Many of our fellow students have told me stories about their dealings with other health care professionals, in particular the arrogance and condescending attitudes of those in the medical profession. Granted, not all doctors are like this (the doctors on my current prac are marvellous), but it reminded me of the dealings I had with one particular doctor a few months ago.
I was on a general surgical ward for my cardio placement and was sent to another ward to see a patient with pneumonia. I had tried to see this lady for 3 days but to no avail as she had gone for dialysis twice and for a biopsy the other day. This time I was determined! I spoke with one of the doctors treating her prior to starting my Rx as they had tried to put a cannula in her foot, and I had planned to ambulate her. The doctor informed me it was fine, and they were finished with her so I could go ahead. About 10 minutes into my treatment, another doctor came in, demanding that I stop my treatment so he could try re-inserting the cannula. I firmly but politely said to him that I was in the middle of treatment and that I would be finished shortly. The doctor persisted, basically saying that his treatment was more important than what I was doing so I had to get out of the way. My reply was that I had been trying to see this lady for 3 days, and that the condition her chest was in was so bad that if I did not intervene, there was a high chance her condition would deteriorate. I also stated that if the doctor would give me 10 more minutes to try some breathing exercises and ambulation, then she was free for his procedure. Much to my surprise, he left me to it, and I was able to complete an effective treatment for my patient. At no point was I rude or condescending to him, I just stated my case.
What I learnt from this experience is that whether as students or new grad physiotherapists, we should not allow ourselves to be intimidated into giving up our treatment time just because someone else is rude enough to barge in and expect us to get out of the way. If the patient is booked for a procedure (e.g. CT scan, dialysis, surgical procedure) then by all means that comes first. However in situations such as these, we have every right to stand up for ourselves.
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3 comments:
Well Done! I think you handled the situation really well. I think whether we are students or new grads we need to do this at times as the top priority should be delivering optimal patient care and in this case it sounded like the patients really needed the physio!!
Well done.. very brave of you. I think you do have to be careful in this situation as you don't want to get the doctors offside. I think it's very important when starting on a new ward to get to know the doctors and start a good working relationship otherwise confrontations are inevidable.
Good call! You sound like you handled that professionally and stated nicely your reasoning. That is probably what got you that 'small victory'. You knew what you were on about,was concerned about the patient and the Dr. could not argue with that.
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