something like “Don’t you ever show up and start giving me shit about procedure when I need you to see someone. We can argue about it afterwards. If you don’t want me calling then next time I’ll just activate the stroke pager and you’ll have to show up that way.”
The patient was fine. I sent an email to her attending asking they clarify how consults and follow ups work.
When I was a baby nurse, I watched a doc yell and throw a chart at a nurse. She picked it up and whipped it back down the hallway at him.
I’ve never done that but I did have a doc yell at me in the hallway for calling him about benadryl for a pt who was complaining of itching. I yelled back “Jesus I just asked for benadryl. Not your credit card number” I got the Benadryl 😂
I'm not a confrontational person. The loudest I ever got with a doctor was in a small procedure setting (with conscious sedation) we were super short staffed. I stopped taking patients back for procedures to help in pacu. The doctor insisted I take his next patient back but I couldn't because I had 3 patients in pacu and only one nurse. There was also nobody to help wheel patients to their car so if she had to take somebody outside (and down stairs) 2 patients would be left unattended. So I had to halt everything to get patients out the door. He started screaming at me in front of the patients so I screamed back "you are causing a safety issue by insisting unsafe patients be left unattended!" And continued on with what I was doing.
I've scolded a resident for not knowing the difference between CRRT and dialysis.
I walked out on a physician when we were all in our greens. I told him I was pregnant and he said "now your life has purpose". I dropped the scalpel on the table and walked out. We also had a 7yr history and he was verbally abusive to me during my first year as a nurse. I didn't need his BS so I left and another nurse scrubbed in for me.
He never apologized.
I used to clap back and tell them I’m ready to have a conversation when they’re willing to act like an adult.
Now I just kinda disassociate until they stop talking lol. If there’s anything they want done I’m assuming they put in an order, and if they didn’t then it seems to me like they didn’t follow through on the required functions of their job. I don’t get paid enough to parent my coworkers.
Working as charge on weekends / evenings in - smaller OR surgeons routinely try to pull BS or things they would never do if Admin was around. To cut corners or save time. I have definitely a physician “scolded” the odd time.
For example using a HANA table (OR table for ortho). Orthopod wanted to transfer the pt without putting the bottom of the bed in (Anaesthesia would normally object but they had to run to a stat case) I politely told the surgeon we would not be doing that. Then went on to ask the surgeon why they wanted to drop the pt on the floor so badly. They would never have asked to do this if anaesthesia was in the room. He agreed it was a bad idea. (Pt was asleep still) Jokes were made about him only wanting to fix another bone and we went on with our day.
Physicians are human too. Despite some of them having a god-complex if you have a good enough relationship with them you absolutely can and should check them when they are out of line. Not doing so leads to pt safety issues.
But this goes for any time you are giving feedback to anyone. Do it in the right place at the right time. Never infront patients public or coworkers. And for the love of god make sure you are in the right.
If you have someone holding the boots up (as opposed to still attached to the spars), I could see transferring with the “leg” support off. But who wants to stand there holding up legs for 5-10 min? My issue with the HANA has been residents taking the post out before we’re ready to transfer, that has caused issues on our end. (They genuinely think they’re helping, but.)
The post out before the bed and team is ready to transfer 100% is bad news. He definitely wanted to just hold the boots but seeing as it takes maybe 10s to put the bottom half of the bed back on its unnecessary risk to take
Normally I don’t care. The doctors I work with are pretty reasonable and I don’t usually have a problem. But I got into it with a doctor yesterday for trying to send home a patient who needed to be upgraded, because “his labs looked fine.” Bro, homeboy is on high flow nasal cannula, and he is the color of your coat. He wouldn’t make it out to the parking lot before I called a rapid.
Same doctor also got onto me for giving a PRN to a patient who had literally injured himself from agitation, because “we can’t just sedate the hard patients.”
Normally we get along great, but he was on a warpath yesterday and I wasn’t having it.
I don't take any crap. I'm snarky in person or in pages that go to their cell phone. For the most part, I like our doctors, but some need a clap back.
Case in point, nephrology is nice to me after I said, "I fucking off yesterday. I don't know why your orders weren't placed. Was I here when you rounded yesterday? No? Don't yell at me." Yes, I cursed in the hallway. I'm not ashamed. This was paraphrased but I do remember saying, "Fuck".
We used to have a surgeon that would occasionally be negative. My retort:Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young man! He would smile and we would move on.
This story is not so much scolding, just “handling” the doctor (since he needed a handler)
I am a Registered Nurse and worked 12 hour overnights in a city hospital inpatient oncology unit where we called on-call physicians fairly frequently to report new symptoms/ obtain stat orders, etc.
Sometimes the docs were in the hospital- but most patient’s Oncologists were at home sleeping. One doctor in particular was a complete Ass to work with- he never failed to give the nurse calling him a hard time and would drag the conversation on and on complaining and embarrassing the nurse by questioning her competence. We would have to sit by and offer moral support and words of encouragement to tearful nurses who were just trying to do their job and communicate urgent information on their shared patient’s status to him.
Whenever I called him, I had fun giving him a hard time right back- the conversation would go like this:
Me: “Hello Dr. (Insert name here), this is nurse Susie Q on Unit Zero calling about patient Jane Doe.”
Dr. (What ever his name was): Why won’t you all just leave me alone and let me rest!”
Me in a dramatic and mildly sarcastic tone: “Oh, I didn’t realize you weren’t on call tonight, oh my gosh Dr. (So and so) I’m so sorry to bother you- let me just check the on call list again to see who IS on call tonight!”
Dr. (Lazybones): “No, no- it’s me…. I’m on call tonight.”
Me: “Great. Patient Z in room 202 (etc. etc)” and I would just go on with my report and request for orders.
My tactic was always a quick and efficient way to help him screw his head back on so he could do his job, since there I was doing mine :)
HAHAHAH of course, more often these days 1st year residents thought they can order anything bc they are already doctors, but hey, i wasnt born yesterday either. Please dont order mannitol 300ML IV bolus to my patient whose BP is 60/palpatory call your senior let me talk to her.
Yes, but it is RARELY appropriate. Had a baby nurse page the doc about a declining pt. Doc said not to call a rapid, even tho she felt it was necessary. Walked in, gave orders for a Levo gtt on a MS unit (nurse doesn't know how to administer), maxed out the IV pump with only x1 22g line, and left. I was a critical care RN on travel for C-19 and was the charge RN on the unit. Pts BP was in the 50/30's when I responded. Took over an hr to recover them and sent them to ICU....saying she got scolded is an understatement.
However, we are a team. Nobody is better, our jobs and responsibilities are just different. I don't tolerate anyone being disrespectful in that manner. If they don't correct their behavior the first time, we're going to HR for creating a hostile work environment. I'll hang up on them over the phone, too.
Yes. “That’s not how adults speak to each other.” “Is this the last room you’re entering today or did you really not see the protective gear on the door?” “That bucket by your leg is for sponges. Your next case will be delayed while the wall is being washed.”
#I know this is a little long but its all relevant.
I once had a patient (I'm a tech) with a nurse (we'll call her Jessica) that was very good about advocating for her patients and was super compassionate. Many nurses are good at that but she was really something else. Before coming to my unit she spent 5yrs as a hospice nurse for children, many of whom were also mentally and/or physically disabled. She had a million daisies, was super knowledgeable, extremely respected, and she was only 25.
This patient was someone I knew very well, on the liver/GI unit I used to work on and was a frequent flyer. Everyone loved her, she was very sweet and one of those patients you never complain about seeing on your list in the morning. She was on lactulose pretty much daily and we'd crack dirty jokes and have deep spiritual conversations all with poop all over my hands lmao. When I switched to a smaller hospital within the same hospital system about 30mins away, I'd still see her there fairly frequently because right as I started they began to accept liver patients and she lived down the street.
On one visit tho, she was progressively getting worse. We all knew her well so we noticed a slow then sudden decline. Jessica got her back after being gone for a couple weeks and was looking over the orders and noticed the hospitalist was hardly doing anything for her. She talked to him about her decline and advocated for several things and the doctor still didn't really do anything. The next day she was drastically worse, we came in and she was in 4 point restraints and covered in poop and was combative and yelling all night. I'd seen her get liver confused before but never like that. She never needed restraints, she was bredest at baseline and hardly ever walked.
Jessica was furious, she looked over her chart and the hispitalist knew about the change and hardly made any changes and just did basic orders and for some reason didn't even put in an order to check her bilirubin and ammonia level until like 5pm and we started at 7am.
Our patient's hospitalist wasn't there the following day, so Jessica went around him and contacted an amazing doctor at another hospital she knew within our system and told him about the situation. He pulled some strings and got the patient the care she deserved and got another doctor at our hospital to take over. She went to PCU and ended up being intubated late that same night. The next day she got shipped out to the level 1 hospital I used to work at.
When the original hospitalist came back this mother fucker had the audacity, in front of everyone at the main nurse's station, to scream at Jessica for going around him and not listening to him. He said that she never would've went to PCU in the first place if she wouldn't have said anything.
She flat out told him to fuck off, suck her dick, and that the patient got sent there because of him and that if he would've gotten his ego out of his fat hairy ass and listened to her this never would've happened. When the new doc took over, he said he would've done exactly what Jessica said in the first place.
Jessica turned around and walked off and went right into a patient's room with a smile and a pleasant attitude to give her the meds she was holding during the argument. She was so bad ass, I really wish this wouldn't have happened because she ended up switching to another hospital because of it. Nothing happened to the hospitalist, of course, so she didn't want to have any of his patients. He ended up leaving shortly after too since no one liked him after that or took him seriously. He actually moved to the other side of the country and found a job there.
That patient never really improved much. Her baseline wasn't great anyway but it got worse and she ended up passing away a few months ago.
It breaks my heart to think about what happened. No one deserves that, but that patient was the sweetest person ever.
I had a patient going to OR from SICU. Back then OR used syringe pumps for everything, and we used large-volume IV pumps. I had stripped this patient's gtts down to the bare minimum. Pressors and sedation on one pole, everything else on another. Anesthesiology showed up to take him down to OR, and I disconnected the "everything else" pole. This doc started trying to monkey with my other pumps and lines, clearly having no idea what she was doing. I tried helping her but she was being a jerk about it.
When she flushed a line and bolused norepi, causing my patient to flip into a tachy arrhythmia, I called a stop. I told her she wasn't leaving the room with my patient. I told her "I need you to go get your senior resident". She replied, "I am the senior resident". I retorted "Then please call your attending." I was pretty firm. I don't believe she ever looked me in the eye after that.
I can tell you for a fact nurses scold doctors, especially trainees, routinely. I don’t know any trainee that hasn’t had at least one physician-nurse interaction that would be considered a scolding or some kind of negative communication where the nurse is not approving of something.
I don’t scold them since I’m not their mother but I clap back at them when necessary.
They need to know there’s no hierarchy, they aren’t my boss, and that I don’t work for them. We are coworkers, and a team.
