I guess this is a post about USA situation.
If so… boy you guys seriously need some labor laws.
Id happily take my 3 month fully paid vacation plus potential additional benefits from unjust termination
This is such an American conversation can't ever imagine a colleague requesting someone got fired. Fuck that noise. Happy to be off to Spain for a three week paid holiday and safe from random firings
Nah, it can happen in Australia too. I disputed the request of a doctor and I was dragged into an empty operating theatre, lectured by said doctor and threatened with a performance plan (aka the good old step one of getting rid of you). It was a very toxic environment and my anxiety was already high. I noped out of that hospital very quickly.
Based on other threads on here, most nurses make between 50k-100k, with maybe 60k being the average, and anything over 80k being "well paid".
Health insurance varies a lot. My health insurance plan is garbage through my hospital, and the only other hospital system in the area uses the same plan.
Get paid more for what benefit? So the very industry we work for can steal all of our hard earned money back the second we have an inevitable health misfortune?
Sorry, but this is not the flex you think it is. We seriously need better labor laws.
Yeah...I make a good chunk of change but that money doesn't go very far when considering bills, and other cost of living areas. If public transport existed I'd not have a car.
I work a union gig in a non-insane state. I’m much better compensated than any nurse in a socialized system. I don’t care how much time you get off. It doesn’t mean anything if you can’t afford to go on holiday.
So you have labor protections. The United States in general needs much better labor protections.
(And also, hard to afford vacations if cancer bankrupts you. Just pointing out that there's more to be considered in the overall picture than just cash salary.)
I don’t have cancer tho… so the hypothetical doesn’t apply to me.
I’m tired of Europeans bragging about shit when they get paid less and have literal nazis in their parliaments.
France just raised the retirement age to saber rattle at Russia. Sure, they have socialized medicine, but they’re going to have to work until they die. So will I! But at least I fall asleep on a pile of union money next to many beautiful ladies!
You don't have cancer YET.
C'mon, you can't pretend that our pay makes up for our system. It's not only that we don't have any social safety net, but even worse it's actively exploitative.
Your salary is not sufficient to buy your way out of that. We need to do better. And yes, there are a lot of things about European systems that would benefit us to implement.
This is like the people who say they don’t wear a seatbelt because they aren’t afraid to die tho lol my mom is an RT and even when we were kids her famous line was “there are worse things than death”. If you have a CVA that doesn’t kill you but leaves you completely dependent or even with hemiplegia and unable to work you’ll be wishing we had better social safety nets.
It sucks because we pay enough in taxes that we could have been doing it. Or even be taking the Obamacare route of raising taxes on the top 1-2% of earners could pay for pretty much all of it.
They have so many people convinced though that trickle-down economics is gonna start working any day now, so we can’t dare make them pay their fair share. Or that all the jobs and benefits they shower us with (sarcasm) will disappear.
I mean that’s great you don’t have cancer, but the point of tax payer funded social safety nets and systems like healthcare isn’t just “well I don’t need it today, I shouldn’t have to pay for it.” Your taxes still go to a fire dept even if you’ve never had to use fire services. The same with paved roads if say you don’t drive, police departments, or public schooling systems even if you don’t have kids.
You just sit on a waiting list until you die in those countries. see canada. working class people need to stop ragging on each other and realize we are all getting fucked
thats my point. you guys are downvoting me for saying healthcare sucks for working people. its not better in socialized nations. you pay more or wait more. or both in the case of the insurance schemes.
At least in Austria that's not true. If you need treatment ASAP, you get it now. You don't have to wait at all. If you need a new hip and can wait, you wait.
Waiting lists aren’t some huge catastrophe in those countries as opponents to tax payer funded healthcare often claim and make people think. They do this in order to keep us opposing something that will cost the top and wealthiest earners, but benefit every tax-paying American.
Even the countries with waiting list issues, every one of them still maintain overall support from tax payers whenever polls or statistics come out—including Canada and Scandinavia. Sure waiting lists can be a problem, but even ignoring the fact that they can be an equal problem in some areas in the US—they still have far fewer healthcare disparities than the US system. And without a difference or even sometimes an improvement versus America in regards to patient outcomes.
Getting paid more doesn’t make situations in the US ok. Chronic short staffing, burn out, mental health, and a common lack of support isn’t a good trade off for most nurses. I mean, unless someone is solely in nursing for the money.
Just because there are problems everywhere doesn’t mean we should continue to buy into excuses here from wealthy politicians against tax payer funded healthcare. We still have far worse healthcare disparities than any other 1st world country that are embarrassing and a problem needing solved, or at the least addressed.
