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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.'"
Forced gratitude has zero meaning.
while I'm all for manners, refusing vital blood tests when doctors forget to put the word "please" on weekend requests just seems damn right stupid and dangerous. How can any manager sit there and support this measure?
This sounds like something out of a Dilbert cartoon or from Office Space, I could just see him saying "Yeah... you didn't put please on your TPS reports... so I'm going to need you to come in Saturday, m'kay?"
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I have to imagine that this would open the hospital up to some liability issues. The first time someone dies because a test wasn't run in time, I have a hard time seeing a jury accepting "the doctor didn't ask me nice enough" as an excuse for not running the test the doctor ordered.
It doesn't seem like its the technicians who are forcing this through. TFA says it was the management who decided it was a good idea to "ease pressure". Which probably meant that the techies were feeling overworked (they probably are overworked) and complained (not really expecting something like THIS to happen). And instead of doing anything constructive (or maybe they're just all out of money), the management went for some crazy ass stupid idea that somehow past muster.
Pointy Head Boss eh? IT isn't the only place where they exist.
Having done alot of chemo and hospital over the years and having a number of doctors in my immediate family (1 heart, 1 gastro, 1 family practice, 1 abdominal) and a doctor turned administrator, I bet the doctors have been jackasses and the hospital administrators pushed this down the throats of the doctors because they'd treated the lab folks like cattle.
I bet there were a ton of meetings about how to balance out increased workload with less staffing and the administrator's solution was "please".
They're called written _orders_ for a reason... that is, they have all the justification that is required to simply be followed. While it's all very well and good to want people to be polite, it is no more required that a doctor remember to say please than it is required that air traffic controllers say "please" when directing airplanes.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Would it kill you to do your fucking job without having to be coddled, you whiny little bitch?
No? Clean out your desk, because I'll find someone else who will. It doesn't mean the doctors treat the staff like shit, but a minimum of doing the tasks you were hired to do is absolutely expected, demanded in exchange for your paycheck. What next? Should the doctor have slip a $5 note with the request? Bullshit. Do. your. fucking. job.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
INTERCAL is an esoteric programming language meant as a parody of stuffy, arcane programming language requirements. One of its more interesting requirements involves the "PLEASE" statement. As an undocumented feature of the language, the compiler will fail if programs are either too polite, or insufficiently polite - which involves placing the PLEASE keyword in front of statements the correct number of times.
Kind of like here - if the Doctor just peppers all of his written requests with too many PLEASE statements, that's condescending right there - too polite. But insufficient politeness is equally worthy of wrath - all completely nonsensical requirements, dehumanizing the interaction even as they demand for a confusingly artificial subset of human interaction.
Ryan Fenton
This makes me wonder how big of an asshole the doctors had been to force this kind of a policy on them.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
One of the good things about living in Texas is that it is always acceptable to hold the door open for anybody, and more generally than that, it's never impolite to be polite.
The story is from The Sun. It would be worth checking if the story was true before getting worked up about it...
You shouldn't have to say 'please' for someone to do the job they were hired to do... it's not a bloody favor you're asking them to do, it's what they're paid for.
Web hosting that doesn't suck!Dreamhost
I like this rule.
You probably have never worked with MDs before. But let me tell you they are the worst people to deal with. Because they have a Dr. for a prefix and a MD for a suffix to their name they act like they are the smartest person in the world. So when they encounter something new to them, and out of their main scope they get very offensive, rude and makes everyones lives a little bit more stressful.
They will often treat non-MDs who work with them as underlings, who job is purely to aid the doctor from doing those little jobs that they don't like to do. They often hide the fact that they are jerks under the catch phrase "lives are at stake". Which is a medical term for "Think of the children" which also means "I want to do it the way I want to".
Forcing them to be polite while seems like just a silly step is actually quite powerful. Saying please before hand means that the work being done is done for the doctors benefit at the expense of someone elses time. Vs. Just shooting out orders that says you are here for me and just me.
