OK, so I waited an hour to post. But what happened is, I had a fever last night. I was just over 100. I called my OB and got the oncall OB. Ironically, the oncall OB is a former school teacher who went back for medical school. I don't know if she knows I homeschool or not, but, here is what happened. Sorry, I am not putting together the best written post here. She told me to go to labor and delivery and she ordered tests and an IV for me. I get there, and the nurse really puts me in my place. She pretty much lets me know that I am a waste of her time and a fool and an idiot. When I first walk in, she picks up a paper right in front of me that says why I am there. Then she asks why I am there and I said "I had a fever." To this, she laid in to me "you HAD a fever?" she went on about "HAD?" I said, well, I assume I still have a fever. Then she went on with "which is it, do you HAVE or fever or did you HAD a fever?" I was so embarrassed. I had been in the car with the a/c fullblast. I don't know the cause of the fever but maybe I no longer have one by then. I couldn't really defend myself. This was happening while standing at the nurses station. She finally took me to the room where she continues to treat me like an idiot. She informs me that she needs a urine sample. Then she gets the thing. Realize, this is my 7th time giving birth and I have a history of kidney problems. I am an old hand at giving urine samples. Regardless, she tells me she needs a clean catch urine. Then she asks me if I know how to do that. I said yes. Then she says in a rude, yeah right, you're a fool voice..."tell me how then." So I tell her. Then she proceeds to tell me! She goes through a detailed description of how. BTW, she was wrong. She told me to wipe front to back and back to front again. You are NOT supposed to wipe back to front! I have had a urologist since I was a baby and I can guarantee you, even girls health book and every urologist will tell you not to wipe back to front. But I did not correct her. But I was really feeling on the spot and embarrassed about how she was speaking to me and treating me. I go in and give my sample and get the hospital gown on and come back out. By now I am telling dh how bad I am feeling about how she is treating me. I sit and wait and am getting upset. I know if she comes back in and I don't have a fever anymore, she will really lay in to me. I am picturing an entire evening of this treatment. The wait is so long that I have plenty of time to run through my head over how I will continue to be treated. DH and I agreed to leave. On the way home, dh is talking about how he does not want to go back there and how terrible it is and you never know who you will get. I call the oncall doctor back to tell her why we left. She calls back, eventually. Then I tell her and her response was to tell me that that nurse has 25 yrs experience! As if it was reasonable for that nurse to treat me like that!! I go home and take cool shower and turn down the a/c even more and lay down and eventually, my fever went down. It had gone up to 100.6 and was normal last I checked. It took a few hours. I sleep and all, but I dreamt the entire time that I was back at labor and delivery and everyone, even my own real doctor, treat me like I am an idiot and a fool and a waste of their time, just like the nurse did. Eventually, I am laying in bed amd I am crying because I don't want to ever go back or face any of them again! I am such a fool, they think I am a fool. I am thinking they all must think it, it is just the nurse who showed me it and the oncall doctor who confirmed it by her remark about 25 yrs experience. I am humiliated and embarrassed and I never want to face any of them again. Now what do I do? What do I do? I mean, should I cancel my next appointment and go elsewhere? I am so embarrassed, I don't want to speak to them again, any of them, not even my own doctor. I don't want to show my face at the ob office. I definitely do not want to return to that hospital. I am humiliated.
You may find that you are a little over sensitive right now. You're very pregnant and its the hottest part of the year. That can make things seem a little worse then they are. The nurse may have been having a rough night. Everyone has bad days and unfortunatly patients may get the brunt of it. I would not go anywhere else. It's not your fault. You did what you were supossed to do. You called your OB and and she said to go to L&D. This is a pretty hormonal time for you. Just take a deep breath and get a good nights sleep. Everything will look better in a few days.
I am scared to go back up there. I do not want to even discuss any complaint I might have with the doctors. I feel like they are all just thinking what an idiot I am. I am not even sure what to say if they call today. I am planning to just tell them I am fine and getting off the phone. I have considered just not taking their call if they do call. I don't know if they will call, especially if they just think I am an idiot. But what do I do if something goes wrong? I mean, I am completely not comfortable calling them or speaking to them again. And what about labor when it does happen? What do I do then? I don't want to be treated that way while in labor. MY dh cannot handle protecting me. He just sat there, not saying anything, nothing at all. He does this. He is scared of hospitals and all and when we go, he freezes.
