March 9, 2008
Bad Behavior
Sometimes I hear things come out of people's mouths that just make me go "Did you really just say that?" That happened this morning. I had a patient come in, prior c-section, scheduled for a VBAC induction Monday a.m., with contractions every 6-8 minutes. Cervix was closed and thick. Called the MD on call. He says "prep her for a c-section in an hour". It wasn't necessary because she wasn't in labor, the baby was okay, and she wasn't bleeding. Patient only spoke French, and FOB translated for her. I go and tell them what the Doc wants to do. They refuse. It's their right and really, I thought that was a wise choice. Why not see what happens? So I call the doc back. He says I'm coming in. He was so unbelievable rude to this couple. He said over and over "Your baby could die. Death. Do you understand that? Your uterus will come apart and your baby and you could die." The dad stuck to his guns and said no. The conversation was much longer than this with much more condesceding tone than I can describe in words. Then the doc asked the "Why did you come to America?". I stood there, felt all color drain out of my face and thought "You did not just say that, did you?". The dad came right back and told him that he shouldn't ask them that. After it was all said and done, the doc continued to bad-mouth this couple at the desk because they weren't married, were uneducated, etc. It was more than I could take. Funny thing, she wasn't in labor. Her contractions stopped after some IV fluids. So she didn't need to be delivered. I obviously turned in an incident report. Hopefully it will be taken care of appropriately. I went in and apologized to the family and they were okay with me. I also assured them that the appropriate steps were being taken to take care of the bad behavior of this physician.
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6 comments:
Holy COW! That Dr is just embarrassing! Good for you!
OMG. I am lucky I have an awesome ob. I did run into a problem with a nurse a couple of weeks ago when I miscarried my baby at 13 1/2 weeks. I was being watched closely due to previous severe pe and pih and preterm deliveries. So they caught it within a day of the baby passing. I had a d&c immediately the next day. I was horrified at an incident that happened. As soon as I got there, there was a nurse that was pushing a study for recurrent miscarriage on me. This was my first one, I have two healthy children, I had already all the testing that would have been done, and I was already taking aspirin to prevent pe. Then when she was talking about the study, she referred to my baby as an embryo. Which at 13 weeks it was not. I became upset and told her that my baby was NOT an embryo but a fully formed baby with head, arms, legs, body and had had a heartbeat the week before and I had seen it on a 50 inch screen the day before at my peri's office. She said she was sorry and left. I will say my nurses and everyone else was wonderful, kind, and compassionate.
So last week, I emailed the nurse manager of ob. She remembered me because I had made memory boxes in memory of a friends daughter that passed at 24 weeks. I told her about my experience. She said I should have asked for her and she would have come to see me. She said that she would investigate the incident immediately.
Yesterday, I checked the mail and there was a written apology from the nurse who called my baby an embryo. She was sincerely sorry and she never intended to offend me in any way. It made me feel better that she apologized. It still hurt and it is a bad memory on the worst day of my life. I just didn't want it to happen to another mom.
I can't remember if my nurse was in the room cause it was a blur. I wished that if there had been they had spoken up. It wasn't my intent to get anyone in trouble. I just didn't want it to happen to another mom.
I am so glad that you spoke up. His behavior was inappropriate. I am learning unless you speak up, it continues. I still have to speak up about the billing/insurance clerk at my ob's office and I intend to take care of that at my next ob appt. She is really rude and short with people. That's not right.
Thank you for doing this! I would hate to think that doc got away with that.
I think some medical staff are pressed for time, know they made the wrong call, and want the patient to pay (not all just some).
I hope this doctor learns and changes. Pushing people into something that's not needed costs money and harms patients...
Dawn
I wonder why she was scheduled for an induction? I thought that, for VBACs, inductions were discouraged b/c they increase the likelihood of a uterine rupture?
They scheduled her for induction because she was 41 weeks. There is an increased risk for uterine rupture with an induction as opposed to natural labor, but the plan for her was to break her water and if needed, use a low dose of pitocin to help with contractions. I've seen several successful VBAC inductions with pitocin. Cytotec is contracindicated for people with a prior c-section because of the increased risk of rupture, but even the incidence of that is small. Every doc is different in how they'll handle VBAC's and induction.
I'm so glad you spoke up! Hopefully this doctor will be dealt with correctly.
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