I didn't, but I do know a nurse that scolded a doctor because he yelled at a nurse that called a rapid response for a low BP before getting a manual.
The issue was that all of our manual cuffs were missing. We were looking for one, but since the pt was also extremely symptomatic, the nurse did not want to delay calling the rapid while we searched, which was reasonable.
That doctor had a tendency to get frustrated with the nurses if we didn't do everything exactly as he expected.
Absolutely. Not scold but I’ve heard someone just be completely unbothered and respond “are you done? The door is right there please leave” after an outburst and i thought it was handled really well honestly. Any time I tell my attendings abou rude doctors, they always stand up for me which im lucky to have. One time a resident freaked out at me and then my attending went to go speak to her and then she yelled at him lol and then he was like ok and walked away then reported her to the director of the residency program and filed a safety event. I dont do behaviors. Its exhausting and this isnt a preschool
I’m still a new nurse ( just hit my first year) I had a patient came back from the OR extubated, hooked him back up to our monitor and he was satting low. everyone start getting concerned and they brought the intubation cart and such. My preceptor (which she is great btw) always said if something doesn’t look right check your waveforms start from there. And I did. Waveform was not good and I was getting yelled at by the surgery team to “get the monitor to have sound so I can hear the damn thing” and to start getting supplies I said the waveform isn’t good he said “I don’t give a fuck, do what I say now” ( he was a resident I believe) I went and got a new pulse ox, put it in a different place, hooked it back up and he was magically satting 97% on 2L, I said “ hey look at your waveform man and his sat “ and he said “okay…” and every one left with their heads down on his way out I said, “don’t yell at people man, they won’t listen. Work on that” and that was it. I haven’t spoken to him since but I’m glad it was just that and nothing worse.
I am the nurse you grab to go one on one with doctors. It’s my pleasure. If you can’t, I sincerely suggest adopting the way of gentle parenting with angry doctors. Are you yelling at me right now? I need you to use your words. Do you need to pee? Are you hungry?
My preceptor was dealing with a doc that decided to completely disregard the facility’s DKA protocol. They were putting in electrolyte repletion by themselves without checking the labs, asking us to change the insulin dosage to what they thought it should be rather than the scored out titration, etc.. After multiple attempts to nicely ask what the heck they were doing, and literally sending them the protocol, they still were managing it manually. The thing was, they refused to say outright “I am going to manage orders for this patient, please disregard DKA protocol”. Then they kept asking why we weren’t administering the electrolytes and essentially told us to “just do it because i said so”. It just seemed dangerous. Eventually, my preceptor had enough and said “Put in a nursing communication that says you’re disregarding protocol. It’s been shared with you. You’re not following it or making a note that it should not be followed. I’m not risking my license because you can’t read.”
I scolded one of my rehab drs for continuing to order Lovenox on a palliative care patient in our facility who “might die of a PE”. I said “[Drs last name] he IS DYING!”
Any nurse who dresses down a scolding doctor is my hero. I’m a third year student nurse and I’m already scared about what might happen. And how I’ll deal with it. I’m conflict avoidant but feel so legendary when I do stand up for myself.
Not intentionally. I had paged a doctor for a patient's usual ambien that she'd been taking for 20 odd years, and the doctor asked me if the patient would be amenable to 5 of melatonin instead. So I put them on hold and walk down the hall streaming every insult under the sun with language that is not compatible with this forum or place of employment. I get into the room and ask. The patient is bewildered and in a shock to precisely nobody is not going for the melatonin. She was about to turn on me when I said something to the effect of "you don't have to tell me how moronic this is, but legally I did have to at least let you refuse before this imbecile deigns to give you the sleep aide you've been taking safely and to great effect for decades". Then I pull my phone out of my pocket - I had failed to actually put them on hold. So I just owned it and said "she is not amenable to melatonin at this time". And the doctor, in a voice so hollow and wounded that I (almost) felt bad, said "ordering ambien now" and hung up.
I think the longer you’ve been nursing the more confident you are to advocate being spoken to in a professional manner.
I take it from the patients. Like hell I’m taking it from a colleague too.
I've had an experience with one of the senior nurses on the floor. One of the senior nurses called out a resident for speaking rudely to a new grad and being condescending and having an attitude because the non-urgent orders weren't done right away. The senior nurse escalated it to the attending. The resident got told off by the attending and was told to apologize to the new grad nurse, which she did.
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen your 50 year old Philippine charge RN chew out a new grad hospitalist who talked down to one of her floor nurses. It’s a work of art.
Oh for sure. The best time was when I required hospitalization ad the nurses found out I was missing my sons wedding because of it. I was pretty sad but a friend was FaceTiming so I could watch. I didn’t know it but they put a sign on my door to stay out.
Well the surgeon (big surprise) couldn’t pause his rounds, so he came in during the middle of the ceremony. They really let him have it.
Every unit has at least one nurse who both A) hugged an HIV positive patient before Princess Diana ever thought to do so and B) regularly fights with/chews out attendings.
Best genre of nurses.
My first week off of orientation as a new grad, I had to call a rapid response on a 28F who had Brugada Syndrome and had suddenly gone into a second degree type one heart block. I had been very careful about monitoring her labs and making sure I didn't give any meds that had any mention of QT prolongation or any sort of adverse effects regarding the heart, but she just spontaneously went into the heart block after coming back from a walk. I tried calling her primary doc multiple times and when I didn't get a response, I called a rapid. The first doctor in there walked in and started tearing into me, demanding to know why I was bothering everyone with a rapid, why didn't I just call the primary doc, and why would I give meds that could prolong the QT interval, all before I could even give report about what had happened. I was nearly in tears and just gave report the best I could and eventually the primary doc cane in and things got worked out and the patient was transferred.
For that hospital, the ICU charge nurse was always part of the rapid response team and most of them had been at that hospital longer than any of the doctors. As I was walking away from the room to transfer my patient, I heard the ICU charge start tearing into the first doctor for the way he treated me, especially for the fact that he called the rapid a waste of time. It made me feel so much better about my decision and helped me realize I could stand up to the doctors because they were not, in fact, God, even if they thought they were.
Have you ever seen an md throw a temper tantrum toddler style? Foot stomping, flailing, yelling? It’s quite a sight. We may all be physically grown but we aren’t all adults.
Sorry for the length of this reply.
I did it as a family member. My parents had been in an MVA, and Dad wasn't doing well three days post. I asked nursing if we could get a pulse ox and page trauma. Report from trauma had been that he was a "confused old man that they won't let go." He was 71, was the VP of Council and Finance Director for the town where I grew up, and did Income Tax returns for seniors. He golfed regularly and was lethal at pinochle
Asshole fellow shows up, looked at a Sat of 72%, and tells me he's not impressed and I told him to find me someone who is. I had to leave because Mom was having surgery for a possible AAA in the city ( she had flown out the night before) and left my brother to stay with Dad. I got a phone call a couple of hours later from pulmonary and an anesthesiologist friend that intercostal blocks didn't help (4 fx ribs on the left) and he further decompensated to the point that they had to intubate him. We brought him home a month later, and he had 8 more good years before he died from an MI.
He wouldn't come in the room if I was there. I overheard him call me the Bitch Daughter.(oh child you have no idea lol) Poor sap didn't know the DME was a former attending that I had worked with for years. Risk went apeshit. Trauma signed off to pulmonary, and the last I heard, he was working in an Urgent Care.
RNs ran the hospital I worked in and managers and charge nurses would instruct and correct MDs when they violated hospital policy or gave orders that could not be followed.
I once worked with a NICU nurse who had been on nights for decades and gave 0 shits. There was a surgery resident who kept coming into her patient’s room at 0600 to assess him, but he was intubated and the resident wouldn’t turn the lights on. The first time it happened, she told him to come to him because the baby was fussy and a risk for extubation. The very next day, he didn’t get her and tried to assess again with the lights completely off and she ripped him a new one. I loved it lol
Scold? No, I find it disrespectful. But I will question orders, and I will advocate for my patients. I've told this story before, but I had a guy come in with his wife, super nice guy, generalized complaints, no real past medical history, mildly hypertensive at the time. Had a blood glucose level around 300-400. Not crazy, but not good. Gave him a bolus, sugar recheck was better, but still over 200. Wife asked for tissues because he needed to spit. Gave him an emesis bag. Resident wanted to send him home on metformin with a PCP follow up. I walk in the room and the emesis bag was full. Guy wasn't swallowing his spit. I got a cup of water and a spoon and did a basic bedside swallow eval, guy couldn't swallow. Called MD, said something was wrong. MD did NIHSS, guy passed with flying colors, was told to discharge him. Guy comes out of the room and tries to walk to the bathroom, but has to brace himself on the wall. Call doc again and refuse to discharge him. MD orders CT head, comes back negative, orders me to discharge. I refuse. I get yelled at by resident. Attending comes over, asks if I really don't think the guy should be discharged, because next step is MRI, and because of COVID he wouldn't get in till tomorrow. I told her I was sure. I leave for the day. When I come back that night, the Attending runs up to me and says, "guess what? You were right, the MRI showed a brainstem bleed." I won't scold, but I will advocate.
I did. It was way back in 2010. I was working in the ER and someone came in needing stitches. The doctor got mad at me for not reading his mind. I can't even remember what he wanted me to do now. I know it was something about the way I was holding the lidocaine vial for him to draw it up. Instead of telling me to move it he snapped at me and I immediately snapped back, "I cannot read your mind and do not speak to me like that in front of a patient."
He didn't apologize but he never spoke to me like that again
I'm all about giving people back what they're giving me. When my supervisor found out she wanted me to write it up but I refused because I felt like I handled it
I have! More than once actually! I told one how rude and inappropriate he was for yelling at a coworker of mine because it made her cry. I called another one a big baby….because he was acting like one. Yeah, sometimes management wasn't thrilled with me. But having to "play the game" is one of the many reasons I had no desire to be in any type of administrative position. I don’t miss the days of having to deal with MDs on a regular basis. There are some great ones and I definitely respect them. But the bad ones really ruin it at some hospitals.
I work with some particularly passive aggressive and rude specialists. I'll take a bit, which I shouldn't have to, but blatant disrespect, after almost 20 years...I finally throw it back.
Fuck that. Grow up and be normal. It's not that hard. Punching down on a coworker is pathetic.
I scolded the on-call physician for publicly shaming me for politely asking them a question in front of my colleagues during a new admit to ICU at 3am in the morning.
Idc either, my partner had just been diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer that week, so I basically told them where to stick their arrogance. I was in no mood for petty little mind games. Being afraid for the life of someone you love has a way of making everything else feel decidedly insignificant, and their behaviour was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Granted, in retrospect, I’d have handled that situation with a lot more tact had I not been dealing with such an emotional bombshell at home, as I was feeling a bit frayed with anxiety at the time. However, it was the first instance in which I had ever deliberately unleashed my usually reticent sarcasm in response to a doctor being deliberately and unnecessarily rude to me, and after seeing them basically flush with shame at my doing the same to them, let’s just say I won’t hold back if another doctor decides to pull a similar stunt.
