…when you are actually surprised to see a patient who truly needs therapy.
I would venture to say that as many as four out of five calls for “patients in respiratory distress” are pure BS. A similar number of patients ordered on treatments are inappropriately ordered. Many patients take home meds that we should continue in the hospital; many patients truly need their therapy; but much more often than that we find the patients who are on treatments for no discernible reason.
Often, the reason for the treatments or orders is not “the patient wants or needs a treatment” so much as it is “we want you to come look at this patient.” But because nurses are afraid to ask us to come assess patients, they tell us the patient is in distress or they get a lazy physician to order some treatments for some inappropriate reason. Or, physicians just want to cover themselves and so they write for treatments.
The thing that gets me is, I don’t mind being called to assess a patient. I would much rather get a call saying “hey, can you just look at this guy and tell me what you think about his breathing?” than a call saying “I wasn’t sure what was going on so I got an order for albuterol.” I’d much rather a physician write for “RT to evaluate patient” than that they write “Albuterol Q4.”
Just had to vent. It’s been a frustrating week, with many inappropriate orders and much conflict. Maybe a happy story later.
…when you are actually surprised to see a patient who truly needs therapy.
I would venture to say that as many as four out of five calls for “patients in respiratory distress” are pure BS. A similar number of patients ordered on treatments are inappropriately ordered. Many patients take home meds that we should continue in the hospital; many patients truly need their therapy; but much more often than that we find the patients who are on treatments for no discernible reason.
Often, the reason for the treatments or orders is not “the patient wants or needs a treatment” so much as it is “we want you to come look at this patient.” But because nurses are afraid to ask us to come assess patients, they tell us the patient is in distress or they get a lazy physician to order some treatments for some inappropriate reason. Or, physicians just want to cover themselves and so they write for treatments.
The thing that gets me is, I don’t mind being called to assess a patient. I would much rather get a call saying “hey, can you just look at this guy and tell me what you think about his breathing?” than a call saying “I wasn’t sure what was going on so I got an order for albuterol.” I’d much rather a physician write for “RT to evaluate patient” than that they write “Albuterol Q4.”
Just had to vent. It’s been a frustrating week, with many inappropriate orders and much conflict. Maybe a happy story later.