I read the progress notes too, I like to see if my thinking is anywhere on par with what the Drs are thinking, since I'm on the NP track.
Also I HATE paging doctors. While most of ours are very normal and we have a working relationship as colleagues, we have one or two that just have no phone manners whatsoever, and still, I figure between the Dr's office hours and family life and other inpatients in the hosp, it isn't like they have nothing to do, so I hate having to page for something.
I always make sure I have the wall chart, the patient chart, note paper to write down anything they say, and the MAR with me before I page, and I only page if none of the other nurses can come up with a solution and they agree I need to page.
We get a lot of medical overflow, aside from our ortho patients, now our ortho patients, we can pretty much write whatever we need and the surgeons will come up and cover it later, and they have very extensive standing orders as well, which is nice.
But on the medical overflows, we get a lot of different doctors, and some of them you know who you can write and wait til they come on, and others with critical lab values, or meds you just need... ex: n/v, pain you just have to page, and I hate it.
But my one pet peeve is our hospitalists. We have one who is American in the entire Hosp, and while that really doesn't bother me, the problem is the accents, which are very thick and I can't understand in person, let alone over the phone. So you can't read what they write, let alone understand what they say, and then they get frustrated when you ask them to repeat it, and that does irritate me I will admit even if it makes me a horrible person.
I mean at least understand about having an accent and that people probably have difficulty understanding it, and write more legibly, and speak slower and don't get frustrated when asked to repeat it. That's all I'm saying.