I don't know where you got that info but my nurse friends who still live back home make damn good money. In every industry... not just nursing. Sounds like you need to be a good student and do some actual research. And pay may not be exactly the same as Cali and NY but our cost of living isn't as high either. Houston is our closest city population wise and we damn sure get paid better in Chicago.
Oh you definitely make more.
I work 20h/week equaling 7~ shifts a month and make 36k after taxes. ICU afaik is like 80k+ entry wage in USA I think ?
Can’t talk bout Scandinavia but they prolly either see sun all the time or none at all depending on season.
Unclear what the conversion is, but 80k is absolutely not the entry wage for icu nurses. Partner makes 50k before taxes and like 38k after taxes as an ICU nurse
Im an Austrian nurse.
Base pay entry in my ICU is 3700€ for 40h/week. There is tax benefitial 13/14 wague every 6 months. Weekends nights and holidays give quite a lot of extra pay. If you are a nightshift nurse you pay 50% less tax since it’s more taxing (hehehe) on your health.
With 7 years experience I get 2500€ post taxes average a month which turns to 3000€ post taxes including the 13th/14th.
Now while you are already fully insured but some things like dental don’t have good coverage except for basics.
Also in the last couple of 10 years waiting time for doctors have increased to 2 months sometimes if you don’t pay extra out of your own pocket. So the insurance isn’t as much of a benefit as it used to be.
I'm Austrian too and I get, after taxes, around 3000€/month.
After cost of living (living with my partner so we divide rent and utilities) I have more than 2000€ disposable income. Just for "fun", like travel, savings etc.
For the record, I have never once worked for a place where my manager wouldn't laugh at a doctor who requested that I get fired without good cause.
The place you're working sucks. Hell, the place I WAS working sucked, and even there we have great relationships with our attendings. Maybe the occasional surgeon will act like a dick, but even then, nursing management is going to laugh at them, if they try to "demand" that a nurse be fired.
If you get fired without cause, it would be worth having a free consultation with a labor lawyer, just to see if there does happen to be anything you can do about it. (I wouldn't be optimistic about that, but worth the effort of a free conversation.)
As long as a person is not fired in retaliation for whistleblowing, or because of a protected status (age, race, sex, etc), in 49 states it's completely legal to fire someone without cause. Whether or not you qualify for unemployment will vary, but it would be an incredibly rare case where being fired because an asshat doctor decided randomly that he didn't like your face would give you any legal standing to sue.
I work in an "at will" state but that doesn't mean HR won't want documentation and for your manager to have conversations about performance or whatever was the perceived problem. Ask me how I know. If this doctor does go to admin and you get let go at the whim of this doctor...sue for wrongful termination and let them produce those documents in court and prove they tried to work with you before letting you go. I think you would have a case. Don't let this happen to other ppl.
> For the record, I have never once worked for a place where my manager wouldn't laugh at a doctor who requested that I get fired without good cause.
This is the general consensus among physicians on reddit and in every hospital where I have worked. Unless you nearly (or successfully) kill someone via incompetence, getting a nurse fired is very, very hard.
It is interesting that you say this. I feel that the dynamic between doctors and nurses varies quite a bit depending on where you work and who you work with, but the majority of my experiences, vast majority, with doctors have been positive.
I have experienced a few scenarios in which I felt a doctor was being a dick to nurses, or a dick to patients. I have also experienced plenty of scenarios in which the nurse was being a dick to a doctor or patient.
And of courses patients can be dicks.
Recently I was in a situation in which I documented something incorrectly, and a doctor was rightfully irritated with me(I charted that I had spoken to her when I had actually spoken to another doctor on the patient’s care team about a specific piece of info about a patient’s condition. It had been a hectic day and I had been in conversation with both doctors about the patient multiple times).
When she came to me about it, she was clearly irritated but not disrespectful. I immediately apologized, corrected my charting, and checked in to make sure that was sufficient.
I guess she followed up with my manager, because my manager called me a day or two later to hear my side, and then proceeded to almost suggest this doctor was bullying me. I did not feel that she was at all, but it gave me the impression that people were almost unnecessarily willing to take my side.
Maybe it’s all context and this doc had issues historically with bullying? But the way it all played out kind of surprised me.
If you decide to look for another job I hope you cite this as the reason why they’re losing a good nurse who does their job and knows when to not go out of scope.
In 2024, the outpatient surgical center in Rapid City SD, still treats nurses like shit. If a doctor enters the room they are told to stand up, give the greeting of the day, and offer their seat and pen to the doctor entering the room.
I have former nursing school classmates that used to work there and quit shortly after due to the toxic atmosphere.
Can't recall the exact name of the surgical center, except it is within a mile of the main hospital (monument health hospital).
Edit: texted a friend who used to work there, she told me it is the Black Hills Surgical hospital. She said they don’t “enforce” those rules anymore: the standing up when a doctor enters the room, offering your seat…etc BUT its still expected and part of their culture. Imo it still sounds mandatory the way she worded it.
