- Joined
- Jun 25, 2008
- Messages
- 169
- Reaction score
- 11
I recently had an especially bad shift that was compounded by my slowness on top of my colleague's slowness. Don't get me wrong, I will be the first to admit that I'm not the speediest doc in the group. But I showed up to eight people waiting to be seen, some of whom had been waiting for as long as three hours in their rooms after coming back from triage. My colleague SlowDoc never went to see them, didn't write for pain meds, zofran, etc. (The nurses said they even asked SlowDoc to at least write for meds and SlowDoc wouldn't, because SlowDoc had decided to stop picking up any more new patients for the last three hours of the shift!) Of course everyone was royally POd about waiting so long, which was not a nice way for me to start my shift. I was trying to see people as fast as I could and get them out as fast as I could, but I couldn't even get close to getting caught up until the very end of my shift.
I know I need to work on my own efficiency, and I am. But I also need to come up with a game plan for what to do from now on when I work next after SlowDoc. I like this job overall, and I want to stay here, but the stress of having half a dozen angry nurses and patient families descending upon me like a cloud of hornets the second I show up for my shift greatly erodes my ability to function well (or provide good patient care). I'm not delusional enough to think I can change SlowDoc in any way, so I'm hoping some of you veterans can give me suggestions on what I can do to decrease my own stress levels and cope with the situation more effectively. So far the best idea I've come up with is to show up for my shift an hour early when I know SlowDoc is on before me. I'm more than willing to do that if it will prevent another perfect storm like the last shift, but if anyone else has additional ideas, I'm game to try almost anything that seems reasonable.
(For the record, I don't consider complaining about SlowDoc to my boss as reasonable.)
I know I need to work on my own efficiency, and I am. But I also need to come up with a game plan for what to do from now on when I work next after SlowDoc. I like this job overall, and I want to stay here, but the stress of having half a dozen angry nurses and patient families descending upon me like a cloud of hornets the second I show up for my shift greatly erodes my ability to function well (or provide good patient care). I'm not delusional enough to think I can change SlowDoc in any way, so I'm hoping some of you veterans can give me suggestions on what I can do to decrease my own stress levels and cope with the situation more effectively. So far the best idea I've come up with is to show up for my shift an hour early when I know SlowDoc is on before me. I'm more than willing to do that if it will prevent another perfect storm like the last shift, but if anyone else has additional ideas, I'm game to try almost anything that seems reasonable.
(For the record, I don't consider complaining about SlowDoc to my boss as reasonable.)