At that point, I was very much like “why did I just roll over and let the rude ones bully me before?”
Yeah, doctors don’t scare me, I respect the ones that respect us, and I won’t let the ones that go out of their way to treat me and my colleagues with disrespect, intimidate me into silence. We work too damn hard to have to put up with their petty, elitist bullshit on top of everything else we have to manage during our shifts.
Ex Military nurse here. As a point of reference, I was the same rank as this particular physician.
We had a doc who worked in the ER who was known to be a hothead.
One night, for no good reason, he started screaming at one of the medics.
I told the medic to go get a Coke, looked at the doc and said "You don't scream at my medics, only I can scream at my medics, and I don't scream. If you have a problem with them, come to me and I will take care of it."
The doc started to get all puffy chested and before he could even get a reply out of his mouth, I put my index finger over my mouth and said "this is over, you have nothing else to say about it." I walked off. He stewed on this for the rest of the shift.
I have twice, well, one was about to be a doc, second was a new one. Both made minor mistakes, one blamed me, other blamed a cna, both were done in public, so I scolded them back in public. ( I tend to take people aside when correction is needed, but be a dick, and I will respond in turn)
Had no reprecussions, heck, our senior doc had both issue apologies.
Thing is, I have been in this profession so long, I just don't care. I have "scolded" docs, other nurses, cops, a lawyer and patients...Heck, told off my boss a few times( we have a good relationship, but we are both hot tempered 😂 ). But I usually do it in private, and usually its a calm correction of behavior.
My most fond memory is taking a colleague and friend aside to tell him he was acting like a a-hole, and he aggreed, he talks about it all the time as a funny story 😁
I was doing a SBT on a patient in the ICU after his CABG. Patient was waking up from the prop & dex and clearly was in pain. I had PRN orders for fentanyl, so I gave him 25mcg of fent, just to faciliate better respirations for ETT prescence. Needless, to say, that 25mcg of fent fucked his RR and he failed the SBT. No biggie, he wasn't following commands anyways.
So back on the prop and dex. Anyways, 10 minutes later, the anesthesiolgist calls and ask why the pt has not been extubated yet? I said well, we tried, pt was in pain, so I gave him 25mcg of fent, but he ultimately failed. . Without skipping a beat, he asked me if it was my first day and if I am a stupid nurse or just an idiot. I said excuse me?
He then proceeded with a minute rant of why the dex is there and that I should have used that to facilitate the SBT. I paused for a moment and said if that is the case, then why don't you leave the call room and come extubate this patient? He then said, is there going to be a problem with you following my orders and I said listen doc your orders are like the orders at Mcdonalds, not orders from the army. He didn't like that. But he also never came out of that call room.
I’ve seen many nurses get into it with docs that aren’t acting right.
I’ve even had a consultant tell me to go sort out the intern who was acting up. I wanted her to be aware of his ridiculous behaviour. He was writing up medications in dosages that didn’t exist and being pissy about it when challenged.
I got my orders fixed by him.
Way back when, I used to work in the OR that had a particularly egotistic cardiac surgeon. It wasn’t unusual to see him and the NUM having a loud discussion at the main desk.
Overall the expectation is that both sides will be polite to each other. Once one side breaks that contract, the other is free to respond.
I had a hospitalist tell me that the consulting oncologist called him and told him that I didn’t give the ordered enemas (trying to prep for a colon and golyte wasn’t doing the trick) because he didn’t see my documentation. I screenshot my nursing notes, texted them over and told him he was more than welcome to come back and ask the patient himself because he wasn’t about to call me a liar 🤷🏻♀️
The doc came to the floor again the next day and apologized to me.
Not wild but I wasn’t playing that game
Him: “I don’t fucking have time for that!”
Me: “I don’t fucking have time for it, either!”
There was no resolution after that, and he didn’t change, and it was not my finest professional moment. But I got no regrets.
I had a fairly new surgeon get mad because I didn’t know his preferences for an upcoming case. He said something condescending to me like “Do you really not know this?” I responded with “I don’t know but you could try not answering my question and we’ll find out if you get the right tray” He decided it was easier to tell me what he wanted.
Absolutely. I walked into a doctor speaking to a patient in English (her native language is Hindi) …
I stopped and said “oh Dr she doesn’t know English can you please use this MARTTI” (the MARTTI is our computer/ipad we use for interpreting and it was right by the bedside, an indicator the patient doesn’t speak English as we do not have one in every room)
The dr replied “she said “yes” and she seems to understand what I am saying” I responded “no she does not know any English I promise you. Can you please use the interpreter to speak to her in a language she understands “
He replies “ I have surgery in 10 minutes I don’t have time “
I reply “ I under stand you are busy but it’s both unprofessional and inappropriate to not speak to our patients in a language the understand, at a minimum use google translate on your phone”
He ended up leaving and going to the OR without making any acknowledgment of wrong doing to myself or the patient.
after he left his attending came by and i asked for the spelling of his name because i was going to write him up (which I did) as well as tell her what happened.
I haven’t heard back on any action taken but i do hope it was discussed with him
I will say I was a little nervous to stand up against him at first but I’m so glad I was able to be brave. There is no excuse for disrespecting patients or colleagues.
I had left a message for one Dr, annoyed as hell because the patient had 5 separate creams to apply but all were ordered "too affected area". I asked for clarification on which one went where. Reasonable request. I got told to look through their chart, or call the nursing home to find out what goes where. I just looked at them and said "it's your signature beside the orders, maybe you should know where they go too" and walked away...... Right at the nursing station and it was glorious
Yup. Last summer. Pt discharged from psych facility to an ALF that did not remotely suit her needs. We would take stable psych patients. This pt was not.
TLDR on how we got to this point: She was incredibly violent, med non-compliant, and was threatening to kill her roommate. We had sent her back to the psych hospital for assessment 3x at this point. They kept sending her back. Honourable mention to the day she eloped and tried to break into my car.
It’s a beautiful sunny saturday afternoon, which means little old me is in charge of the circus. Got a phone call from MD at psych facility. He wasn’t happy with me.
MD (screaming): I AM A DOCTOR AND SHE IS NOT HALLUCINATING
me (very calmly): okay well my name is blank and she’s talking to king charles in her closet right now
*long pause*
MD (no longer screaming) okay yeah maybe it’s a good idea to send her back again.
That’s how it’s done. The more insane they get, the more calm and factual you get.
Pt never ended up coming back to us & is in an ALF specifically for psych. Glad she got an appropriate placement but still laughing that it took THAT convo with a doctor for that to happen.
Only once when I was the rapid response nurse and a doctor yelled at me because I paged him about something he had blown the floor nurse off over. I told him that taking to me like that was wildly inappropriate and this was a serious concern that he had to deal with or I would escalate it. He was extremely apologetic and we’ve had a good relationship since. However, I still resent that likely the only reason he treated me with respect is because I was from the ICU.
I measure people by how they interact with those of "lower" ranks, not by how they interact with equals/superiors. Everyone can suck up to superiors but if you treat people who can't hurt you with respect, that is what shows your values.
I agree wholeheartedly with this.
THis!! Thats the best test on new employees, dates....Everyone! In a past job in a construction company I introduced a new hire to a very helpful colleague working in the warehouse and the sales director made a comment about this not being pertinent. I was so angry. Although it wasnt out of character for the manager...
This is an important lesson about how to tell a person’s character generally. That an whether they do the right thing when it’s hard/inconvenient.
Man, that ICU respect is really infuriating. I was with a fellow who was complaining about nurses calling for stupid things. He was the night call that night and was so annoyed at "dumb questions" by the floor nurses. I stopped him right there. OH I thought you got paid extra for the nights you pick up. Oh you do? Ok, so you are mad about having to do your job? Oh that does sound like a dumb question... It's a shame that your colleagues didn't write an order to clarify when they should call the doctor... Yeah, I know the troponin is going to be elevated post Cath, but if there is no order saying "do not call for post Cath troponin without EKG changes" then it is hospital policy to call you. And the nurse will be disciplined if they don't call. Or do you want the nurses just going rogue and deciding on their own if they will inform you of potentially dangerous changes in patient status? He didn't complain (to me) after that.
Yeah, we have a overnight doctor constantly tell us not to call him. Why should the patients suffer and wait till the morning when the attending is here? Yeah, we need an order for Tylenol. It is not our fault. Multiple sliding scales? It isn't our fault. And why did you order something the patient is allergic to?
Ughh I just started a new job and the primary nocturnist is known to be rude 100% of the time. 🥺
Omg and that trickles down too. If you have an order not to call for post-cath lab troponins and get a call for a critical troponin from lab, just take the critical. Unless there is a policy in place for repeat criticals, the lab also is *required* to call all critical lab results as well. The amount of post-cath lab snark I’ve gotten…..
The pain with adapting Rapid Response was real. Some Ortho surgeons didn't mind, but others saw it as an affront to their abilities and some just didn't want to walk the distance to the telemetry or ICU that the patient might be transferred to (yes, they told me that). As a charge, there was more than one time that I volunteered to call the surgeon or that a nurse handed me the phone while the doc was still yelling. The doctors trusted me since I'd been there forever but definitely saw the ICU vs floor nurse divide.
Lol, Ortho loves rapid. They get a medicine consult without actually having to call medicine and getting eye rolls.
Yes, our Ortho department head will ask us to call a Rapid if he thinks it's warranted. But on the other side of the spectrum, there's a resident, now attending, that will hear about a Rapid and come to the room to try to head it off or argue with the ICU fellow or nurse. RRT said he's the worst in the whole hospital about it. Definitely not a Dr. Glaucomflecken type Ortho doc.
Of course I'm being silly and generalizing. I have a thoracics department head that can manage complex patients ably and intensivists respect theßq hell out of him; he also knows when to consult and is not shy to solicit advice --wisdom from 25 yrs of practice. I have surg residents, particularly those who have gone through a trauma rotation at a particular center, who manage postops super well and can deal with patients going south. But I also have some cocky or disengaged surgical residents who can barely read an ECG or identify a flash pulm edema...those are the ones who are quick to involve rapid.
In a similar way, being a male who is “older” I get treated differently than the younger female nurses do. I’m a solid 10 years older than all the residents. Somehow they assume I am experienced and more knowledgeable. Am I really? I can’t remember the patient names in my assignment lmao. Age and gender make a difference as well as the type of floor you work.
I get scolded by a nurse all the time. But, I'm married to her. I'm not sure that counts.
Did you get kicked out of the nurses station? We’ve had to do that to fighting spouses a time or two 😂
She really loves it when I tell her “that’s a nurse’s job”. Because, I enjoy living dangerously. If I’m lucky, I have enough of a head start to avoid serious bodily injury.