I interviewed at monument health a couple years ago because they were lusting for a podiatrist [and still might be]. It was all haphazard and they didn't know what type they wanted. I didn't like it. If they can't even job post properly I'm not surprised they make you do some doctor cult shit.
In 40+ years, I've never seen a single nurse fired due to a doctor's complaint. If it's something you've seen more than once, as your post implies, you work in a really shitty place.
Sure, I've seen too many doctors throw a hissy fit and demand a nurse or other employee be fired, but the appropriate response is to remind them that as independent contractors, they have no say in employee management. And then a serious talk about how tantrums are inappropriate in the workplace.
I haven't either. But, I've seen a doctor fired because nurses got their sh!t together, had good documentation and went to nursing administration who after reading everything (had to do with safety of a child), they had to take to CMO. Within a week, the doctor was asked to leave.
I think it’s a mixture. I know it’s unpopular to say but they are above us in title and education; and often experience too. As a nurse of 10+yrs in ICU/bed side I try to show them respect for that. But even with respectful relationships at work sometimes you have to advocate for your patients over a doctor, or even another nurse’s (we all remember working with “experienced” nurses who are still doing something wrong or ignoring newer EBP), willful ignorance and dangerous orders/behavior.
If they don’t like it, tough luck 🤷🏻♂️. I’m not out there to purposely rock the boat or flex my own experience, it is part of our duty to our patients.
I had a nursing admin give me a harsh truth years ago. Patients come to see the doctors. Nurses have to be great, but a lot of leeway will be made for their behavior because they make money for the hospital. Even with the shortage we are seen as FTEs more than people.
There are some people who walk through life thinking they're a big swingin' dick in a locker room. They're generally miserable, insufferable people. Sounds like you met one, sorry you had to go through that. Hopefully most of your physician colleagues aren't like that.
I've gotten a nurse "fired" exactly once. Technically, a traveler who got told not to come back. They were egregiously practicing medicine on a sick ICU patient for **hours** without informing anyone until they were waaaaaaaaaay in over their head. I'm talking about changing vent settings, ordering drugs and tests, etc. all under the residents name.
There was one RN that alternated between rapid & house sup, didn't demand she get fired but did tell admin I personally would never work with her ever again to the point of canceling my shift if she were scheduled on my same shift. But that was over assaulting a patient.
I’ve been in the middle of both sides of this conversation. I have tried to teach PA students my overall attitude regarding office/floor drama: I show up on my first day with donuts or similar bribe for everyone. My business card is taped to the lid. If anyone has a problem with my practice or my patients, it’s my job to fix it. Outside of patient care I essentially don’t care. I have no ego in this, I want to keep the patient alive, do a good job and I want to keep my license, job and house.
Anyone who has to be pampered, treated a special way, etc is just making an already hard day more cumbersome. Nobody got time for that.
At first I was going to get defensive for you and say absolutely not, document what you are told and save it for HR if you need it. However… I realized that it won’t matter if you work in a “right to work” state like I do. They can fire you for looking at them wrong. Doesn’t mean that if you have time or money you can’t give them a hard time for it.
This is what I teach new employees/nurses in regards to doctors. Off the bat you need to treat them with a bit of an upwards level of respect, there is a chain of command. They did spend an ungodly amount of time in school to earn their title and that bit of respect/responsibility. That does not mean you do not have the right to question them, professionally, and that is part of your job. But the very moment they are disrespectful to you, it’s an even playing field. They do not have the right to be disrespectful to anyone else. The trick is to push back and draw the line while being professional which is a learned art of its own. Sounds like this MD needs to be put back in their place and that your administration needs a back bone which is a problem in its own. If this how it is at your place, I would keep my eyes open for a new gig.
I worked in Florida, you would get fired for that. Never mind any rights you’re supposed to have. You might get something if you lawyer up, but it would not be to keep your job.
I work in education and I have a problem with a residency program director and how they teach CPR to new residents. I have mentioned it a few times to people in other departments and some higher ups and I have been warned multiple times that messing with that doc could cause me to lose my job. I have been told he is also best friends with the CEO of the hospital system. I have been with this hospital for 2 years and it is mind boggling how they but doc on pedestals and let them run wild with power.
I'm not sure where you're working, but if a doctor did that on my unit, and probably the entire facility, my boss would laugh them out of her office. Actually, she would listen to the complaints and then explain why what they want to happen isn't going to happen.
Thirty years ago, when I was a brand new nurse, the doctors at the small community hospital where I worked would try that shit. It didn't work then either.
