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>>I worked with doctors and even ate lunch
or dinner with them depending on the shift.There were just one or
two out of the lot that the staff trusted. It seems like they have
become so smart that they have become incompetent.
or dinner with them depending on the shift.There were just one or
two out of the lot that the staff trusted. It seems like they have
become so smart that they have become incompetent.
How do you mean the staff trusted those doctors? Did they only trust a few to do procedures on them? Or they trusted them as far as covering them in the event of a lawsuit?
As health care workers, we are privileged that we get to see all the doctors we work with, and we get to see how they do what they do. We get to see how they react in an emergency, and we get to see the results of their work. We get to see the best and worst in all the doctors, and we tend to compare them to each other. Human nature being what it is, we tend to make friends with certain doctors, though, and we tend to gravitate to the doctors that we've become friends with when we need to see them on a professional level. I'm guilty of that too, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It is what it is.
I work in endoscopy, and it just so happens that I've developed problems swallowing within the last couple of years. I've been scoped a couple of times for it, and the doctor at work who is my closest friend is the doctor who did my procedures. Now, he also happens to be extremely skilled at what he does. But the beauty of our relationship is that I can reach him by cellphone any time of the day or night. We already have an agreement that if I get food stuck in my throat, my husband can call him from my cell phone, and we can meet at the hospital. My biggest fear is that it will happen on a night that I am the person who is on call (and that has happened before LOL). I can't tech my own procedure! LOL We work in a very small hospital, and there are only a very few people who can do the job that I do. I've actually had to go in early for my own procedure and set up for it, but let somebody else assist the doctor with my procedure. If you want to talk about being scared of a procedure, have one when you know that the doctor is the only one in the room who knows what they're doing...now, that is scary! I wouldn't agree to let him scope me until he promised not to let anybody touch anything. LOL
Hospitals are all about teamwork, and there's a reason for that. We're all human, and everybody makes mistakes, but the plan is that if I make a mistake, the doctor is likely to catch it. The same holds true for the doctor. I've caught doctors making mistakes, and I can and will point it out to them. Most procedures have at least 3 or 4 people in the room, and we all know what the other is supposed to be doing. It's very VERY rare for a mistake to go unnoticed by everyone in the room. A rookie nurse may be too scared or lack the knowledge to point out a doctor's mistake, but a veteran has no such qualms. That's part of the reason why we always pair rookies with veterans. A doctor may yell at me if I point out that he makes a mistake, but I couldn't really care less...let him yell. I know all the curse words he knows, and I can say them just as loud as he can. If he insists on doing something that I know is dangerous to the patient, I usually only have to ask the nurse to document our conversation, and that will almost certainly make him change his mind. Of course, if there's a valid reason for doing something that we wouldn't normally do, he can explain it to us. We'll still document it, and we will probably discuss it with our charge nurse or operating room director, but we're more open to doing something a little different. Most of the time, when I point out to the doctors that they almost made a mistake, they thank me profusely...I don't know anybody who *wants* to make a mistake.
The point is to say that nurses, techs, and even doctors are very conscious of the fact that we are there as an advocate of the patient. Very frequently, especially in departments such as mine, the patient can't speak for themselves. I personally take a lot of pride in treating every single patient just as I would want my own family members to be treated, and I think most nurses and techs do the same thing, at least in procedure areas. I can't speak for floor nurses, because I've been out of that arena for more years than I care to remember. ;-D
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