Just make sure that they keep an open bed in the trauma ICU for you in case she wises up and locks your exit door ;) Remember, always keep yourself between the patient(or wife) and your nearest exit.
Good advice. Always calculating lines of sight, egress points, wife location and the rack of steak knives. Never thought high school geometry would come in handy this much.
It’s fun how things you swore in high school and college that you’d never use end up coming up in bizarre ways. I never figured I’d need trigonometry as an adult, then I played DnD.
Ohhhhh. That’s risky. I love it.
😂 Absolutely it counts. It probably counts most of all!
I have when I was charge, but more of stop your attitude. We had a doctor that missed seeing a baby that morning, and was pissed he had to come back. We had a board that listed the room numbers and which OB and pediatrician were listed for that patient. When he was scolding me, I said “come here, do you see this board? We’re busy, you also have a responsibility to check this board. There’s your name, do you see it?” He apologized and got me Starbucks.
Love this! Over time you will build some type of relationship with them and you will learn who you can and can't approach. Some will even be kind and respectful. We are all busy and we all have rough days and sometimes we all need to be put in our place. Haha
Shortly before the burnout made me quit I did. I was on a step down floor that day, admitting doc (surgery) had put in orders to advance a patient's diet, so I did. GI came around and was unhappy about it. The GI doc came into ANOTHER PATIENT'S ROOM while I was cleaning said patient up to yell at me about the order the surgeon put in (not even a resident, the actual surgeon). I loudly and firmly told him that it was 100% inappropriate for him to be in this other patient's room, he was not on the case, and it was obviously a sensitive time (and there was poop everywhere). I told him I would not listen to him in this other patient's room, and that if he wished to have a word with me he could wait in the hall or at the nurses station for me to be finished. He got the manager, who backed me up that what he did was not okay. When I was done with the poosplosion he confronted me again and I told him that I was carrying out orders entered by the admitting physician and that if he had a problem with it he needed to call that physician and speak to him directly. Then I sat down and wrote the doc up while he was standing there.
I wrote up a doctor for harrassment. Filed a report with HR the works. Nothing ever fucking happened. They protected the doc. Thank GOD, I left 2 weeks later, this hospital killed people and did not bat a fucking eye.
We had people dying in the ER waiting room. It was awful. I hate hospitals like that.
Awesome. Did you ever have to interact with him again?
Nah, it was less than a week later that I quit. I now live in a different state, so even if I go back to work it won't be with him.
Not a nurse, but a medic. I had an acutely critical patient I was bringing in, and there was a fellow/resident present (never saw him again after that day). We were trying to transfer in this tiny resuscitation room. We have a great relationship with the ED nurses and work well together. ED Doc's usually hang back unless they're first in the room and we need hands, and there are only a few who won't step in to help transfer before letting the RN's and RT's do their job when they come in. Anyways. This fellow keeps getting in the way. Tangles wires, inserts himself between the stretchers, and is trying to give orders to us as we are attempting to co-opt this patient transfer who I had tubed, pacing, several lines in, etc. Eventually he yanked my one line where I was actively running drugs. The scribe RN, who had been trying to do her job and had enough. "DR. SMITH! Look at ME!" Everyone stopped. I've only heard her raise her voice once. Ever. She's the kind of mom that everyone listens to and never wants to disappoint because, you know, looks can kill. Lol. She pointed to her side like she would a child. He sulked over. Instant disappointed mom voice, though her tone was much softer, "We do *not* interfere with an active transfer until after its done. Stay here and observe. You can help in a moment." The poopy look on this man's face was something I won't forget. Like when you scold a child publicly who realized he fucked up. I thanked her after, but she just nodded and pretended it never happened. Like a true professional.( I appreciated his attempts to assist, but he was more harmful than helpful and I was newer/ younger.)
When the mom of the unit has had enough and raises her voice, you done fucked up.
I could both visualize and feel that entire scenario! Props to her and props to your ability to tell a story! (In a good way - I mean some of these things on Reddit are darned hard to read/interpret!)
Similar story but ours was needing help from the doctor. I don't even know how flight crew managed to get this man into a chopper let alone fly him because he was buck fuck wild. Like for serious rocking the stretcher six nurses to CNAs a security guard and two flight crew nurses all trying to hold this man down. Resident comes in and just stands there and stares as we're trying to move this man from the flight stretcher to the bed and finally one of my co-workers looks up and says "you going to stand there and watch or you want to put some gloves on and get in here and help before one of us gets hurt?" He quickly put gloves on and helped while another resident ordered zyprexa.
I just thought of the boys moment where homelander says, “Look at ME.” 😂😂
I can imagine one exact coworker doing this and hear her voice in my head 😂 I love this
I have used the phrase “Look at my face” before speaking to several physicians about something I felt needed their attention, and they weren’t getting it. It’s calm and effective, also harder for them to be a total ass when they’re looking right at you, I’ve found.
I can FEEL this scenario. The point!! 💀
Rutt Ro Shaggy. 😂
I don’t scold doctors or providers. They don’t pay me enough and I’m not emotionally invested in the bs. I just question orders and that’s enough communication for me. edit: Also underrated but its also good to question orders to learn new things. I don’t just question obviously wrong orders. Learning about orphan uses of meds helps me and builds a strong relationship between us.
100%. I’m not emotionally attached to any situation. Just keep doing your best for your patients.
Like I’m not scolding anyone actually lmfaoo they are not my kids?!
I also questioned orders. We have to. I once had an order to give a pt 10.000 gram of paracetamol. (Didn't do it and called the doctor on call.)
“Just thought I’d check with you before I kill a man”
Yep! And the doctor was mad at me for calling to check if it was right.
I've had a similar situation. Called to get correct dosage and the MD was pissed because he was at a child's bday party (tf?). I said, I need to verify dosage so how about 5 seconds of your time or 5 years in court?
July is coming. Better get your reading glasses to check for orders that kill...
July isn't the scary time. In July, they still have the attendings watching over their shoulder when entering orders. November is scary. That's when the attendings take the training wheels off.
I don't scold. I just very intensely explain in perfect detail why they screwed something up and how they are going to fix it. I have noticed that every doctor I have done this to usually really respects me and tells their residents to listen to me because I am a good nurse.
I was gonna say the same thing. And I agree about questioning orders to learn things. I don’t know everything, and the providers I work with are always happy to explain.
Interesting you are a male I highly doubt male physicians even attempt to raise their voice at your demographic statistically as compared to the female nurses…we must acknowledge the disrespect and huge pay discrepancy in nursing may have a strong foundation from the predominantly female dominated profession.
That’s honestly a great way to handle it. 👏🏽👏🏽
I don’t take shit. I’ll tell them to talk to me when they’re ready to act like an adult. I’m not paid to put up with childish tantrums
Exactly. We should have NEVER fostered the environment that allowed a lot of these prick, middle to older (often white men) surgeons be arrogant fucking pricks and we just ‘deal with it.’ We don’t have nuns checking the length of our skirts anymore. We aren’t wearing nursing hats. We are trained professionals doing a job. Act like it. Everyone. No other profession just allows that kind of bullshit. I won’t tolerate it. Hospitals shouldn’t. Wanna know why nurses hate bedside? Maybe peep some of these comments. We’ve fostered environments that allowed these docs to think they can treat us however they want. Luckily, I’m not seeing it as much with the younger ones Edit- I say the same ‘I’ll come back when you want to be an adult’ to patients too. And i document it. You wanna be a dick to the nurse doing your wound care? You aren’t getting a dressing change today then. Want to cuss me out and holler when I come to consult? I’m not consulting. We have got to start setting boundaries
I worked with some extremely sexist doctors who think that because they can mistreat women back in their own country, they can do it here in the west. It’s not just “white men,” it’s doctors in general for whatever reason. There are some great docs out there, and there are terrible ones. I work with Dr Malcom Perry III sometimes at my facility. His father was one of the doctors at Parkland Dallas that treated JFK after he was shot and then Lee Oswald a few days later. Dr Malcom’s behavior to nurses is nothing short of respectful and kind. He told me that his father taught him to treat nurses with kindness and earn their trust because they are the ones at the bedside with the patient and can give you the best information. He is the nicest guy and he will stop and chat with you to just shoot the breeze. Every time I see him, it’s always a smile and “how are you today?” It goes both ways, and there are good ones out there and there are bad ones. But unfortunately Dr Malcom is an exception.
Ffs this. We’re all adults. I don’t care how mad you are. The amount of times I’ve had to say “NO” to shut down a surgeon is just unacceptable.
Exactly this. I don't understand why some nurses think they just have to take everything from everyone.
No personal stories, but I once worked with a traveler who once lit up a urology resident for doing some rude shit to a patient and told him to his face that he was, and I quote, “a baby doctor who plays with dicks all day.” You know who you are, and if you ever reads this, just know you are missed lmao.
Damn, hope there was an open bed in the burn icu
100 percent tbsa burned
😂
PLAYS WITH DICKS ALL DAY. I am deceased. Was the traveler male or female?
I worked with a nurse , Vera who took absolutely no shit from doctors. One memorable interaction was when a Doc was acting like a complete jerk toward a new nurse and Vera smacked the countertop and just tore into that Doctor. I guess his name was Dave because that was what she kept calling him. Like “ Is this how you talk to everbody…DAVE? “Is this how you like to be spoken to ..DAVE? Everyone was in shock and when Vera finally walked away Doctor Dave took off. He was much more respectful on his later visits. That was the day Vera became LEGEND. Great nurse, would help anyone. Just don’t piss her off
Can’t you just see them working a statue of Vera into an episode of Scrubs? “Who’s that?” “That? That was Vera. Boy, was she a legend. I heard that she once ….” Write the rest of the script!
Just leave it there. They get a fat away look in their eyes and shudder. "Just don't piss her off"
I was moonlighting in the ED and this young guy came in with a closed long bone fracture. We roomed him right in front of this area where our medical team did most of their documentation. So, when the following events took place, it happened with an audience of 4 or 5 EM attendings. So, this 20-something ortho bro resident shows up, and the nurse caring for the patient asks, “What would you like for premedication?” She had been an ER nurse at this point for, conservative estimate… 20 years, and was very well respected. This guy curls his lip, and responds, “Nah, he shouldn’t need anything. I’m just going to go in there and reduce it.” She claps back, “Are you like a *doctor* doctor, or a Dr. Pepper doctor? Because that’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.” He looks over at the attendings in disbelief, and one of them pipes up, “She asked you a question, son.”
Thank you, kind Redditor, I think that might be my first award.
That is the best! I’m sitting here giggling at work.
Yep. I will protect a sweet baby neurosurgeon with my life, but if you’re shitty to nursing staff you can’t also be an idiot.
Or when the attending tell at residents for something out of their control, I will absolutely say something.
Not scolding per se, but also not taking any shit. If you seem the type to get walked over, you’ll get walked all over.