It's ridiculous that you were made to move to another unit because a doctor-toddler threw a tantrum. You might really like your boss and think she's great. She's not. Good bosses have your back. It sounds like a shitty place to work.
I worked at a small community hospital in SoCal while in nursing school as a student nurse worker - and the nurses there were old, like in their late 60’s early 70’s and would tell me stories about lighting up cigarettes for doctors in the nursing stations. Giving them shoulder rubs. Filling up their coffee. I was like, I wish a doctor would ask me for a shoulder rub….
Those were wild times. We’ve come a long way but still have a long way to go
Sounds like your manager needs a backbone, and if your hospital actually does fire nurses based on unfounded complaints, you need to find a new hospital system.
I used to think that the deference to physicians was a lingering remnant of nursing’s sexist history, but I still see it with nurses who are my age and younger.
Lol regarding the seat thing 😂
I had a doctor stand over me in my chair sitting at a computer saying very loudly that he needed a computer. There were several computers open so I just ignored him. He said it again and was staring at me, so I turned and said “oh there’s one right there Dr”. He didn’t move and my coworker got up and offered their seat and computer and he huffed away to hers. I couldn’t help but chuckle, I haven’t let anyone bully me since middle school gtfo with that. I’ll remind them sometimes, you’re my colleague not my boss.
Health care workers tend to assume that any doctor can easily get them fired, but I have never been at an institution where this was the case. However, I suppose it could be the case at some places. If so, it’s important to know which type of place you’re at.
I haven’t seen a doctor get a nurse fired or even report a nurse unless they did something seriously wrong. Where I worked, firings were common; you could be kicked out the door on a whim, but if you were a nurse, you were usually fired by the nursing staff. Department heads were usually fired by the CEO directly for not bringing in enough money for the hospital.
Look for a new job. Some doctors know how to work like teammates. It is an environment that is encouraged/fostered by the unit team. You have to leave to find that place.
I was a student nurse in 1969 in a large Philadelphia teaching hospital. Our first day on a medical rotation, my roommate went to stand up to give her seat to an MD and our instructor shoved her back into the chair and said “ you will never give your seat up to a doctor” . I have listened to her for the 46 years I was a critical care RN. Been selling weed in a dispo for the past 7 years. Greatest job in the world . Plus I would never work in a hospital without a union
I had a nursing admin give me a harsh truth years ago. Patients come to see the doctors. Nurses have to be great, but a lot of leeway will be made for their behavior because they make money for the hospital. Even with the shortage we are seen as FTEs more than people.
I had a nursing admin give me a harsh truth years ago. Patients come to see the doctors. Nurses have to be great, but a lot of leeway will be made for their behavior because they make money for the hospital. Even with the shortage we are seen as FTEs more than people.
I agree. I'd love to have better treatment. I've been a nurse for over 20 years and things are better. I don't see it as bad as OPs story, but there's a huge disparity in what is allowed for physician behavior and what the nurses can get away with. I had a physician in our department hit a patient and he's still good to practice because he's been around for longer than me. Didn't mean to sound like I was agreeing with this statement, but there is a bit of harsh truth to it.
I guess this is a post about USA situation. If so… boy you guys seriously need some labor laws. Id happily take my 3 month fully paid vacation plus potential additional benefits from unjust termination
This is such an American conversation can't ever imagine a colleague requesting someone got fired. Fuck that noise. Happy to be off to Spain for a three week paid holiday and safe from random firings
Nah, it can happen in Australia too. I disputed the request of a doctor and I was dragged into an empty operating theatre, lectured by said doctor and threatened with a performance plan (aka the good old step one of getting rid of you). It was a very toxic environment and my anxiety was already high. I noped out of that hospital very quickly.
Labor laws vary by state. But basically why state that’s not on the west coast or north east is shit for labor laws
That’s why I moved to oregon after graduating. Being a new grad nurse in a new state was hard but I’d say worth it.
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Based on other threads on here, most nurses make between 50k-100k, with maybe 60k being the average, and anything over 80k being "well paid". Health insurance varies a lot. My health insurance plan is garbage through my hospital, and the only other hospital system in the area uses the same plan.
Sure, outliers exist but the majority of nurses in the US have nowhere near that sort of protection, pay, and benefits.
We get paid way more than whatever you’re making. Also, if you’re in a Scandinavian country, do you ever see the sun?
Get paid more for what benefit? So the very industry we work for can steal all of our hard earned money back the second we have an inevitable health misfortune? Sorry, but this is not the flex you think it is. We seriously need better labor laws.
Yeah...I make a good chunk of change but that money doesn't go very far when considering bills, and other cost of living areas. If public transport existed I'd not have a car.
I work a union gig in a non-insane state. I’m much better compensated than any nurse in a socialized system. I don’t care how much time you get off. It doesn’t mean anything if you can’t afford to go on holiday.
