Another doctor suicide

[cbrons]

I hate to use this analogy, but it's like League of Legends or any online MOBA. The team around you is toxic and unhelpful most of the time, so you just mute everyone and push objectives until you win with as minimal interaction as possible. And it makes me angry because the exercise of rounding is supposed to be a teaching tool. If the attending thinks teaching is "know everything about your patient and dont ask me questions" and "I'll call you out, because I had a bad day", then it is a waste of time. I've had the ill-experience of residents and attending arguing in the middle of the nurse's station on how bad their experience was in the rotation like some Gray's Anatomy episode. It's ridiculous sometimes

Excellent analogy. Hasn't been my experience, but I still like it.

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[cbrons]

I am surprised and shocked that physicians, well educated, bright physicians would be intimidated by nurses, many of whom are not even nurses, and some which i'm sure barely speak english and don't even know their own patient's names. Lol! This is awesome. Fascinating!

We aren't intimidated by them. But at the VA, the general rule is that the lower the education and useful to the hospital, the more power and harder to fire the employee is.

 

[cbrons]

I have worked in the midwest and in MA, as well as Tx. So if a nurse does nothing, no lab draws, no patient care, etc. and you report her - what are you all so afraid of? What is their role then? There are some big egos in NY, I could not imagine the average NYC doctor cowering from loser nurses. I expect nurses to do as they are told/ordered. If not I will be reporting them.

At the VA a nurse can never be fired

 

[Doctor Christmas]

We aren't intimidated by them. But at the VA, the general rule is that the lower the education and useful to the hospital, the more power and harder to fire the employee is.

How do you figure that? I've had several nurses reprimanded at the VA. I think the mentality is wrong - as the physician you won't lose ultimately.

 

[rokshana]

How do you figure that? I've had several nurses reprimanded at the VA. I think the mentality is wrong - as the physician you won't lose ultimately.

And we are not talking about attending physicians but residents...resident who get evaluated by these nurses...enough complaints and it can jeopardize your spot...

Admin, heck even the attendings many time will side with nursing...because the resident is only there for a few years...they wanna keep those nurses ...

 

[rokshana]

How do you figure that? I've had several nurses reprimanded at the VA. I think the mentality is wrong - as the physician you won't lose ultimately.

Reprimanded....not fired... doesn’t happen.

 

[Doctor Christmas]

Reprimanded....not fired... doesn’t happen.

And we are not talking about attending physicians but residents...resident who get evaluated by these nurses...enough complaints and it can jeopardize your spot...

Admin, heck even the attendings many time will side with nursing...because the resident is only there for a few years...they wanna keep those nurses ...

Sometimes physicians are their own worst enemies. Why would we allow nurses to evaluate residents? Most nurses are awful - poorly educated, lazy, don't even know their patients by name. A few might be in the exception category and be better. Yes we have that too where nurses eval residents. But that's outright ridiculous. Who came up with that? It's like asking the secretaries to eval residents. And why are residents not evaluating nurses? At our program, when nursing evals had a lot of BS on them, they would get thrown out if they did not have objective info on them, especially if they were in counter to other evals.

 

[evilbooyaa]

I have worked in the midwest and in MA, as well as Tx. So if a nurse does nothing, no lab draws, no patient care, etc. and you report her - what are you all so afraid of? What is their role then? There are some big egos in NY, I could not imagine the average NYC doctor cowering from loser nurses. I expect nurses to do as they are told/ordered. If not I will be reporting them.

Hope you never work in NYC, you will not like your life.

This is only an issue at the resident level, as far as I know. NYC residents remember the line "They can always hurt you more".

 

[WingedOx]

Sometimes physicians are their own worst enemies. Why would we allow nurses to evaluate residents? Most nurses are awful - poorly educated, lazy, don't even know their patients by name. A few might be in the exception category and be better. Yes we have that too where nurses eval residents. But that's outright ridiculous. Who came up with that? It's like asking the secretaries to eval residents. And why are residents not evaluating nurses? At our program, when nursing evals had a lot of BS on them, they would get thrown out if they did not have objective info on them, especially if they were in counter to other evals.

The whole "360 degree evaluations" are becoming a thing everywhere nowadays, though at least in terms of resident education I have a hard time getting worked up about them. No PD who knows his job is going to care much about a single complaint from a rando nurse, certainly not enough to "lose your spot" as @rokshana said. However, if you're the type to be collecting repeated bad evaluations from nursing, even in settings like your typical urban VA, something's up and probably requires some examination. As a resident, you should probably worry more about passive-aggressive retaliation than some complaint to your PD.