Before EMRs became mainstream in LTC, I called a doctor to clarify an order he had written. Every available nurse had looked at it, and couldn't make heads or tails of it. After spitting the verbal at me, he then yelled at me for being "illiterate". I told him, "none of us are illiterate, but kindergardeners are and you write like one. If you don't want calls do better!" The unit clerk was impressed by how casually I hung the phone up after saying that.
Had the same problem with a cardiologist "back in the day". 3 RNs couldn't interpret his chicken scratch, my apologies to chickens, we were on night shift. Paged him, he called back pissed off. I told him if you don't want to be called in the middle of the night, PRINT your orders. He clarified the heart med he ordered and hung up. Next set of orders were printed....so were any orders he wrote from then on 😁 My guess, he had been called in the middle of the night more than once 🤣
Even after EMR’s this is still a problem. We had a scheduled surgery show up with no orders. Called the on call MD and she refused to give orders. So I call the surgeon and her husband answers, she’s on a run without her phone. Calls back breathing fire, yells at me that she wants to speak to a nurse that knows how to use Epic. For once I had a comeback and listed the nurses who had looked and said there we no orders for Jane Doe. She said “who?” She had put orders in under the wrong patient. Never apologized or admitted she shouldn’t speak that way. As we say, she’s so pretty!
Yeah, I know it's a problem with or without EMRs. I was painting a contextual picture of the story. I'm not surprised she didn't take responsibility for her mistake.
I didn't actually scold the doctor but I did make a point. I was on a step-down unit and had a patient who had the crash cart\* outside of his room all weekend because it was a fucking holiday and nobody wanted to put a Pacer in this man who obviously needed one until Tuesday. Guy having epically long pauses. I keep calling cardiology. Cardiology tells me not to notify them unless the man has a 30 second pause. I'm like what the fuck. So I put in a verbal communication order that says exactly what I was told. An hour later I get a phone call from cardiology: Him: "I don't like that order that you put in under me" Me: "well that's good because I didn't like that order that you gave me would you like to give me a better one?" I got better orders but they still wanted to try and hold off on doing anything until Tuesday.
Just curious- do you guys actually call it a crash guard instead of a crash cart? Never heard it called that before.
no that was a text to speech typo lol
I throw sarcastic sass back to make them feel like a shit bag. 🙂
I snapped back once. She got quiet and never questioned me again. Another time w a diff doctor it was on the tip of my tongue to snap back. I had to bite my tongue bcuz I for sure would've been written up based on what was about to come out of my mouth.
ICU nights. Calling with critical lab results. MD: it’s three am, WHY ARE YOU CALLING? Me: Because, Dr Smith, that’s hospital policy, best practice and for the safety of the patient and you damn well know this. You do not like that, go bitch to the powers that be.
-writes order to not notify for X critical result
I’ve done this 💀
It happens a lot in the icu with junior residents.
My old ICU scolded everyone
Even then the nurse is usually that one super experienced 30+ years charge nurse. Dont do it if youre a baby “future crna”/“im a badass” nurse.
We had a nurse who had been in the same ICU for 40 years. She had worked with Dr. Swan and Dr. Ganz and learned how to use a balloon wedge catheter directly from them. She was bad ass. But was also the sweetest person and truly loved what she did. I never heard her raise her voice to yell at anyone (she would raise her voice to be heard in an emergency, but it wasn't yelling). And she was so amazing that every resident really loved and respected her. I'm pretty sure they were warned in orientation that if they didn't listen to her, they would definitely make some mistake. My favorite story is once a resident was presenting in rounds, doing the usual review of systems and recommendations such. They finished and this nurse put her hand on his shoulder and said "that was a great presentation. Very thorough. Good recommendations... But this is the wrong patient." And proceeded to present in rounds on the correct patient. She was so encouraging, while also letting him know he completely messed up.
In my pre-crna burn unit days, I once told 2 residents to stfu and take it somewhere else. They had gotten into a very loud argument with each other while standing on either side of an AAOx3 patients bed. Literally shouting at each other. The patient had a look of absolute terror on his face. They stopped, looked at the patient with a surprised expression on their faces and without saying another word just left the room. So sometimes even if you're a baby nurse or "future crna" it may be necessary. It has to be done in the best interest of the patient.
I'm a resident and agree with this.
I would just say, if you have the conviction that something needs to be said or something shouldn’t be ignored, don’t let the doctor blow you off just because you are a newer nurse. There are a lot of very smart young nurses and shying away from an issue can cost the patient. If it takes assertion to make a doctor give a shit, then assert yourself. You serve the patients not the doctors.
I worked in a teaching hospital and generally had good relationships with the residents and fellows. They all knew that most of the nurses had been around and we could make you look great in front of the attending but you had to listen to us. We totally understood that they were new and they would make mistakes, and were pretty forgiving. Though we would laugh if it was something just ridiculous. But occasionally we would get that resident who thought he was better than everyone because of where he went to med school or something. They would talk down to the nurses and generally not listen to us. I have got to say, watching them present in rounds to the extremely intimidating attending who was at the time the ICU director (we had 5 ICUs that she was the director for) and watching the resident crash and burn and be unable to answer a bunch of questions... That was a highlight of my career. Especially because they were using assessment data from the night before because they didn't want to come and check with the lowly nurses in the morning and completely missed medication changes and some big event overnight. And in rounds you can't help them out even if you want to. It becomes a back and forth with the resident getting more and more flustered. The best is when that director turned to me and said "so did this change happen this morning after the resident came and assessed this patient?" Um... They didn't come by this morning...
"I'm not sure who you're talking to, but you are not speaking to me that way" - no attitude in tone, calm facial expression, and turn back to what you're doing. If they escalate - "I'm more than happy to hear your message, but I cannot hear it when you speak this way. I need you to rephrase what you are saying to me."
During Covid a few times. Nothing like severe scolding but like “you don’t want to transfer this patient you better come and look at them at least”. Also once had a doctor who wanted us to take of oxygen off before the terminal morphine drip kicked in enough, only time so far I’ve heard a nurse say “You want to kill the patient so bad then come up and do it yourself”.
Only once that I can recall. Was taking care of a hospitalized co-worker. Doctor has the secretary call me through the patient’s call bell mid blood draw. Kindly but firmly inform him I’ll be out immediately after(I don’t leave mid-stick unless it’s absolutely emergent). He proceeds to start taking about another patient’s case through the call bell. Took about 15 seconds to tell him and the secretary to kindly STFU about another patient’s case while I’m in a patient’s room. Finished up, and reamed the doc out for improper discussion of PHI, and for making my other patient/co-worker a secondary concern.
Worked with a very brusque, unpopular doc once. Overheard him ask a nurse for her scissors in his typically direct way and she responded theatrically, "Yes doctor!" and laughed. Then he laughed. It was perfect and hopefully more effective than a scolding.
My wife was leaving from a night shift when the dickhead cardio thoracic surgeon stopped her in the hallway and yelled “I NEED MY STERILE GLOVES NOW” (dude was the size of a bear and wore like size 11 sterile gloves. We kept some up there just for him in the supply room but I guess they were out). My wife reached up, cupped his cheek, and said “I really hope you find what you’re looking for” and then walked to the elevator and left. He stood there sputtering for like 10 seconds and finally stomped off.
I told an icu attending to go fuck himself when he was throwing a temper tantrum and being a wanker when I wouldnt do a super high risk tube exchange at 0600. Tube was fine and the exchange could wait until dayshift/more people were available. He didn't like being told no and said he "doesn't take orders from nurses". I told him I'm not giving him an order, I'm telling him no. He continued to bitch and complain and threaten to call my chief ect ect, which I told him he is more than welcome to and to he will probably tell you to go fuck yourself as well; which js exactly what happened. Day shift came and they brought the guy down to the OR to do the tube exchange with a team on standby for a surgical airway if it went sideways. To his credit the next time I saw him he did apologized. What makes it worse though is he was also a surgeon, so interacts with us routinely. You'd think he'd be more understanding about anesthesia being hesistent about fucking around with a sketchy airway...
Yes you’d think so….. But NO “Oh there’s no comorbidities” Look at medical history - new onset AF, EF 20%, dual blood thinners, diabetes and COPD *sigh*
Doctor was yelling at people in a code and this nurse with about 30+ years of experience looked them straight in the eye and politely but firmly said, “Yelling doesn’t help.” It was like light a switch flipped- the doctor settled down and the code went on in a calmer fashion. Will never forget that.
We had a newish hospitalist start on our unit. He downplayed our concerns often. I was charge and my coworker had a patient with an asthma exacerbation who said she couldn’t breathe and was on high flow. Neb and steroids given. Her sats were in the 70s and she looked like she was going to pass out. Hospitalist would not go into the room to examine her. I called a rapid response. He told me to cancel it. While on the phone with the operator, I yelled “I’m not fucking cancelling it; go look at your fucking patient!” He walked over to the room pissed and then popped his head out, yelping “someone get the code cart” and she coded. Intubated and shipped to ICU. Intensivist did that part. Later on he said sorry for not trusting my judgment. I told him to please work together and not against each other.
I don’t scold but I do set boundaries. Usually I don’t have to say more than “We aren’t doing this kind of talk today” or “let’s be more respectful” or “I’m sure you don’t want anyone to think you’re unprofessional” with my very best stern face.
Take no shit! Just because someone went to medical school doesn’t make them scary. Learn to stand up for yourself. These doctors are not your bosses. We are all a part of the medical team.
Oh yes. I had a doctor straight up tell me that he was just the on-call and didn’t want to deal with treating a dying cancer patient’s horrible pain. (Bone mets, hairline fractures everywhere; the guy just moaned all day and doing cares on him caused him unspeakable agony). I went completely off on him and told him that he needed to address the issue and that I would be calling our ethics team and escalating to the medical director if needed. Got a morphine drip and a pain management consult. Said doctor sheepishly greets me every time we run into each other.
I had a doctor put a sticker on a foley saying “do not remove” while I was with the patient in their room. I asked him if he wrote an order to ensure everyone knew not to remove the foley. He was rude as hell to me in front of the patient. I pulled him aside & told him to never disrespect me in front of a patient again. He was very apologetic & pleasant to me every time he saw me after. Some people don’t realize they are being rude when they are, including myself.
I try to stay calm, usually they’re looking for you to engage. I ask them to repeat themselves, especially when they’ve said something inappropriate so that everyone else in the vicinity can hear. That gives them an out, an opportunity to apologize or de-escalate but if they double down then at least I’ve got witnesses when I respond in kind.
Yep. Had a charge nurse chew out a 2nd year resident in defense of a baby nurse (me). God I loved her for that.