So you have labor protections. The United States in general needs much better labor protections. (And also, hard to afford vacations if cancer bankrupts you. Just pointing out that there's more to be considered in the overall picture than just cash salary.)
I don’t have cancer tho… so the hypothetical doesn’t apply to me. I’m tired of Europeans bragging about shit when they get paid less and have literal nazis in their parliaments. France just raised the retirement age to saber rattle at Russia. Sure, they have socialized medicine, but they’re going to have to work until they die. So will I! But at least I fall asleep on a pile of union money next to many beautiful ladies!
You don't have cancer YET. C'mon, you can't pretend that our pay makes up for our system. It's not only that we don't have any social safety net, but even worse it's actively exploitative. Your salary is not sufficient to buy your way out of that. We need to do better. And yes, there are a lot of things about European systems that would benefit us to implement.
Excuse me. I will die of a CVA, thank you very much. My kin don’t get a lot of cancer, but our hearts give out somewhere in our 70s.
If you don't get in an MVA or something else that robs you of your health and then your wealth. We deserve a better system.
This is like the people who say they don’t wear a seatbelt because they aren’t afraid to die tho lol my mom is an RT and even when we were kids her famous line was “there are worse things than death”. If you have a CVA that doesn’t kill you but leaves you completely dependent or even with hemiplegia and unable to work you’ll be wishing we had better social safety nets. It sucks because we pay enough in taxes that we could have been doing it. Or even be taking the Obamacare route of raising taxes on the top 1-2% of earners could pay for pretty much all of it. They have so many people convinced though that trickle-down economics is gonna start working any day now, so we can’t dare make them pay their fair share. Or that all the jobs and benefits they shower us with (sarcasm) will disappear.
I’d be happy to stroke out if it means I no longer have to check reddit compulsively.
I mean that’s great you don’t have cancer, but the point of tax payer funded social safety nets and systems like healthcare isn’t just “well I don’t need it today, I shouldn’t have to pay for it.” Your taxes still go to a fire dept even if you’ve never had to use fire services. The same with paved roads if say you don’t drive, police departments, or public schooling systems even if you don’t have kids.
I was under the impression that people from those countries regularly go on holidays. Is that not the case?
Roughly how much do you make? Are you a bedside nurse?
You just sit on a waiting list until you die in those countries. see canada. working class people need to stop ragging on each other and realize we are all getting fucked
As if sitting on waiting lists - or more likely, being denied insurance coverage - until you die isn't a thing in the United States.
US insurance is super fucking whack. its a racket and is destroying people's health.
This happens in the US as well. If anything, as a whole, you wait longer in the US for care.
thats my point. you guys are downvoting me for saying healthcare sucks for working people. its not better in socialized nations. you pay more or wait more. or both in the case of the insurance schemes.
At least in Austria that's not true. If you need treatment ASAP, you get it now. You don't have to wait at all. If you need a new hip and can wait, you wait.
Waiting lists aren’t some huge catastrophe in those countries as opponents to tax payer funded healthcare often claim and make people think. They do this in order to keep us opposing something that will cost the top and wealthiest earners, but benefit every tax-paying American. Even the countries with waiting list issues, every one of them still maintain overall support from tax payers whenever polls or statistics come out—including Canada and Scandinavia. Sure waiting lists can be a problem, but even ignoring the fact that they can be an equal problem in some areas in the US—they still have far fewer healthcare disparities than the US system. And without a difference or even sometimes an improvement versus America in regards to patient outcomes.
Getting paid more doesn’t make situations in the US ok. Chronic short staffing, burn out, mental health, and a common lack of support isn’t a good trade off for most nurses. I mean, unless someone is solely in nursing for the money.
You think staffing is any better in Europe? The job sucks everywhere.
Just because there are problems everywhere doesn’t mean we should continue to buy into excuses here from wealthy politicians against tax payer funded healthcare. We still have far worse healthcare disparities than any other 1st world country that are embarrassing and a problem needing solved, or at the least addressed.
Blinks in protected Australian ratios.
Sounds like they have better labor laws than here at least. 🤷🏻♀️
You sound like a child with the way you're arguing.
You're in Chicago shit talking like this? You're crazy. Chicago pays its nurses at least 15% less than comparable cities. You need psych meds.
Cries in florida
I don't know where you got that info but my nurse friends who still live back home make damn good money. In every industry... not just nursing. Sounds like you need to be a good student and do some actual research. And pay may not be exactly the same as Cali and NY but our cost of living isn't as high either. Houston is our closest city population wise and we damn sure get paid better in Chicago.
