Hey everyone, not sure if this is just me noticing this but there has been an influx in the number of times I’m called to update a patient’s family.
Just a disclaimer: it’s a no-brainer why families want updates, of course they would, it’s their loved one. I have 0 problem speaking to families.
What has been frustrating is the amount of calls at like 9am while I’m still rounding or doing urgent jobs saying “oh so and so’s mum/sister/niece wants an update you need to call them or come back now they’re stressed.” And an emphasis- it’s not about what is said but more about HOW it’s said. Have gotten a lot of demanding and entitled families/other staff expect I abandon what I’m doing to go tell Mr Smith’s wife that we’ve halved his frusemide.
A couple things I don’t get:
- Why the nurse who is calling me (who I JUST handed over to) can’t update the family when they are right there and I’m on a different ward (have had some say they’re demanding a doctor- fine in those cases)
- Why the family can’t ask their very cognitively aware loved one what the plan (that I just told them) is
- Why am I getting demands by other staff to drop everything and update the family about a stable patient.
It’s just frustrating especially that I’m dealing with really busy lists. If we have 35ish patients I cannot reasonably give an update to every single family who all come in at different times.
I’ve literally had a nurse call me over saying she urgently needs me (me thinking a patient is unwell) only to walk in the room and say “the doctor is here!” to a crowd of family members after I’d just gotten off a met call.
Anyways wondering if I’m being over sensitive but I’m getting very frustrated with this all lately. Being in a term where we have patients on quite a few wards, it feels like ward staff think that once we’ve left their ward we’re just fucking around, as if we don’t have other patients.