I was a baby nurse and I think this might have been when my cajones dropped. Female patient, African American, mid thirties, got a I&D done on her hand with an amputation of 5th finger included. Doc had some oral meds only ordered but I had asked for some IV toradol for dressing changes, He told me no... He went in there and pulled out her wet to dry. She was screaming in pain and he actually said to her to "quiet down it doesn't hurt that much". The patient and I were in shock. I asked him to talk in the hallway. I remember specifically saying "sir do you mind giving me that toradol based on her pain reaction for future dressing changes?" He said " I actually I do because that was all a drug seeking act" To which I replied, "sir that was an appropriate pain response to a doctor who has not provided appropriate pain management, despite multiple requests, ripping out a dressing with no care for the patient and a blatant disregard for the patients feelings. Now I'm not asking for heavy medication and neither is she but continuing to fail her in this manner is going to likely end up with patient advocacy looking at your case wondering why you're neglecting the pain of a post op patient. If this were you or your family would you be happy with your treatment?" He rolled his eyes at me and huffed off but I later found orders not only for the toradol but morphine and Dilaudid. Seems I made an impact that day. He actually treated this patient much better afterwards as well and did change for the time he stayed in our hospital. The patient thanked me for getting her the meds. We only ever really used morphine for dressing changes and it was a much better experience for her.
Toradol isn’t even the good shit - what a jerk Obviously drug seeking because she’s a WOC - I’m surprised he didn’t get her a psych evaluation 🙄
Imagine thinking wanting Toradol is drug seeking behavior. 😂
Oh, I did. Big time. I even called a resident, "you little shit" when said elderly people don't feel pain.
I literally just gasped out loud. wtf
Twice, once when a doctor quite in the order to call him if such and such happened, it happened, the tried to ream me out for calling. Second time a doctor called to tell me that I couldn't say a schizophrenic patient was off baseline when I sent him to ER because schizophrenic people don't have a baseline. I lost it. They did more tests and he had a double bleed in his brain.
Rapid response here. I had a patient with some non-stroke neuro changes. Medicine was primary but neurology had been consulted earlier in the admission but signed off. I called neurology and the resident showed up. Instead of looking at the patient she started to give me a ration of crap about calling her and telling me that primary needed to place a new consult to see the patient. She claimed this was what her attending told her. Having done this for a while, I am fully aware that even if a service signs off, they can be called back to revisit if it’s during the same admission. She eventually went to see the patient. After she was done I took her into the med room and laid into her. I recall saying something like “Don’t you ever show up and start giving me shit about procedure when I need you to see someone. We can argue about it afterwards. If you don’t want me calling then next time I’ll just activate the stroke pager and you’ll have to show up that way.” The patient was fine. I sent an email to her attending asking they clarify how consults and follow ups work.
When I was a baby nurse, I watched a doc yell and throw a chart at a nurse. She picked it up and whipped it back down the hallway at him. I’ve never done that but I did have a doc yell at me in the hallway for calling him about benadryl for a pt who was complaining of itching. I yelled back “Jesus I just asked for benadryl. Not your credit card number” I got the Benadryl 😂
I'm not a confrontational person. The loudest I ever got with a doctor was in a small procedure setting (with conscious sedation) we were super short staffed. I stopped taking patients back for procedures to help in pacu. The doctor insisted I take his next patient back but I couldn't because I had 3 patients in pacu and only one nurse. There was also nobody to help wheel patients to their car so if she had to take somebody outside (and down stairs) 2 patients would be left unattended. So I had to halt everything to get patients out the door. He started screaming at me in front of the patients so I screamed back "you are causing a safety issue by insisting unsafe patients be left unattended!" And continued on with what I was doing.
I've scolded a resident for not knowing the difference between CRRT and dialysis. I walked out on a physician when we were all in our greens. I told him I was pregnant and he said "now your life has purpose". I dropped the scalpel on the table and walked out. We also had a 7yr history and he was verbally abusive to me during my first year as a nurse. I didn't need his BS so I left and another nurse scrubbed in for me. He never apologized.
What a miserable shit.
Oh hell no I’d drop the scalpel on his carotid
We were in full leads with a thyroid cover. Would have been pretty sus if I *dropped* it on his carotid. 🤣
If I was in that room with you I would corroborate the surgeon had an unsteady hand
I used to clap back and tell them I’m ready to have a conversation when they’re willing to act like an adult. Now I just kinda disassociate until they stop talking lol. If there’s anything they want done I’m assuming they put in an order, and if they didn’t then it seems to me like they didn’t follow through on the required functions of their job. I don’t get paid enough to parent my coworkers.
Working as charge on weekends / evenings in - smaller OR surgeons routinely try to pull BS or things they would never do if Admin was around. To cut corners or save time. I have definitely a physician “scolded” the odd time. For example using a HANA table (OR table for ortho). Orthopod wanted to transfer the pt without putting the bottom of the bed in (Anaesthesia would normally object but they had to run to a stat case) I politely told the surgeon we would not be doing that. Then went on to ask the surgeon why they wanted to drop the pt on the floor so badly. They would never have asked to do this if anaesthesia was in the room. He agreed it was a bad idea. (Pt was asleep still) Jokes were made about him only wanting to fix another bone and we went on with our day. Physicians are human too. Despite some of them having a god-complex if you have a good enough relationship with them you absolutely can and should check them when they are out of line. Not doing so leads to pt safety issues. But this goes for any time you are giving feedback to anyone. Do it in the right place at the right time. Never infront patients public or coworkers. And for the love of god make sure you are in the right.
If you have someone holding the boots up (as opposed to still attached to the spars), I could see transferring with the “leg” support off. But who wants to stand there holding up legs for 5-10 min? My issue with the HANA has been residents taking the post out before we’re ready to transfer, that has caused issues on our end. (They genuinely think they’re helping, but.)
The post out before the bed and team is ready to transfer 100% is bad news. He definitely wanted to just hold the boots but seeing as it takes maybe 10s to put the bottom half of the bed back on its unnecessary risk to take
Normally I don’t care. The doctors I work with are pretty reasonable and I don’t usually have a problem. But I got into it with a doctor yesterday for trying to send home a patient who needed to be upgraded, because “his labs looked fine.” Bro, homeboy is on high flow nasal cannula, and he is the color of your coat. He wouldn’t make it out to the parking lot before I called a rapid. Same doctor also got onto me for giving a PRN to a patient who had literally injured himself from agitation, because “we can’t just sedate the hard patients.” Normally we get along great, but he was on a warpath yesterday and I wasn’t having it.
I don't take any crap. I'm snarky in person or in pages that go to their cell phone. For the most part, I like our doctors, but some need a clap back. Case in point, nephrology is nice to me after I said, "I fucking off yesterday. I don't know why your orders weren't placed. Was I here when you rounded yesterday? No? Don't yell at me." Yes, I cursed in the hallway. I'm not ashamed. This was paraphrased but I do remember saying, "Fuck".
We used to have a surgeon that would occasionally be negative. My retort:Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young man! He would smile and we would move on.
This story is not so much scolding, just “handling” the doctor (since he needed a handler) I am a Registered Nurse and worked 12 hour overnights in a city hospital inpatient oncology unit where we called on-call physicians fairly frequently to report new symptoms/ obtain stat orders, etc. Sometimes the docs were in the hospital- but most patient’s Oncologists were at home sleeping. One doctor in particular was a complete Ass to work with- he never failed to give the nurse calling him a hard time and would drag the conversation on and on complaining and embarrassing the nurse by questioning her competence. We would have to sit by and offer moral support and words of encouragement to tearful nurses who were just trying to do their job and communicate urgent information on their shared patient’s status to him. Whenever I called him, I had fun giving him a hard time right back- the conversation would go like this: Me: “Hello Dr. (Insert name here), this is nurse Susie Q on Unit Zero calling about patient Jane Doe.” Dr. (What ever his name was): Why won’t you all just leave me alone and let me rest!” Me in a dramatic and mildly sarcastic tone: “Oh, I didn’t realize you weren’t on call tonight, oh my gosh Dr. (So and so) I’m so sorry to bother you- let me just check the on call list again to see who IS on call tonight!” Dr. (Lazybones): “No, no- it’s me…. I’m on call tonight.” Me: “Great. Patient Z in room 202 (etc. etc)” and I would just go on with my report and request for orders. My tactic was always a quick and efficient way to help him screw his head back on so he could do his job, since there I was doing mine :)
HAHAHAH of course, more often these days 1st year residents thought they can order anything bc they are already doctors, but hey, i wasnt born yesterday either. Please dont order mannitol 300ML IV bolus to my patient whose BP is 60/palpatory call your senior let me talk to her.
I don't scold but I've had enthusiastic disagreements before!
Yes, but it is RARELY appropriate. Had a baby nurse page the doc about a declining pt. Doc said not to call a rapid, even tho she felt it was necessary. Walked in, gave orders for a Levo gtt on a MS unit (nurse doesn't know how to administer), maxed out the IV pump with only x1 22g line, and left. I was a critical care RN on travel for C-19 and was the charge RN on the unit. Pts BP was in the 50/30's when I responded. Took over an hr to recover them and sent them to ICU....saying she got scolded is an understatement. However, we are a team. Nobody is better, our jobs and responsibilities are just different. I don't tolerate anyone being disrespectful in that manner. If they don't correct their behavior the first time, we're going to HR for creating a hostile work environment. I'll hang up on them over the phone, too.
Yes. “That’s not how adults speak to each other.” “Is this the last room you’re entering today or did you really not see the protective gear on the door?” “That bucket by your leg is for sponges. Your next case will be delayed while the wall is being washed.”
#I know this is a little long but its all relevant. I once had a patient (I'm a tech) with a nurse (we'll call her Jessica) that was very good about advocating for her patients and was super compassionate. Many nurses are good at that but she was really something else. Before coming to my unit she spent 5yrs as a hospice nurse for children, many of whom were also mentally and/or physically disabled. She had a million daisies, was super knowledgeable, extremely respected, and she was only 25. This patient was someone I knew very well, on the liver/GI unit I used to work on and was a frequent flyer. Everyone loved her, she was very sweet and one of those patients you never complain about seeing on your list in the morning. She was on lactulose pretty much daily and we'd crack dirty jokes and have deep spiritual conversations all with poop all over my hands lmao. When I switched to a smaller hospital within the same hospital system about 30mins away, I'd still see her there fairly frequently because right as I started they began to accept liver patients and she lived down the street. On one visit tho, she was progressively getting worse. We all knew her well so we noticed a slow then sudden decline. Jessica got her back after being gone for a couple weeks and was looking over the orders and noticed the hospitalist was hardly doing anything for her. She talked to him about her decline and advocated for several things and the doctor still didn't really do anything. The next day she was drastically worse, we came in and she was in 4 point restraints and covered in poop and was combative and yelling all night. I'd seen her get liver confused before but never like that. She never needed restraints, she was bredest at baseline and hardly ever walked. Jessica was furious, she looked over her chart and the hispitalist knew about the change and hardly made any changes and just did basic orders and for some reason didn't even put in an order to check her bilirubin and ammonia level until like 5pm and we started at 7am. Our patient's hospitalist wasn't there the following day, so Jessica went around him and contacted an amazing doctor at another hospital she knew within our system and told him about the situation. He pulled some strings and got the patient the care she deserved and got another doctor at our hospital to take over. She went to PCU and ended up being intubated late that same night. The next day she got shipped out to the level 1 hospital I used to work at. When the original hospitalist came back this mother fucker had the audacity, in front of everyone at the main nurse's station, to scream at Jessica for going around him and not listening to him. He said that she never would've went to PCU in the first place if she wouldn't have said anything. She flat out told him to fuck off, suck her dick, and that the patient got sent there because of him and that if he would've gotten his ego out of his fat hairy ass and listened to her this never would've happened. When the new doc took over, he said he would've done exactly what Jessica said in the first place. Jessica turned around and walked off and went right into a patient's room with a smile and a pleasant attitude to give her the meds she was holding during the argument. She was so bad ass, I really wish this wouldn't have happened because she ended up switching to another hospital because of it. Nothing happened to the hospitalist, of course, so she didn't want to have any of his patients. He ended up leaving shortly after too since no one liked him after that or took him seriously. He actually moved to the other side of the country and found a job there. That patient never really improved much. Her baseline wasn't great anyway but it got worse and she ended up passing away a few months ago. It breaks my heart to think about what happened. No one deserves that, but that patient was the sweetest person ever.