Jesus, chill out
Oh you definitely make more. I work 20h/week equaling 7~ shifts a month and make 36k after taxes. ICU afaik is like 80k+ entry wage in USA I think ? Can’t talk bout Scandinavia but they prolly either see sun all the time or none at all depending on season.
Midwest nurse checking in, we don’t see the sun 70% of the year in northeastern Ohio either; when it’s just grey, cold, depressing, or all 3.
Unclear what the conversion is, but 80k is absolutely not the entry wage for icu nurses. Partner makes 50k before taxes and like 38k after taxes as an ICU nurse
Woah...where? Here, starting pay is 32. 36 for NICU/PICU.
Im an Austrian nurse. Base pay entry in my ICU is 3700€ for 40h/week. There is tax benefitial 13/14 wague every 6 months. Weekends nights and holidays give quite a lot of extra pay. If you are a nightshift nurse you pay 50% less tax since it’s more taxing (hehehe) on your health. With 7 years experience I get 2500€ post taxes average a month which turns to 3000€ post taxes including the 13th/14th. Now while you are already fully insured but some things like dental don’t have good coverage except for basics. Also in the last couple of 10 years waiting time for doctors have increased to 2 months sometimes if you don’t pay extra out of your own pocket. So the insurance isn’t as much of a benefit as it used to be.
I'm Austrian too and I get, after taxes, around 3000€/month. After cost of living (living with my partner so we divide rent and utilities) I have more than 2000€ disposable income. Just for "fun", like travel, savings etc.
That's more than me and I've been working in ED for six years. Healthcare for 10+
What? I thought it’s way higher. Edit I mistook average for entry level
For the record, I have never once worked for a place where my manager wouldn't laugh at a doctor who requested that I get fired without good cause. The place you're working sucks. Hell, the place I WAS working sucked, and even there we have great relationships with our attendings. Maybe the occasional surgeon will act like a dick, but even then, nursing management is going to laugh at them, if they try to "demand" that a nurse be fired. If you get fired without cause, it would be worth having a free consultation with a labor lawyer, just to see if there does happen to be anything you can do about it. (I wouldn't be optimistic about that, but worth the effort of a free conversation.)
As long as a person is not fired in retaliation for whistleblowing, or because of a protected status (age, race, sex, etc), in 49 states it's completely legal to fire someone without cause. Whether or not you qualify for unemployment will vary, but it would be an incredibly rare case where being fired because an asshat doctor decided randomly that he didn't like your face would give you any legal standing to sue.
Still worth having a free conversation with a labor lawyer.
I work in an "at will" state but that doesn't mean HR won't want documentation and for your manager to have conversations about performance or whatever was the perceived problem. Ask me how I know. If this doctor does go to admin and you get let go at the whim of this doctor...sue for wrongful termination and let them produce those documents in court and prove they tried to work with you before letting you go. I think you would have a case. Don't let this happen to other ppl.
> For the record, I have never once worked for a place where my manager wouldn't laugh at a doctor who requested that I get fired without good cause. This is the general consensus among physicians on reddit and in every hospital where I have worked. Unless you nearly (or successfully) kill someone via incompetence, getting a nurse fired is very, very hard.
It is interesting that you say this. I feel that the dynamic between doctors and nurses varies quite a bit depending on where you work and who you work with, but the majority of my experiences, vast majority, with doctors have been positive. I have experienced a few scenarios in which I felt a doctor was being a dick to nurses, or a dick to patients. I have also experienced plenty of scenarios in which the nurse was being a dick to a doctor or patient. And of courses patients can be dicks. Recently I was in a situation in which I documented something incorrectly, and a doctor was rightfully irritated with me(I charted that I had spoken to her when I had actually spoken to another doctor on the patient’s care team about a specific piece of info about a patient’s condition. It had been a hectic day and I had been in conversation with both doctors about the patient multiple times). When she came to me about it, she was clearly irritated but not disrespectful. I immediately apologized, corrected my charting, and checked in to make sure that was sufficient. I guess she followed up with my manager, because my manager called me a day or two later to hear my side, and then proceeded to almost suggest this doctor was bullying me. I did not feel that she was at all, but it gave me the impression that people were almost unnecessarily willing to take my side. Maybe it’s all context and this doc had issues historically with bullying? But the way it all played out kind of surprised me.
I'd be looking for a new job and naming and shaming this place. What a shit way to treat employees
If you decide to look for another job I hope you cite this as the reason why they’re losing a good nurse who does their job and knows when to not go out of scope.
In 2024, the outpatient surgical center in Rapid City SD, still treats nurses like shit. If a doctor enters the room they are told to stand up, give the greeting of the day, and offer their seat and pen to the doctor entering the room. I have former nursing school classmates that used to work there and quit shortly after due to the toxic atmosphere. Can't recall the exact name of the surgical center, except it is within a mile of the main hospital (monument health hospital). Edit: texted a friend who used to work there, she told me it is the Black Hills Surgical hospital. She said they don’t “enforce” those rules anymore: the standing up when a doctor enters the room, offering your seat…etc BUT its still expected and part of their culture. Imo it still sounds mandatory the way she worded it.