At work we have a policy if a doctor is calling and is cursing and yelling at us without giving us any useful information we can tell them to call back after they have calmed down then we can help you. It isn't about restricting free speech is is about keeping things professional and trying to keep things running orderly.
Yes there is a cost savings by making the Dr. think twice, as well it can help keep the load down for the labs for a while.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In general, I totally disagree.
If I'm dining out and a waitress brings me a drink, I say "Thank you." If they ask if I'd like something, I say "yes, please" or "no, thank you." Maybe my mother just beat it into me (not literally) but I can't help myself and I think it's appropriate.
If I were a doctor, I'd probably ask the techs to "get Mrs. Jones's blood to the lab ASAP please" unless I was distracted with trying to keep Mrs. Jones alive, and even then I might well out of habit.
If you read the article, the goal of the "Please" isn't actually civility, it's to make the doctors think if the test is necessary. I assume there's some higher cost to weekend testing than week-day testing as it's a weekend policy.
To require it in a medical concept is nuts. If a doctor orders a test, he should expect it to happen without having to write some "magic word" on the order.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Because they have a Dr. for a prefix and a MD for a suffix to their name they act like they are the smartest person in the world.
They've been through medical school, so yeah, I'd say they are some of the smartest people in the world. I'm not saying they have the right to be assholes, but it seems like elitism is justified here.
They often hide the fact that they are jerks under the catch phrase "lives are at stake". Which is a medical term for "Think of the children" which also means "I want to do it the way I want to".
Except that "lives are at stake" is likely to actually be true. Do you have a specific example of where "the way I want to" is actually arbitrary?
Forcing them to be polite while seems like just a silly step is actually quite powerful.
I don't think it's likely to accomplish what you're suggesting. At best, it'd get them to grudgingly start saying please and thank you -- and would you really rather have a sarcastic "please" than none at all?
the work being done is done for the doctors benefit at the expense of someone elses time. Vs. Just shooting out orders that says you are here for me and just me.
Versus, say, you're all there for me, the patient.
At work we have a policy if a doctor is calling and is cursing and yelling at us without giving us any useful information we can tell them to call back after they have calmed down then we can help you.
That part is key. Also, "cursing and yelling" is something you might actually complain about, compared to "not saying please."
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Given the source of this story, I doubt it's true or complete, but assuming it is...
I like this rule, except that the failure to write "please" should not prevent the actual test from being performed when the doctor orders it to be done.
Maybe fine the doctor $10 every time they fail to say "please" on a form, put the doctor's names up on a wall of shame, or make them buy the next round of flowers for the office.
But anyone in the medical field should know that you do not withhold medical information that is possibly vital to a patient's health because the doc forgot to say "pweddy pweaze wiff sugar on top" on the form. Ever.
I'm not saying courtesy is unimportant, or that doctors have the right to be rude, only that the patient shouldn't suffer because their doctor is a dickhead to the support staff.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
And interfering with medical care is OK with you? Please get your panties in a bunch in another line of work.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Just because someone hasn't been through medical school doesn't mean that they couldn't have gone to medical school. Am I automatically less intelligent because I chose a career that isn't in the field of medicine, or that doesn't require a few extra years of school? It's not like the day I got my bachelor's degree I stopped learning new things. I learn more every day while working.
I'm sure there are plenty of doctors out there that are smarter than me. I'm also sure there are plenty of doctors out there that are dumber than me. I hope that all doctors out there know more about medicine than me, but I'm willing to bet that very few of them know more about my profession than I do.
The fact that someone spent more time in school than someone else doesn't automatically means that they're smarter than them, it probably just means that their priorities were different. And it certainly doesn't give them the right to be an elitist asshole. Cure cancer, and then you've earned the right to be an elitist asshole. But even then, you're still an asshole, and you should expect people to respond accordingly.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Perhaps they find it insulting because it IS insulting?
They wish to be called Doctor and they've earnt the right to be called doctor. If someone named Richard says "please call me Rich, not Dick", do you then go around calling him Dick? Do you address important business clients you're meeting for the first time just by their first name?
You are deliberately choosing not to address them by their title against their wishes. That is a calculated insult.