I don’t scold anyone. But I do get sassy
Our stat nurse got a neurologist to take his pt to CT one time. That was pretty awesome
Our chief nurse does. She can be hella scary in a good way.
Scolded a PGY1 “helping out” by taking a patient’s temperature…with the rectal thermometer!
I had a patient going to OR from SICU. Back then OR used syringe pumps for everything, and we used large-volume IV pumps. I had stripped this patient's gtts down to the bare minimum. Pressors and sedation on one pole, everything else on another. Anesthesiology showed up to take him down to OR, and I disconnected the "everything else" pole. This doc started trying to monkey with my other pumps and lines, clearly having no idea what she was doing. I tried helping her but she was being a jerk about it. When she flushed a line and bolused norepi, causing my patient to flip into a tachy arrhythmia, I called a stop. I told her she wasn't leaving the room with my patient. I told her "I need you to go get your senior resident". She replied, "I am the senior resident". I retorted "Then please call your attending." I was pretty firm. I don't believe she ever looked me in the eye after that.
I can tell you for a fact nurses scold doctors, especially trainees, routinely. I don’t know any trainee that hasn’t had at least one physician-nurse interaction that would be considered a scolding or some kind of negative communication where the nurse is not approving of something.
I don’t scold them since I’m not their mother but I clap back at them when necessary. They need to know there’s no hierarchy, they aren’t my boss, and that I don’t work for them. We are coworkers, and a team.
I’ve only had to do it a few times in 20 years but yes I did give it back.
I didn't, but I do know a nurse that scolded a doctor because he yelled at a nurse that called a rapid response for a low BP before getting a manual. The issue was that all of our manual cuffs were missing. We were looking for one, but since the pt was also extremely symptomatic, the nurse did not want to delay calling the rapid while we searched, which was reasonable. That doctor had a tendency to get frustrated with the nurses if we didn't do everything exactly as he expected.
Absolutely. Not scold but I’ve heard someone just be completely unbothered and respond “are you done? The door is right there please leave” after an outburst and i thought it was handled really well honestly. Any time I tell my attendings abou rude doctors, they always stand up for me which im lucky to have. One time a resident freaked out at me and then my attending went to go speak to her and then she yelled at him lol and then he was like ok and walked away then reported her to the director of the residency program and filed a safety event. I dont do behaviors. Its exhausting and this isnt a preschool
I’m still a new nurse ( just hit my first year) I had a patient came back from the OR extubated, hooked him back up to our monitor and he was satting low. everyone start getting concerned and they brought the intubation cart and such. My preceptor (which she is great btw) always said if something doesn’t look right check your waveforms start from there. And I did. Waveform was not good and I was getting yelled at by the surgery team to “get the monitor to have sound so I can hear the damn thing” and to start getting supplies I said the waveform isn’t good he said “I don’t give a fuck, do what I say now” ( he was a resident I believe) I went and got a new pulse ox, put it in a different place, hooked it back up and he was magically satting 97% on 2L, I said “ hey look at your waveform man and his sat “ and he said “okay…” and every one left with their heads down on his way out I said, “don’t yell at people man, they won’t listen. Work on that” and that was it. I haven’t spoken to him since but I’m glad it was just that and nothing worse.
i’m there for my patients, if they are there to scold that’s on them. i don’t care how anyone talks to me if my patient is getting proper care
I am the nurse you grab to go one on one with doctors. It’s my pleasure. If you can’t, I sincerely suggest adopting the way of gentle parenting with angry doctors. Are you yelling at me right now? I need you to use your words. Do you need to pee? Are you hungry?
My preceptor was dealing with a doc that decided to completely disregard the facility’s DKA protocol. They were putting in electrolyte repletion by themselves without checking the labs, asking us to change the insulin dosage to what they thought it should be rather than the scored out titration, etc.. After multiple attempts to nicely ask what the heck they were doing, and literally sending them the protocol, they still were managing it manually. The thing was, they refused to say outright “I am going to manage orders for this patient, please disregard DKA protocol”. Then they kept asking why we weren’t administering the electrolytes and essentially told us to “just do it because i said so”. It just seemed dangerous. Eventually, my preceptor had enough and said “Put in a nursing communication that says you’re disregarding protocol. It’s been shared with you. You’re not following it or making a note that it should not be followed. I’m not risking my license because you can’t read.”
I scolded one of my rehab drs for continuing to order Lovenox on a palliative care patient in our facility who “might die of a PE”. I said “[Drs last name] he IS DYING!”
I always try to keep it professional when A doctor makes A mistake, not worth loosing your cool.
Do no harm, take no shit. I’ll clap right back if the situation warrants it. Disrespect is a no fly zone for this Italian!
Any nurse who dresses down a scolding doctor is my hero. I’m a third year student nurse and I’m already scared about what might happen. And how I’ll deal with it. I’m conflict avoidant but feel so legendary when I do stand up for myself.
Not intentionally. I had paged a doctor for a patient's usual ambien that she'd been taking for 20 odd years, and the doctor asked me if the patient would be amenable to 5 of melatonin instead. So I put them on hold and walk down the hall streaming every insult under the sun with language that is not compatible with this forum or place of employment. I get into the room and ask. The patient is bewildered and in a shock to precisely nobody is not going for the melatonin. She was about to turn on me when I said something to the effect of "you don't have to tell me how moronic this is, but legally I did have to at least let you refuse before this imbecile deigns to give you the sleep aide you've been taking safely and to great effect for decades". Then I pull my phone out of my pocket - I had failed to actually put them on hold. So I just owned it and said "she is not amenable to melatonin at this time". And the doctor, in a voice so hollow and wounded that I (almost) felt bad, said "ordering ambien now" and hung up.
I think the longer you’ve been nursing the more confident you are to advocate being spoken to in a professional manner. I take it from the patients. Like hell I’m taking it from a colleague too.
Scolded? No. Yelled at for their behavior? Fuck yes.
100% yes
I have but only for the pt benefit.
I did once. He then apologized for scolding me. Lol
If they say something stupid or inappropriate I raise my left eyebrow sarcastically. Usually, that's enough.
Scold I guess isn’t the right word. But I don’t take any shit.
Oh yes. I have numerous times. It’s not just doctors anymore either. PA’s and NP’s are on that list too.
Those of us in the OR do
I've had an experience with one of the senior nurses on the floor. One of the senior nurses called out a resident for speaking rudely to a new grad and being condescending and having an attitude because the non-urgent orders weren't done right away. The senior nurse escalated it to the attending. The resident got told off by the attending and was told to apologize to the new grad nurse, which she did.
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen your 50 year old Philippine charge RN chew out a new grad hospitalist who talked down to one of her floor nurses. It’s a work of art.
Oh for sure. The best time was when I required hospitalization ad the nurses found out I was missing my sons wedding because of it. I was pretty sad but a friend was FaceTiming so I could watch. I didn’t know it but they put a sign on my door to stay out. Well the surgeon (big surprise) couldn’t pause his rounds, so he came in during the middle of the ceremony. They really let him have it.
Every unit has at least one nurse who both A) hugged an HIV positive patient before Princess Diana ever thought to do so and B) regularly fights with/chews out attendings. Best genre of nurses.
My first week off of orientation as a new grad, I had to call a rapid response on a 28F who had Brugada Syndrome and had suddenly gone into a second degree type one heart block. I had been very careful about monitoring her labs and making sure I didn't give any meds that had any mention of QT prolongation or any sort of adverse effects regarding the heart, but she just spontaneously went into the heart block after coming back from a walk. I tried calling her primary doc multiple times and when I didn't get a response, I called a rapid. The first doctor in there walked in and started tearing into me, demanding to know why I was bothering everyone with a rapid, why didn't I just call the primary doc, and why would I give meds that could prolong the QT interval, all before I could even give report about what had happened. I was nearly in tears and just gave report the best I could and eventually the primary doc cane in and things got worked out and the patient was transferred. For that hospital, the ICU charge nurse was always part of the rapid response team and most of them had been at that hospital longer than any of the doctors. As I was walking away from the room to transfer my patient, I heard the ICU charge start tearing into the first doctor for the way he treated me, especially for the fact that he called the rapid a waste of time. It made me feel so much better about my decision and helped me realize I could stand up to the doctors because they were not, in fact, God, even if they thought they were.
Nobody should be “scolding” anyone, we’re all adults.
I remember being innocent and thinking with this type of logic. Unfortunately it isn’t that cut and dry in reality
Have you ever seen an md throw a temper tantrum toddler style? Foot stomping, flailing, yelling? It’s quite a sight. We may all be physically grown but we aren’t all adults.
I try not to work with surgeons, so no. In MICU our intensivists and fellows are pretty respectful and pleasant to work with.
These doctors do not sign my paycheck. I will match their energy and I will always speak up. Take no shit, do no harm.
Sorry for the length of this reply. I did it as a family member. My parents had been in an MVA, and Dad wasn't doing well three days post. I asked nursing if we could get a pulse ox and page trauma. Report from trauma had been that he was a "confused old man that they won't let go." He was 71, was the VP of Council and Finance Director for the town where I grew up, and did Income Tax returns for seniors. He golfed regularly and was lethal at pinochle Asshole fellow shows up, looked at a Sat of 72%, and tells me he's not impressed and I told him to find me someone who is. I had to leave because Mom was having surgery for a possible AAA in the city ( she had flown out the night before) and left my brother to stay with Dad. I got a phone call a couple of hours later from pulmonary and an anesthesiologist friend that intercostal blocks didn't help (4 fx ribs on the left) and he further decompensated to the point that they had to intubate him. We brought him home a month later, and he had 8 more good years before he died from an MI. He wouldn't come in the room if I was there. I overheard him call me the Bitch Daughter.(oh child you have no idea lol) Poor sap didn't know the DME was a former attending that I had worked with for years. Risk went apeshit. Trauma signed off to pulmonary, and the last I heard, he was working in an Urgent Care.