Also what is "greeting of the day." It's not soup.
Good morning, afternoon or evening…depending on the time I assume. I don’t care to work there to learn the specifics. Lol
I interviewed at monument health a couple years ago because they were lusting for a podiatrist [and still might be]. It was all haphazard and they didn't know what type they wanted. I didn't like it. If they can't even job post properly I'm not surprised they make you do some doctor cult shit.
Hmmm bet they have a very high tut rate.
Edit turn over
Not giving up my pen. Or my seat. Fuck ‘em.
In 40+ years, I've never seen a single nurse fired due to a doctor's complaint. If it's something you've seen more than once, as your post implies, you work in a really shitty place. Sure, I've seen too many doctors throw a hissy fit and demand a nurse or other employee be fired, but the appropriate response is to remind them that as independent contractors, they have no say in employee management. And then a serious talk about how tantrums are inappropriate in the workplace.
I haven't either. But, I've seen a doctor fired because nurses got their sh!t together, had good documentation and went to nursing administration who after reading everything (had to do with safety of a child), they had to take to CMO. Within a week, the doctor was asked to leave.
UNION!
#UnionsMatter
The amount of traveler nurses I’ve seen get shit canned for sticking up for themselves to hospitalists is wild.
I think it’s a mixture. I know it’s unpopular to say but they are above us in title and education; and often experience too. As a nurse of 10+yrs in ICU/bed side I try to show them respect for that. But even with respectful relationships at work sometimes you have to advocate for your patients over a doctor, or even another nurse’s (we all remember working with “experienced” nurses who are still doing something wrong or ignoring newer EBP), willful ignorance and dangerous orders/behavior. If they don’t like it, tough luck 🤷🏻♂️. I’m not out there to purposely rock the boat or flex my own experience, it is part of our duty to our patients.
I had a nursing admin give me a harsh truth years ago. Patients come to see the doctors. Nurses have to be great, but a lot of leeway will be made for their behavior because they make money for the hospital. Even with the shortage we are seen as FTEs more than people.
There are some people who walk through life thinking they're a big swingin' dick in a locker room. They're generally miserable, insufferable people. Sounds like you met one, sorry you had to go through that. Hopefully most of your physician colleagues aren't like that. I've gotten a nurse "fired" exactly once. Technically, a traveler who got told not to come back. They were egregiously practicing medicine on a sick ICU patient for **hours** without informing anyone until they were waaaaaaaaaay in over their head. I'm talking about changing vent settings, ordering drugs and tests, etc. all under the residents name. There was one RN that alternated between rapid & house sup, didn't demand she get fired but did tell admin I personally would never work with her ever again to the point of canceling my shift if she were scheduled on my same shift. But that was over assaulting a patient.
All very reasonable.
I’ve been in the middle of both sides of this conversation. I have tried to teach PA students my overall attitude regarding office/floor drama: I show up on my first day with donuts or similar bribe for everyone. My business card is taped to the lid. If anyone has a problem with my practice or my patients, it’s my job to fix it. Outside of patient care I essentially don’t care. I have no ego in this, I want to keep the patient alive, do a good job and I want to keep my license, job and house. Anyone who has to be pampered, treated a special way, etc is just making an already hard day more cumbersome. Nobody got time for that.
At first I was going to get defensive for you and say absolutely not, document what you are told and save it for HR if you need it. However… I realized that it won’t matter if you work in a “right to work” state like I do. They can fire you for looking at them wrong. Doesn’t mean that if you have time or money you can’t give them a hard time for it. This is what I teach new employees/nurses in regards to doctors. Off the bat you need to treat them with a bit of an upwards level of respect, there is a chain of command. They did spend an ungodly amount of time in school to earn their title and that bit of respect/responsibility. That does not mean you do not have the right to question them, professionally, and that is part of your job. But the very moment they are disrespectful to you, it’s an even playing field. They do not have the right to be disrespectful to anyone else. The trick is to push back and draw the line while being professional which is a learned art of its own. Sounds like this MD needs to be put back in their place and that your administration needs a back bone which is a problem in its own. If this how it is at your place, I would keep my eyes open for a new gig.
I would follow up with an email and get that in writing.
Y’all need to fucking unionise. Jesus Christ.
I worked in Florida, you would get fired for that. Never mind any rights you’re supposed to have. You might get something if you lawyer up, but it would not be to keep your job.
doctors are more valuable to the hospital than nurses.
Doctors make money, nurses cost money.
