I have always felt that my safety is at risk as a physician. I have seen some very interesting characters in my day and have been threatened numerous times with violence. Most or all of this revolves around chronic narcotic seekers. I am not alone. When you read this
article about how ER nurses have to endure spitting, cursing and violence it really makes you sick. The problem is that it never changes. Hospital administrations do the bare minimal to protect their people and little more. In a recent survey, more than half of nurses in the ER -- 53.4 percent -- reported experiencing verbal abuse and about 13 percent said they had encountered physical violence at work in the previous week. Wow. One nurse had a patient who was drunk and high on drugs grab her around the neck, choked her until she couldn’t breathe and then spat in her face. The hospital wanted her to drop assault charges against her attacker and then fired her when she refused. Feel secure yet? Want more? An
unidentified man fired a gun inside an ER in a Bronx hospital leaving a 37-year old nurse and 42-year old security guard wounded from the ricocheted bullets. This job is tough as it is. Our personal safety should not be at risk as well. Anybody else have some war stories that they want to share?
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6 comments:
We are almost all in a too big to fail corporate healthcare system, or soon will be. Good luck with your right to protect yourselves. War stories? they're a dime a dozen. You'll only hear them in the media if it is self serving.
I got socked in the jaw by a pt. To be fair, he wasn't aiming for me but to the security guard standing to my right.
Reporting it to the police wasn't even to be considered...one filed an incident report & sucked it up.
Interestingly, the pt was there for a suspected mandibular fracture.
I have a CCW and carry a .40 cal everywhere I go. A patient shot a doctor in the head here a few years ago over a UDS.
This is yet another thing that makes me sick. At my shop there was a police shooting in our waiting room when someone came in waving around a firearm and threatening people. At least we have an armed officer, which I know is more than most place; still, the admin refuses to consider installing metal detectors at our entrances... There have been numerous assaults of other sorts, and again, I think I have it better than many places, since the admin has been supportive (or at least not acting negatively towards) people filing charges.
My best advice: Learn HOW TO DEFEND YOURSELF! Not meaning (necessarily) carrying a weapon -- @Anonymous, good luck carrying a firearm in the ED...that would be sure to get any doc fired.) Take some form of physical self defense training such as Krav Maga, Aikido, etc. You will have more confidence, be mentally and physically stronger, and sometimes just that confidence that you exude will be enough to stand down a confrontation.
There is no question we work in a dangerous field, especially those of us who work in the ED. I practice full-spectrum rural family medicine, which includes ED, IP, and OP. Out here there is no psychiatry either, so we not only are at risk by criminal drug seekers and the like, but also those severely mentally ill people who have stopped taking their meds. The risk is real.
I've been threatened by patients a few times. I have cared for patients who are now in jail for murder (I'm glad they liked me at the time I saw them). I definitely have security concerns.
I took the CCW class 2 years ago but never got around to doing the paperwork and paying the fee for the permit. (I know, dumb...) Our hospital is a no-carry building anyway, so I'd have to have some kind of permission granted by the board to carry legally at work.
For now, I keep a .380 in my vehicle which is just steps outside my clinic door. I plan to soon keep hidden pepper spray for myself and my nursing staff in the clinic and ER.
Sometimes sarcasm is the best weapon:
I am quite shocked that no one has noted the fact that by taking this type of abuse, we can better position our hospital to have higher HCAPS scores!
That said, our state's EMTALA surveyor is debating whether or not to cite us for an incident discovered during an EMTALA audit. It turns out that a public inebriate struck one of our nurses, after mentioning when drunk that he felt suicidal. He is well known to our staff, his medical record is replete with incidents where, when sober, he recants suicidal ideation expressed while drunk. Unfortunately, our doctor failed to note to the jailers, where he was taken after assaulting and battering our nurse, that the now ex-patient should have been sent to jail on suicide precautions, which was not recorded in writing to have been done.
This complete lack of common sense in interpreting EMTALA law by a person whose last name is Danner and who works in Missouri, along with "Inmates run the asylum" logic of HCAPS, just makes me wonder how anyone can NOT be against the new health law, given that it is likely to be implemented just as much common sense and good judgment as this perceived possible EMTALA violation.
It may be a bad idea to post with my name so I will choose to be anonymous.
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