Quote:
Originally Posted by inthemindofanurse
What happened to people taking pride in their work? What happened to people wanting to learn? I am so disheartened by today's society  I have been noticing people at work cutting corners and just not seeming to care about things. I have heard "that's not my patient" too many times to count. I hear people tell patients "I don't know" quite often. I watched a girl put her deodorant on in the middle of the office, in the middle of rooming patients. Where did TEAMWORK go? I thought when someone didn't know something that was part of their job, they learned. What happened to being/acting professional at work? I had a meeting with my boss and brought to his attention that things weren't being done they way we were trained and it was making the whole office look bad (ex: pt was diagnosed with breast cancer while up north for the season, we have seen her twice since then, and it's still not documented in the chart) <---- this is just an example! The response I got has now got me wondering why I even try? If the boss doesn't care why should I? Why do I stress myself out to do everything to the best of my ability when nobody else around me is? What's the point? I mean, even on here...I tried to get on here and help people and I got people who were just so negative and hateful (Not all of you!, please know that I do acknowledge those who appreciated what I was trying to do) I feel like everybody has got the mindset of just doing enough to get by. Do just enough work to not get fired. Learn just enough about my health that I don't kill myself by mistake. I just want to give up To make it worse, I see/hear patients say how wonderful their nurse is because she was so sweet and chatty and smiley. Yet, that was the same nurse who didn't take the time to document in your chart that you got a flu shot, who was too busy on facebook to send in that prescription you asked for. Then there is me: who is kind and welcoming but more professional, focused, and concerned about making sure all the i's are dotted and the T's crossed. I am so upset at the society I have brought a child into. |
Sadly, you are 100% on the mark and I have seen everything you describe and more. But I'm just going to comment on the two statements that irk me the most:
I hate the phrase "That's not my patient" I trained in "the old days" when you helped out your fellow resident, stayed until all the work was done, even if it ended up being 40 straight hours. There was no such thing as "not my patient". We were all there BECAUSE of the patient, not in spite of him. Even if a nurse was overtaxed, she would help with a patient or immediately get someone who could. Somewhere in the 90's this all changed, as nursing focus shifted from patient care to documentation. It was the exceptional nurse that could do both (I'm glad you could). The problem was that a nurse was more likely to get "in trouble" for not documenting volumes of paper than for taking 30 minutes to answer a call bell---we can thank the regulators for that one. I remember the first time, in 1999, that I heard a young physician state "that's not my patient", He was 25 years old when I sat him down, I have no idea how old he was when I finished lecturing him. In my opinion this was a result of the "shift mentality" that arose in the aftermath of the Libby Zion case that changed the nature of physician training nationwide.
As far as the example you gave goes, it is almost unbelievable. I cannot imagine something like that happening. In the reverse situation, the first line, the VERY FIRST line of that encounter would look something like "Pt returns from winter in Florida with newly diagnosed T1N0M0 ER+PR+ ductal carcinoma of the R breast. A 1 cm suspicious lesion was discovered on routine mammography; she subsequently underwent stereotactic biopsy with positive pathology. Pt elected to undergo lumpectomy with axillary node dissection and completed 6 weeks adjuvant RT, now on arimidex" I just can't see writing anything else---but this didn't happen not once, but twice? And your "boss" didn't think anything of it??? If Karma exists, this is what will happen down the roda---the patient will call concerned that she has a recurrence of her breast cancer, and the physiciam will respond "What breast cancer?"---Good luck with what ensues then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by goodtimesintv
We see nurses and doctors forced to spend more time feeding a slow, cumbersome and lacking computer record than actually talking with and taking care of the patient. It's this way because that is the goal of those who are greedy for power.
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This is just the modern version of writing volumes by hand. We actually have a pediatrician in town who uses a desktop instead of a laptop, so his back was constantly to the patient/mother!! But the reason for all this computer time falls squarely on the government regulators and insurers. We are being used as glorified data gatherers for God knows what reason, and their hunger for this data grows exponentially. Now, they have no idea what the data is or what it means or how it relates to patient care---they are just there to "gather" it. Very efficient, huh? I am so glad I retired a few months before the implementation of ICDM 10---7 digit "codes" for each diagnosis, with thousands of pages of government regulation behind it. So you can expect more computer time and less patient time from your next visit. Not to be political, but consider this---If you can't get the people to want socialized medicine, and you can't get the doctors or Congress to approve, then just regulate the industry until it crumbles leaving no choice. If you don't think that can happen, I have two words to say---"coal industry"