Frequently when meeting someone for the first time the first thing a person does is introduce herself. I work at a teaching hospital where there are student nurses, medical students, residents and many more. This seems to be a big issue for them. They always forget to introduce their self every time they go into a patients room. Then when I go in the patient is asking me, "that one doctor, the tall one, with short brown hair?". Well...there was about three of them that were tall with short brown hair so I really don't know which one it was. I got into this discuss with one of our ortho residents that I am friends with a few nights ago. I called him at the beginning of the shift to get an order for Norco for a patient that was in a lot of pain. When I pick up the phone on my unit I always answer by saying, "Davis 14 this is Norah speaking". The resident on the other end replied saying, "hi this is ortho". So my response to him was, "who am I speaking with ?" and he replied saying, "its ortho" and again I asked for a name and he finally told me his name. He sounded rushed and busy to I acknowledged that it sounded like he was in the middle of doing something and but that I needed an order for Norco as my patient was in 10/10 pain and was maxed out on all other pain medications. Before I could even finish telling him exactly what I needed he said "ok norco got it im putting it in" and hangs up. Sure enough the order pops up on the computer but its wrong. So now I am just annoyed because just as busy as he was so was I and now that was one more thing I would have to worry about having to call him back later on that night to get the order corrected not to mention my patient was going to be upset when I was only giving her one tablet and the incorrect dose than what she usually takes at home. So my luck, later on that night I was on my break and I ran into the ortho resident I spoke with and he sat down to chit chat with me. Because we are friends I asked him what was up with him earlier on the phone and why he doesn't know how to introduce him self when he responds to a page. His response was "I don't have time". What? You don't have time to add in your phrase "hi this is ortho ___ is speaking"? That is a ridiculous excuse and I told him that. I told him his name was not "ortho". He laughed and I told him I was serious. I told him that as a nurse when residents don't say their name on the phone when returning a page to me I just take it as they don't want to be identified so that if they are acting like jerks they can't be identified and approached later on for their behavior. Personally I have nothing against our residents. I have a lot of respect for all their hard work and getting to where they are. BUT sometimes they forget what the job is exactly that they signed up for. Part of their job is to answer calls in the middle of the night. That is how it goes. It doesn't matter how busy they are in the ER. Calls still need to be returned. If it is truly THAT busy then residents need to learn to call their chief resident and have them come in to help. That is why you have a chief, for back up. As a nurse we understand what busy is. We have 4 to 5 people expecting ONE person to be available for 12 hours every second of the night at any moment. Unrealistic. I physically cannot be in 5 places at one time. So if I am stuck in another patients room and I know I won't be leaving for a least another 10-20 minutes because I am in the middle of doing something and I am getting paged by another patient that is when I have to call for help. Ask one of my colleagues to check on my other patient and see what they need. Let them know I am not ignoring them but with another patient at this time. The same concept applies to the residents. Use your resources. There is no excuse for not introducing yourself especially when your asked to state your name. It goes back to being professionals. If you want to be treated like a professional you need to conduct yourself like a professional. That is all.
Until next time.
-Norah
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