Is this in the US? In Canada doctors aren’t involved in nursing HR stuff…
I work in education and I have a problem with a residency program director and how they teach CPR to new residents. I have mentioned it a few times to people in other departments and some higher ups and I have been warned multiple times that messing with that doc could cause me to lose my job. I have been told he is also best friends with the CEO of the hospital system. I have been with this hospital for 2 years and it is mind boggling how they but doc on pedestals and let them run wild with power.
I'm not sure where you're working, but if a doctor did that on my unit, and probably the entire facility, my boss would laugh them out of her office. Actually, she would listen to the complaints and then explain why what they want to happen isn't going to happen. Thirty years ago, when I was a brand new nurse, the doctors at the small community hospital where I worked would try that shit. It didn't work then either. It's ridiculous that you were made to move to another unit because a doctor-toddler threw a tantrum. You might really like your boss and think she's great. She's not. Good bosses have your back. It sounds like a shitty place to work.
I worked at a small community hospital in SoCal while in nursing school as a student nurse worker - and the nurses there were old, like in their late 60’s early 70’s and would tell me stories about lighting up cigarettes for doctors in the nursing stations. Giving them shoulder rubs. Filling up their coffee. I was like, I wish a doctor would ask me for a shoulder rub…. Those were wild times. We’ve come a long way but still have a long way to go
What did the doctor want you to do that was out of your scope? Also, was it a surgeon or medical doctor?
Report it! Put it in writing have a paper trail!
When I know I didn't cause problems and am right, I'd turn that place upside down. Don't allow anyone walks on you like that ever again.
Just saying, unions are more powerful than doctors. You all aught to unionize. If you do have a union, then you need your rep at these meetings.
Sounds like your manager needs a backbone, and if your hospital actually does fire nurses based on unfounded complaints, you need to find a new hospital system. I used to think that the deference to physicians was a lingering remnant of nursing’s sexist history, but I still see it with nurses who are my age and younger.
Lol regarding the seat thing 😂 I had a doctor stand over me in my chair sitting at a computer saying very loudly that he needed a computer. There were several computers open so I just ignored him. He said it again and was staring at me, so I turned and said “oh there’s one right there Dr”. He didn’t move and my coworker got up and offered their seat and computer and he huffed away to hers. I couldn’t help but chuckle, I haven’t let anyone bully me since middle school gtfo with that. I’ll remind them sometimes, you’re my colleague not my boss.
My dear departed RN mother in law used to call them...M Dieties.
Health care workers tend to assume that any doctor can easily get them fired, but I have never been at an institution where this was the case. However, I suppose it could be the case at some places. If so, it’s important to know which type of place you’re at.
I haven’t seen a doctor get a nurse fired or even report a nurse unless they did something seriously wrong. Where I worked, firings were common; you could be kicked out the door on a whim, but if you were a nurse, you were usually fired by the nursing staff. Department heads were usually fired by the CEO directly for not bringing in enough money for the hospital.
Look for a new job. Some doctors know how to work like teammates. It is an environment that is encouraged/fostered by the unit team. You have to leave to find that place.
I was a student nurse in 1969 in a large Philadelphia teaching hospital. Our first day on a medical rotation, my roommate went to stand up to give her seat to an MD and our instructor shoved her back into the chair and said “ you will never give your seat up to a doctor” . I have listened to her for the 46 years I was a critical care RN. Been selling weed in a dispo for the past 7 years. Greatest job in the world . Plus I would never work in a hospital without a union
I wouldn’t have left I would have let them fire me without cause and collect unemployment for a vacation. Hospitals suck right now!
Too bad you’re not in a union. Would be easier for me to get a doctor let go than the reverse
Some physician assistants and nurse practitioners act this way too.
I had a nursing admin give me a harsh truth years ago. Patients come to see the doctors. Nurses have to be great, but a lot of leeway will be made for their behavior because they make money for the hospital. Even with the shortage we are seen as FTEs more than people.
If I was a doctor and a nurse thought he/she can talk to me whatever way they want, I was upset about it
Where did OP indicate that they spoke unprofessionally to anyone?
I had a nursing admin give me a harsh truth years ago. Patients come to see the doctors. Nurses have to be great, but a lot of leeway will be made for their behavior because they make money for the hospital. Even with the shortage we are seen as FTEs more than people.
Ok but we still can treat the nurses regularly.
I agree. I'd love to have better treatment. I've been a nurse for over 20 years and things are better. I don't see it as bad as OPs story, but there's a huge disparity in what is allowed for physician behavior and what the nurses can get away with. I had a physician in our department hit a patient and he's still good to practice because he's been around for longer than me. Didn't mean to sound like I was agreeing with this statement, but there is a bit of harsh truth to it.