Doctor Slams Hospital's "Please" Policy

Administrators at England's Worthing Hospital are insisting that doctors say the magic word when writing orders for blood tests on weekends. If a doctor refuses to write "please" on the order, the test will be refused. From the article: "However, a doctor at the hospital said on condition of anonymity that he sees the policy as a money-saving measure that could prove dangerous for patients. 'I was shocked to come in on Sunday and find none of my bloods had been done from the night before because I'd not written "please,"' the doctor said. 'I had no results to guide treatment of patients. Myself and a senior nurse had to take the bloods ourselves, which added hours to our 12-hour shifts. This system puts patients' lives at risk. Doctors are wasting time doing the job of the technicians.'"

Comments

Re:Easy solution

[geekoid]

Irrelevant.
The Lab had a request, and they made the medical decsion not to do it. That is wrong.

You want to take the issue up with the Dr? fine, do it through a channel that doesn't risk patients lives.

". A few hours or days delay is bad for the doctor as it messes up his billing $$$ but it has very minimal impact on the patient in terms of care."

SO your a qualified MD? No?m is the lab technician a qualified MD? no?

Guess what? STFU.

There personal feeling don't mean jack shit. Letting it get in the way of care is unprofessional, medically risky, and makes you look like a bitch.
This is about peoples lives.

"As well this is probably good for the Lab Techs who need to do their job carefully and without extra stress. So you think it is good for the patient to get their results from someone who is under stress to get it done, from a guy they don't like at all."
Strawman.

Re:Would it kill you to be civil?

[horatio]

I'm abusive? No. I'm a realist. Am I a little over the top? Maybe.

You can try to can me. The second you tried to defend the insolence of those techs, I would quit or find a way to get you fired, because you suck as a supervisor and have just demonstrated you're part of the problem. In this situation, as a doctor, the techs are not my peers. They are there to do a specific job, and the "kiss my ass or I'm not doing any work" insubordination is completely, totally unacceptable in the real world where things have to get done or people die. This type of foot stomping and shin kicking "I want a cookie!" is how unions treat companies (and indirectly that company's customers) in the US, and then they cry like little princess bitches when the jobs go overseas. It ain't rocket science.

My boss doesn't write "please" on the trouble tickets he assigns me. He rightfully expects me to do the work, and I rightfully expect to get paid for doing the job. My clients don't have to write "please" on every changeorder just for me to do the most basic tasks of my job. The postmaster doesn't have to say "please deliver your route" or the city manager beg the [non-union] employees "please go pick up the trash" It is completely upside down ridiculous for a workorder form to have to include a hand-written "pretty please, do the job we're paying you for so the patient doesn't die"

That said - if I was asking someone from the helpdesk to go grab me a cup of coffee because I'd been on the phone w/ their customer for 2 hours, I would say 'please' - because it is a request for them to do a task not normally assigned. If I filled out a normal form instructing them on a process that needed to be completed for a customer, I sure as hell don't need to write "pretty please".

Supposing that I came back from a couple of days off to find out that an overnight order to a really important client was thrown in the corner (and not shipped) because I didn't write "please" on the shipping docs, you can bet I'd go ballistic. You really think the customer is going to care more about a) why they didn't get the critical widget or b) that the missing critical widget just cost them a $2 million contract - putting them out of business, and all of their employees out of a job? They're going to (rightfully) chew my ass, maybe sue my company, and if they manage to somehow survive, find a new widget supplier. That is how the real world works.