That's not to say there aren't problems. One of our inpatient attendings got written up by one of our senior nurses last month and it was a "you've got to be f-cking kidding me" type of thing where he had to deal with the fallout to supervisors when he was clearly in the right.

 

[W19]

That's not to say there aren't problems. One of our inpatient attendings got written up by one of our senior nurses last month and it was a "you've got to be f-cking kidding me" type of thing where he had to deal with the fallout to supervisors when he was clearly in the right.

How is that even a thing?

 

[rokshana]

The whole "360 degree evaluations" are becoming a thing everywhere nowadays, though at least in terms of resident education I have a hard time getting worked up about them. No PD who knows his job is going to care much about a single complaint from a rando nurse, certainly not enough to "lose your spot" as @rokshana said. However, if you're the type to be collecting repeated bad evaluations from nursing, even in settings like your typical urban VA, something's up and probably requires some examination. As a resident, you should probably worry more about passive-aggressive retaliation than some complaint to your PD.

That's not to say there aren't problems. One of our inpatient attendings got written up by one of our senior nurses last month and it was a "you've got to be f-cking kidding me" type of thing where he had to deal with the fallout to supervisors when he was clearly in the right.

i did say "enough" complaints...one bad eval, from anyone, is not going to jeopardize your job, but if a good number of evals are bad, even from nurses alone is going to raise a red flag and put you under the microscope...and that, as numerous threads here form dismissed residents, can be a problem that leads to termination.

 

[WingedOx]

i did say "enough" complaints...one bad eval, from anyone, is not going to jeopardize your job, but if a good number of evals are bad, even from nurses alone is going to raise a red flag and put you under the microscope...and that, as numerous threads here form dismissed residents, can be a problem that leads to termination.

and if you're getting that many bad evals, you SHOULD be put under the microscope.

 

[FamilyMD2003]

Every physician suicide deserves an M&M.

Your damn right!

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Your damn right!

Not really unless every suicide no matter the occupation gets one too.

 

[FlowRate]

If we're making a list of suggestions, I'd add this: confidential mental health support provided by a peer institution in the same locale. I know physicians who have avoided their home institution's support systems, because they don't want a record of mental health visits to appear their EMR.

I know this is a late reply to this specific post, but honestly I think EMR's make it less likely that people will see your information with the chart. It's easy to get notified if people are accessing your chart.

 

[mimelim]

Not really unless every suicide no matter the occupation gets one too.

Wrong, doctors' lives are more important than other people's lives.

 

[ThoracicGuy]

Wrong, doctors' lives are more important than other people's lives.

Black Lives Matter Doctors Lives Matter!!!!

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Black Lives Matter Doctors Lives Matter!!!!

What about Black Doctors' Lives?

 

[WingedOx]

What about Black Doctors' Lives?

"Those doctors only got in because of AA"
[posts to pre-allo]

"All Providers lives matter"
[posts to allo]

"Hey look, a story about a resident who got fired for being black"
[posts to residents]

...[Winged Scapula bans my account forever]...

 

[Apollyon]

...[Winged Scapula bans my account forever]...

Well, that's generally how it goes. Banned users are only very rarely welcomed back. When you get the boot, it's permanently in da butt.

 

[Mad Jack]

lol...you have never worked in the NE have you?
as said above the nursing unions are very strong and have great pull...A nurse does not stand alone..you mess with one you mess with ALL of them...

Interesting. CT has minimal union presence aside from UCONN.

 

[WingedOx]

Well, that's generally how it goes. Banned users are only very rarely welcomed back. When you get the boot, it's permanently in da butt.

If I'm going out, I'm going out in a blaze of glory.

 

[WingedOx]

Interesting. CT has minimal union presence aside from UCONN.

Plus Philadelphia, unlike NYC, was known to have really high quality nursing in their hospitals.

 

[ThoracicGuy]

"Those doctors only got in because of AA"
[posts to pre-allo]

"All Providers lives matter"
[posts to allo]

"Hey look, a story about a resident who got fired for being black"
[posts to residents]

...[Winged Scapula bans my account forever]...

 

[rokshana]

Plus Philadelphia, unlike NYC, was known to have really high quality nursing in their hospitals.

Depends on the hospital in philly...the ones in the hospital I worked in varied... but many were just about doing what their union allowed them to do...no more no less.