I am so angry for you right now. Nobody should be treated like that anywhere. I realize she has twenty-five years of nursing experience, but she obviously was absent from class when they taught compassion and common sense. There is no way I can justify anyone being treated the way you describe. I think that nurse needs to retire if that is how burnt out she is. The doctor sounds like she is afraid of the nurse or just too lazy to treat a patient like they are supposed to be treated. I don't know. I think you should call the head of the hospital. I know you don't want to go back there, and I understand, but someone needs to report this abuse. I am so very sorry you had to go through this and I really hope you are feeling better physically and emotionally today. Beth
YEAH! What she said!!! (And the ONLY reason the nurse needed for you being there was "The DOCTOR told me I needed to come in because she was concerned about a fever....")
Thank you. My regular OB is the chief of staff there. Based on how the oncall doctor reacted to how I was treated, and the oncall doctor is in practice with my regular OB, I am taking this to be how my regular OB feels too. So now, less than a month to my due date, I will be dropping my doctor and looking elsewhere. I still am crying over this. This is not a position I should have been put in. But perhaps I am lucky they were so polite and nice to me for the last many months if this is how they feel. At first, I was just going to tell them if they felt this way, they should have told me earlier. But then I realized, perhaps they were just being polite to not express their true feelings and I should be happy they did that. Too bad they couldn't have kept their feelings underwraps for another month, but then again, what if I found out while I was in labor. So I am calling when they open and cancelling my next appointment. My dh wants me to go to a birth center, but I wanted an epidural and you cannot get one at a birth center. I do have a doctor in mind to switch to, but my dh is not comfy with that particular hospital. I figure I will call later today and set up a tour and see if it seems ok.
Yes, it is gone. I took a cool shower and turned the a/c temp down. And laid down and it went down after a little while. I have no clue why it was up in the first place.
Don't be afraid to stand up. Let you OB know what happened and let them know that you that nurse was rude, Let them know that she treated you like you were a waste of her time. Let them know if she is anywhere near the delivery room then you want her escorted out. Let your OB know the on call doctor treated you the same way. Let them know that you are sorry that you had to waste their time but if they would all like you can take your business elsewhere and pay more caring people to help you with your pregnancy. Don't be afraid to stand up. Report it. Don't let that whole "it could be hormones reacting", If you feel mistreated then you need to let them know about it.
I'm sorry the nurse treated you that way. Being in a hospital isn't fun when they treat you nice! For me the main issue would be my doctor's response. You need to have trust in your doctor. I would have a hard time trusting my doctor based on what you have described. Do you have a long-term history with this doctor? If so, is this behavior abnormal? If it is I would go in for another visit and discuss the issue before deciding to switch.
It was the oncall doctor who responded like that. But because the oncall doctor works for my regular OB, my regular OB owns the practice, if the oncall doctor felt free to respond like that, then my regular OB must feel the same way. I have been with the regular ob for 4-5 yrs. The regular OB does not treat me this way, but now I realize she is just nice and has been being nice this whole time. But it is the doctor's response that really got to me in the end. I realized if she found that acceptable, it showed the true feelings and it could happen again. Where I live, OB care does not tend to be that great anyway. I am in the DFW TX area.
Maybe you could put a phone request in for your doctor to call you at their convenience so you can explain the situation of how you were treated. You would then find out the feelings of your OB doctor. Don't assume your dr. feels the same just because they work together. I've worked for many doctors and they rarely ever seem to be on the same page, they each of their own patients and their own way of doing things.
I don't understand why any of them would think poorly of you. The on-call doctor thought that your situation was important enough to send you to the hospital to be checked. I'm not doubting your account; I'm just doubting that it was personal. I've seen some "Nurse Ratchets," and they seem to be pretty equitable in their maltreatment of patients. There is no reason for you to feel humiliated when it was HER behavior that was shameful. As for the doctor, she may not truly have an understanding of what happened. Since the nurse probably puts her best foot forward in the doctor's presences, descriptions of her ugly side might be difficult for the doctor to imagine. I deal with these professional bullies by labeling their behavior and forcing them to explain... "Why are you treating me with such contempt? Did I do something wrong?" Then I envision smacking them upside the head -- as long as it stays in my imagination, it doesn't hurt them and give me a little bit of satisfaction.
Oh, right!!! Not if they're anything like the ones my mom has! She'll call, and they never will call back. The nurse will say, "Well, I'll tell him, but he's so busy.... I don't know if he'll get the message.... He'll be in surgery all day...." Just a few weeks ago, she ended up in the hospital out-of-state. They let her come home, but the doctor from there told her she needed to set up an appointment RIGHT AWAY when she got home. She asked the surgeon if HE would call, as it takes about three months to get in. He did, but she was still told to call IMMEDIATELY. So she did, and she couldn't get through to a live person. She knows leaving a message is a waste of time, so she decided to hit the option for doctors. They actually answered the phone then! So that person was going to transfer her, but Mom refused to be transfered. She said that would give her a machine, and they "never" call back. The lady didn't believe Mom, so she started telling her all the trouble she's had in the past in getting an appointment. Well, they ended up giving her one right then and there, lol!
