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So there is a thread going in the EM forums about the Top 20 things not to do in the department and along with good medical info alot of people have posted "don't piss off the nurses -- they can make your life miserable."
It got me thinking, this is certainly conventional wisdom in medicine but it seems that it has one of two implications, one of which is pretty awful ....
1. The statement "DPOTN" means that we as physicians should treat all ancillary/hospital staff with courtesy and respect at all times.
2. The statement "DPOTN" means that many RNs can behave in a vindictive and extremely unprofessional manner towards their physician counterparts with little if any fear of reprisal.
I mean, imagine if I as a physician got angry with a nurse and modified my order sets so as to give her more busy work to do throughout the day. I could imagine ordering more frequent neuro checks, making QD meds BID, giving the nurse lower thresholds to call the MD, ordering more frequent ambulation etc etc. What an unprofessional thing to do!
It would be interesting if it could be well studied from a sociological point of view, "do nurses attempt to create more work for physicians they don't like?" Who knows what the eventual answer might be, but if it were positive that would seem to me to be a stinging slap in the face of the nursing profession.
Thoughts?
It got me thinking, this is certainly conventional wisdom in medicine but it seems that it has one of two implications, one of which is pretty awful ....
1. The statement "DPOTN" means that we as physicians should treat all ancillary/hospital staff with courtesy and respect at all times.
2. The statement "DPOTN" means that many RNs can behave in a vindictive and extremely unprofessional manner towards their physician counterparts with little if any fear of reprisal.
I mean, imagine if I as a physician got angry with a nurse and modified my order sets so as to give her more busy work to do throughout the day. I could imagine ordering more frequent neuro checks, making QD meds BID, giving the nurse lower thresholds to call the MD, ordering more frequent ambulation etc etc. What an unprofessional thing to do!
It would be interesting if it could be well studied from a sociological point of view, "do nurses attempt to create more work for physicians they don't like?" Who knows what the eventual answer might be, but if it were positive that would seem to me to be a stinging slap in the face of the nursing profession.
Thoughts?