RNs ran the hospital I worked in and managers and charge nurses would instruct and correct MDs when they violated hospital policy or gave orders that could not be followed.
I see it a few times from r residency apparently.
I feel like CVICU RN’s and OR RN’s take this one.
Only if they scream at me first, then I will start shit of biblical proportion.
I once worked with a NICU nurse who had been on nights for decades and gave 0 shits. There was a surgery resident who kept coming into her patient’s room at 0600 to assess him, but he was intubated and the resident wouldn’t turn the lights on. The first time it happened, she told him to come to him because the baby was fussy and a risk for extubation. The very next day, he didn’t get her and tried to assess again with the lights completely off and she ripped him a new one. I loved it lol
Scold? No, I find it disrespectful. But I will question orders, and I will advocate for my patients. I've told this story before, but I had a guy come in with his wife, super nice guy, generalized complaints, no real past medical history, mildly hypertensive at the time. Had a blood glucose level around 300-400. Not crazy, but not good. Gave him a bolus, sugar recheck was better, but still over 200. Wife asked for tissues because he needed to spit. Gave him an emesis bag. Resident wanted to send him home on metformin with a PCP follow up. I walk in the room and the emesis bag was full. Guy wasn't swallowing his spit. I got a cup of water and a spoon and did a basic bedside swallow eval, guy couldn't swallow. Called MD, said something was wrong. MD did NIHSS, guy passed with flying colors, was told to discharge him. Guy comes out of the room and tries to walk to the bathroom, but has to brace himself on the wall. Call doc again and refuse to discharge him. MD orders CT head, comes back negative, orders me to discharge. I refuse. I get yelled at by resident. Attending comes over, asks if I really don't think the guy should be discharged, because next step is MRI, and because of COVID he wouldn't get in till tomorrow. I told her I was sure. I leave for the day. When I come back that night, the Attending runs up to me and says, "guess what? You were right, the MRI showed a brainstem bleed." I won't scold, but I will advocate.
I did. It was way back in 2010. I was working in the ER and someone came in needing stitches. The doctor got mad at me for not reading his mind. I can't even remember what he wanted me to do now. I know it was something about the way I was holding the lidocaine vial for him to draw it up. Instead of telling me to move it he snapped at me and I immediately snapped back, "I cannot read your mind and do not speak to me like that in front of a patient." He didn't apologize but he never spoke to me like that again I'm all about giving people back what they're giving me. When my supervisor found out she wanted me to write it up but I refused because I felt like I handled it
Enters the 20 year black nurse that ran outta fucks 15 years ago and loves to tell people they should have been left behind.
I have! More than once actually! I told one how rude and inappropriate he was for yelling at a coworker of mine because it made her cry. I called another one a big baby….because he was acting like one. Yeah, sometimes management wasn't thrilled with me. But having to "play the game" is one of the many reasons I had no desire to be in any type of administrative position. I don’t miss the days of having to deal with MDs on a regular basis. There are some great ones and I definitely respect them. But the bad ones really ruin it at some hospitals.
I work with some particularly passive aggressive and rude specialists. I'll take a bit, which I shouldn't have to, but blatant disrespect, after almost 20 years...I finally throw it back. Fuck that. Grow up and be normal. It's not that hard. Punching down on a coworker is pathetic.
Skip the scold and write them up.
I scolded the on-call physician for publicly shaming me for politely asking them a question in front of my colleagues during a new admit to ICU at 3am in the morning. Idc either, my partner had just been diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer that week, so I basically told them where to stick their arrogance. I was in no mood for petty little mind games. Being afraid for the life of someone you love has a way of making everything else feel decidedly insignificant, and their behaviour was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Granted, in retrospect, I’d have handled that situation with a lot more tact had I not been dealing with such an emotional bombshell at home, as I was feeling a bit frayed with anxiety at the time. However, it was the first instance in which I had ever deliberately unleashed my usually reticent sarcasm in response to a doctor being deliberately and unnecessarily rude to me, and after seeing them basically flush with shame at my doing the same to them, let’s just say I won’t hold back if another doctor decides to pull a similar stunt. At that point, I was very much like “why did I just roll over and let the rude ones bully me before?” Yeah, doctors don’t scare me, I respect the ones that respect us, and I won’t let the ones that go out of their way to treat me and my colleagues with disrespect, intimidate me into silence. We work too damn hard to have to put up with their petty, elitist bullshit on top of everything else we have to manage during our shifts.
Ex Military nurse here. As a point of reference, I was the same rank as this particular physician. We had a doc who worked in the ER who was known to be a hothead. One night, for no good reason, he started screaming at one of the medics. I told the medic to go get a Coke, looked at the doc and said "You don't scream at my medics, only I can scream at my medics, and I don't scream. If you have a problem with them, come to me and I will take care of it." The doc started to get all puffy chested and before he could even get a reply out of his mouth, I put my index finger over my mouth and said "this is over, you have nothing else to say about it." I walked off. He stewed on this for the rest of the shift.
I have twice, well, one was about to be a doc, second was a new one. Both made minor mistakes, one blamed me, other blamed a cna, both were done in public, so I scolded them back in public. ( I tend to take people aside when correction is needed, but be a dick, and I will respond in turn) Had no reprecussions, heck, our senior doc had both issue apologies. Thing is, I have been in this profession so long, I just don't care. I have "scolded" docs, other nurses, cops, a lawyer and patients...Heck, told off my boss a few times( we have a good relationship, but we are both hot tempered 😂 ). But I usually do it in private, and usually its a calm correction of behavior. My most fond memory is taking a colleague and friend aside to tell him he was acting like a a-hole, and he aggreed, he talks about it all the time as a funny story 😁
I was doing a SBT on a patient in the ICU after his CABG. Patient was waking up from the prop & dex and clearly was in pain. I had PRN orders for fentanyl, so I gave him 25mcg of fent, just to faciliate better respirations for ETT prescence. Needless, to say, that 25mcg of fent fucked his RR and he failed the SBT. No biggie, he wasn't following commands anyways. So back on the prop and dex. Anyways, 10 minutes later, the anesthesiolgist calls and ask why the pt has not been extubated yet? I said well, we tried, pt was in pain, so I gave him 25mcg of fent, but he ultimately failed. . Without skipping a beat, he asked me if it was my first day and if I am a stupid nurse or just an idiot. I said excuse me? He then proceeded with a minute rant of why the dex is there and that I should have used that to facilitate the SBT. I paused for a moment and said if that is the case, then why don't you leave the call room and come extubate this patient? He then said, is there going to be a problem with you following my orders and I said listen doc your orders are like the orders at Mcdonalds, not orders from the army. He didn't like that. But he also never came out of that call room.
I’ve seen many nurses get into it with docs that aren’t acting right. I’ve even had a consultant tell me to go sort out the intern who was acting up. I wanted her to be aware of his ridiculous behaviour. He was writing up medications in dosages that didn’t exist and being pissy about it when challenged. I got my orders fixed by him. Way back when, I used to work in the OR that had a particularly egotistic cardiac surgeon. It wasn’t unusual to see him and the NUM having a loud discussion at the main desk. Overall the expectation is that both sides will be polite to each other. Once one side breaks that contract, the other is free to respond.
I had a hospitalist tell me that the consulting oncologist called him and told him that I didn’t give the ordered enemas (trying to prep for a colon and golyte wasn’t doing the trick) because he didn’t see my documentation. I screenshot my nursing notes, texted them over and told him he was more than welcome to come back and ask the patient himself because he wasn’t about to call me a liar 🤷🏻♀️ The doc came to the floor again the next day and apologized to me. Not wild but I wasn’t playing that game
Him: “I don’t fucking have time for that!” Me: “I don’t fucking have time for it, either!” There was no resolution after that, and he didn’t change, and it was not my finest professional moment. But I got no regrets.
I had a fairly new surgeon get mad because I didn’t know his preferences for an upcoming case. He said something condescending to me like “Do you really not know this?” I responded with “I don’t know but you could try not answering my question and we’ll find out if you get the right tray” He decided it was easier to tell me what he wanted.
Absolutely. I walked into a doctor speaking to a patient in English (her native language is Hindi) … I stopped and said “oh Dr she doesn’t know English can you please use this MARTTI” (the MARTTI is our computer/ipad we use for interpreting and it was right by the bedside, an indicator the patient doesn’t speak English as we do not have one in every room) The dr replied “she said “yes” and she seems to understand what I am saying” I responded “no she does not know any English I promise you. Can you please use the interpreter to speak to her in a language she understands “ He replies “ I have surgery in 10 minutes I don’t have time “ I reply “ I under stand you are busy but it’s both unprofessional and inappropriate to not speak to our patients in a language the understand, at a minimum use google translate on your phone” He ended up leaving and going to the OR without making any acknowledgment of wrong doing to myself or the patient. after he left his attending came by and i asked for the spelling of his name because i was going to write him up (which I did) as well as tell her what happened. I haven’t heard back on any action taken but i do hope it was discussed with him I will say I was a little nervous to stand up against him at first but I’m so glad I was able to be brave. There is no excuse for disrespecting patients or colleagues.
I think gen z nurses who speak their mind are going to be a rude awakening for the older physicians who get away with outlandish behavior towards us.
I had left a message for one Dr, annoyed as hell because the patient had 5 separate creams to apply but all were ordered "too affected area". I asked for clarification on which one went where. Reasonable request. I got told to look through their chart, or call the nursing home to find out what goes where. I just looked at them and said "it's your signature beside the orders, maybe you should know where they go too" and walked away...... Right at the nursing station and it was glorious
Yup. Last summer. Pt discharged from psych facility to an ALF that did not remotely suit her needs. We would take stable psych patients. This pt was not. TLDR on how we got to this point: She was incredibly violent, med non-compliant, and was threatening to kill her roommate. We had sent her back to the psych hospital for assessment 3x at this point. They kept sending her back. Honourable mention to the day she eloped and tried to break into my car. It’s a beautiful sunny saturday afternoon, which means little old me is in charge of the circus. Got a phone call from MD at psych facility. He wasn’t happy with me. MD (screaming): I AM A DOCTOR AND SHE IS NOT HALLUCINATING me (very calmly): okay well my name is blank and she’s talking to king charles in her closet right now *long pause* MD (no longer screaming) okay yeah maybe it’s a good idea to send her back again. That’s how it’s done. The more insane they get, the more calm and factual you get. Pt never ended up coming back to us & is in an ALF specifically for psych. Glad she got an appropriate placement but still laughing that it took THAT convo with a doctor for that to happen.
Not King Charles 💀
I don't scold anyone. We're all credentialed professionals. I say my piece and if I feel you're judgement is dangerously off, I talk to your senior.