Your experience raised old feelings I have about my last OB's office and the hospital that I delivered 3 of my 5 babies. I just want to slap the nurse that was so rude to you. Sorry if that offends anyone, but really, she CHOSE her profession and she knew it wouldn't always be fun. She has no right to treat you like that. I started my last pregnancy with an OB that was recommended by a lady I knew at church, and when I went in she was so rude I walked right out. I then found a midwife that I liked and when I had 2 months left in my pregnancy I switched to a different midwife because the first midwife switched out her birthing assistants and I didn't like the new ones. It was because of the way I was treated, very similar to you, that I ended up with a midwife and gave birth at home with my 5th. A year before I became pregnant with #5 I went in pregnant to my OB's, the ultrasound tech caused me to miscarry and then later the whole office said it was my fault and they kept saying they were right and I was an idiot. There's more to the story, but suffice it to say I walked out of there and I never looked back. I was scared to not have an epidural too because I had one with my first 4 babies. It was harder (probably not something you want to hear right now), but I felt so much more in control and now, 6 months later I really don't even remember any pain. I don't think that came off right...I don't mean it took 6 months to forget, it actually took about a week. You get much better care through a midwife, and looking back I wish I had done home births with all my kids. I never got the personalized care I wanted with my OB, and I was treated like an idiot at least 50% of the time even when I KNEW I was right. I would at least look into a birthing center. I hope this all made sense. Sometimes I think I ramble on and on and never can quite get my point across.
I will second a midwife delivery. I had two out of three that way, but neither were home deliveries. I had complications with my first (one of those things, no one's fault), and if I HAD a midwife, a doctor probably would have been called in when things got complicated. I really can't complain about the care the doctor gave me. With Faythe, the midwife was hung up in construction traffic. It was a race to see if the baby, the doctor, or the midwife would get there first. I talked with the delivery nurse, and felt VERY comfortable with her delivering the baby if necessary. The midwife made it in time, but just! Faythe came in less than an hour after my arriving at the hospital, and hasn't slowed down since, lol!!! If anyone in the central Ohio area is interested in midwife deliveries, there's a FANTASTIC place in Marysville! (And the midwives who were there when Phillip was born had a school room set up and homeschooled out of the office!!!)
Ok lets remember that you are in an emotional state right now........ You have to get over the one bad nurse and go back if you need to and yes you need to lodge a complaint.
I worked on the OBGYN floor for years, and I will tell you no nurse has any right to say or do what they did to you. Yes, working that floor can be very stressful at times, but hay they are not suppose to take it out on the patient. I don't care if she had 25 years of experiment she should know better then. First of all I wouldn't change unless you are really I mean really unhappy with it. If you like your doctor, please contact the doctor and see if he/she will call you back. If they don't call in you a day try again, if that don't work then leave. Also, I would write a letter to the hospital and let them what happen and how you were treated and why you are leaving and looking for another place to have your baby. Stand up for your rights. I don't care if you are 8 months pg. The nurse needs to respect you. You are the patient and you are paying for them. Even if it's dumb in her book that you came. How the heck does she know it's nothing serious. Down here they are telling every mom who is pg that has 100 temp to see doctors right away because of the swine flu. So, girl I am with you I worked that field I do know there is alot of stress but there is also alot of joy working there. If she was stress upset or tired for some reason she should of step to side and let some else fill in. But, if it was me, I would report it to the hospital and give her name, time and everything she said and did to you while you were there. I think she is getting a little to comfortable with the job and thinks because she work there for 25 years she can do whatever. No way... ((((((((((HUGS))))))))))))))) for you. I hope things are better for you and you are feeling better. Keep us posted on what you do.
Keep in mind that it was the on call doctor that told you to go to OB. If that was their original opinion, then it should not reflect on you. And when the same on call doctor responded with "she has 25 years experience" they danced around an actual response. Doctors are so afraid of lawsuits these days that they are starting to sound like politicians. Your regular OB needs to hear first hand what happened to you. If you have been going there for 4 - 5 years and have never been treated like this by your regular doctor, then that doctor doesn't have a bad opinion of you. Each person is an individual, including the doctors. They are not omnipotent. They are human, have flaws and make mistakes. Don't hold trial and judge your OB on this on call doctor's blunder.
