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8 Things Nurses Should Never Say to Doctors
Marijke Durning | NursingLink
The doctor/nurse working relationship has its ups and downs. When the two work well together, the most difficult of patient cases seems like a breeze. But if there is any contention, if one rubs the other the wrong way, tackling even the simplest problem is like climbing Mount Everest in the off season – a nightmare. We know what doctors and other health care professionals say to nurses that they might have been better off not saying, but what about what we say to others? We’re not completely innocent of foot-in-mouth disease either!
Sure, many times, it’s doctors acting superior, or patients behaving as if we don’t know anything. But let’s be honest, sometimes, us nurses aren’t angels either, right? Calling the doctor needlessly at all hours of the night? Asking questions we can answer ourselves? It happens to the best of us, but it also doesn’t help a nurse’s reputation if she’s consistently wasting everyone’s time.
In the interest of promoting workplace harmony, check out this list of eight things you should never say to a doctor.
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Featured Author: Marijke Durning
Marijke Vroomen-Durning has been an RN since 1983 and although she has been writing since the mid-90s, she continued to work clinically until last year. Her passion is patient education and helping the general public understand the medical world by translating medicalese into real-life language. Marijke’s popular blog, Marijke: Nurse Turned Writer has been the catalyst for her career as she now claims the number one spot in Google searches if you type in “Nurse writer.”
pswaide
about 2 years ago
2 comments
I just had a conversation with one of our NP's this weekend about how often this is happening. As a clinical instructor, I am sharing this with my students.
marina_dilbone1
about 2 years ago
26 comments
Some good points-but sometimes my "colleagues" have reported me to charge nurses and managers for asking for a second opinion at 6 in the morning-I always feel better asking and will always err on the side of caution but I should not have to wonder if I ask someone should I call if they will report me that I SHOULD KNOW TO CALL-am a travel nurse-enjoy for the most part except for power struggles like that
arcadia55
about 2 years ago
2 comments
I do not like calling the doctor late in the evening or early in the morning. But one thing this whole article is not recognizing is the fact that especially in long term care, because of the policies kiin place, the nurse must call no matter how trivial. I know that to be a fact especially in Michigan, we nurses had to call in any and all abnormal labs no matter how slight the difference in values were, and we could not allow anything at all go until the next morning, did not matter if all Mr Brown had a slight head cold or that Mrs. Smiths ua came back positive for a ua, and she was asymptomatic. It could have waited until the next morning, but no because the result was received at 1am, we still had to call the doc.
ccolburn
about 2 years ago
1624 comments
Sometimes as Nures we make mistakes this is some Great advice!
Inara
over 2 years ago
64 comments
good advice, especially for new nurses! It's true, people don't think much of nurses, but sometimes, we make mistakes too!