Because I said so!

One of the greatest pleasures I get at work is telling a physician “no”. Most physicians are used to getting what they want. They order something and expect it to be done. Normally this is the case, but sometimes I get to exercise my big charge nurse muscles and tell them to keep dreaming when they’ve ordered something ridiculous.

One doc ordered us to transfer a patient to ICU because he didn’t want the patient to fall out of bed.

I literally laughed out loud and almost spit my coffee across the nurses station when I heard this request.

I calmly explained to this young doctor that we couldn’t occupy a critical care bed because he was afraid of the patient falling. We have lots of other tricks to prevent that sort of thing from happening.

Today, a physician ordered 1 to 1 care for a patient. This means that the physician wanted someone to be at the bedside with this patient 24 hours a day. Now normally this sort of thing is reserved for our suicidal patients; you know, the ones who swallowed a whole bottle of Excedrin in a lame attempt to off themselves.

“Why does this patient require one to one care,” I asked.

“I’m afraid the patient will fall.”

Sigh.