Enter Dr. Super Shitty. King of All that is Wrong with Internal Medicine Doctorin' ™. When I work with him, I basically hum "I'm an asshole" by Dennis Leary the entire day. (usually something reserved for my husband when he pisses me off, so you know this doc has some serious talent)
1. Rounding on all the patients (usually about 20) between 8-9:30 and telling at least half of them they are getting discharged. Except, he has no intention of even starting any of the med recs or paperwork until after he takes his lunch hour at 1 pm. Then, while the RNs are doing their 9 am med passes, we are greeted with patients in the process of taking off their telemetry, asking to have their IV sites taken out and wearing their damn street clothes. Then they get pissed off when you break it to them that nobody goes home until after lunch because that's when the paperwork should be done.
2. Except, Dr. Super Shitty does NOT start the paper work as promised at 2 pm for those patients, oh no. You see, he is busy ignoring requests for things like pain meds for people admitted with intractable pain and requests for an order for kayexalate for a patient with a K of 5.2. Because we really LOVE giving that to people anyway. Oh, and the order a few hours later to send c diff stool sample on the same patient? Brilliant. (and I understand everyone has bad days when things don't happen in a timely manner but this is ALL. THE. TIME. every time he works. It's at the point now where as soon as I see he is assigned to our floor, I want to turn around and punch out as soon as I clock in) As a result, close to a dozen patients are furious at 5 pm when they finally are ready to go home.
3. Super shitty also is terrible about communicating with family members- I spend my whole day talking to families about matters I know nothing about and playing case manager too (they are typically on call on weekends). He also refuses to obtain DNR orders from a patient who has a copy of a living will and verbally tells the nursing staff that you don't want to be resuscitated int he event of a code. The form is flagged on the chart-- all Dr. super shitty needs to do is have the already willing to sign patient sign.. but there the form sits. All day.
which leads to...
oh yes.
Doesn't the patient code.
And don't we have to initiate CPR.
Thank GOD her cardiologist showed up and said "She does NOT want that! We have spoken at length about this just today. She said she was going to ask the IM doc for the form since he had the chart.. *flipping papers* Why wasn't this signed?!" * flipping more* .. she has severe arthritis and was unable to sign her general consent.. Code babe, you were in the room with me for the conversation, will you witness this? I'm signing this form as patient unable to sign." I witnessed it, of course. I also witnessed a woman's last few minutes of bone cracking chest compressions she didn't even WANT.
The only people I feel worse for than the RNs and the patients on our floor, it's the other internal medicine docs who have to listen to his signoff and then clean up all his messes and put out all the fires he causes. It's a similar thing with RNs.. there are some nurses that habitually don't check labs, always forget to tell you important things and leave you with IV sites that are blown.
So, in sum. Please, if you work in a hospital, don't do shit like that. kthxbye
Haha!!! I ♥ you Meg. :)
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