Resident doctors

[Confused]

What can a resident doctor do?  Can they be left alone to run the hospital unit that they are trying to specialize in???  Don't they require to be under a head doctor?
So if all the doctors in the unit you are in have decided to go to a conference and then you are left with a resident with no doctor over the top of him
is that legal?  Especially if one of the patients are having trouble???  And the whole hospital is lacking in enough staff?
I do not consider a resident to be a doctor I want to take care of me if I had trouble when the head doctors are out and at least a plane ride or now days who knows how long it would take a head doctor to get back to the hospital?

It takes forever to even get to a nurse who is dealing with a patient.  You are sent to places all over the hospital despite having the room number and the unit they are in.  And when you get the nurse she is a smarty nurse that insisted I have the questions ready to ask.  Well with a flare and it taking forever to get to the nurse I tried to be nice and expected decent answers not well maybe if this happens.  She may be short handed but mean is not the way to go.  I also never know if patient is coherent or not.  So tell me where I am wrong.

[Carolina]

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/what-is-resident-doctor

Regards, Elaine

[meirish]

I worked as a nurse in nursing homes the last 25+ years  of my career and the state had a large group of nurses who were trained to visit nursing homes on a regular basis to check up on practically everything. These nurses would come with us when we passed medications and did other procedures and almost breathed down the necks of every employee in every department. This usually lasted 3 to 4 days in my state. We usually had 3 or 4 state nurses and sometimes more. In nursing homes we have to have so many nursing hours per patients and so many nursing hours per nursing assistants. These records are all checked by the states and punishments exist if they find these laws are not followed.

The same thing goes on in hospitals as they check employees, surgical rooms, all departments like labs, dietary, maintenance  and on and on.  There are so many rules and laws made to protect patients and keep the right number of doctors, residents, nurses, and other staff in hospitals. There are also rules and regs to cover all treatments, surgeries, and every thing done in a hospital.

As a medical employee for many, many years I can tell you that everything we do and chart is regulated by the states. If one department is short of nurses or doctors the hospital will get someone from another department to cover when needed. Every single department in any medical facility has rules and regs by the states and punishment that goes with if not followed. Then there are the Federal rules and regs. If a nurse or doctor goes to an all day seminar they are usually covered by another doctor or nurse. These staff can be from another department such as surgical or internists, etc and are able to deal with the patients conditions.

The important thing to remember is that every facility does their best to keep things above board and legal. With the nursing and doctor shortages it has become very difficult and that is why there are so few beds available in hospitals or nursing homes. Also it is very difficult to get all our cancer testing done and other tests done in a timely manner. There aren't enough doctors and nurses employed in most places to be legal enough to fill all the medical beds in hospitals or other medical facilities.

Medical staff work under a lot of stress because of all these rules and regs and these rules and regs can literally take up hours of our days trying to modify working conditions to do everything legal and safe while giving good care. In spite of all this there are things that can happen that we don't expect and it is because we are all human and aren't perfect. Also, cares in hospitals, etc have become more complicated over the years thus when people quit the beds are not being filled due to shortage of nursing hours, etc and the lack of ability to cover all the cares safely. Or sometimes the ERs are closed down in some hospitals due to shortage of ER doctors or staff.

The residents are trained in certain procedures and policies and are under the supervision of the doctor in charge of a unit. That is the way it has been for years and will continue to be so I would bet. The residents who have been working for many years know a whole lot and I have met some who are super smart and knowledgeable. They are still responsible to the charge doctor. The medical staff are all super concerned about the care given and the amount of help on hand and will do their utmost to keep things working safely and well.

Read the article that Carolina put in her post. It describes the resident procedure pretty well.

Others here may have other things to say. If there is anything you can't do it is plan out your hospitalization to perfection. So many things come up and hospital staff are trained to role with the punches and take care of you no matter what. meirish

[vrystaat]

Our local hospital evolved from a private hospital of excellent quality to a Teaching Hospital staffed by trainee DO doctors.
I was horrified by this turn of events.
These residents are theoretically under the constant supervision of a Residency Director.
In a recent stay at this hospital, this system seemed to work well.
In the Emergency Room this method seemed to be constantly breached. Resident doctors examined me, attended to my chart and many other duties.
I was seen by a Staff Doctor initially, and once later on. I became nervous because I did not want to be so closely dependent on the Residents. Many of them were cocky.
I voiced this to the Staff Doctor, and he was sympathetic.
Later, I was admitted to a Medical Floor, and was supervised by another Staff Doctor. Residents were present, but took less part in the general treatment regimen.

Residents should not be allowed into responsible work, especially in complicated cases. Mine was a complicated case, but the Staff Physician closely directed my treatment.
I think that there is a lot of room for mistakes in other hospitals that are not as closely supervised. Medicine is an extremely complicated & taxing calling.
Trainee doctors should be closely supervised.

[meirish]

vrystaat added some important information about residents and what she experienced. Every hospital is different in some of the ways that things seem work out. The bottom line is everyone has to be responsible about being a good advocate for their care. If you have relatives in hospitals you need to make sure to help them by being a good advocate for them also. This is actually more important than it was years ago due to increased age of patients and the fact that we are identify and treating so many new diseases and syndromes that it can be hard to keep up with the symptoms and treatments. Also, if you live long enough and get very ill the chances of having 2 or 3 other severe issues at the same time are increased.

My husband was ill for quite a few years with many hospitalizations and ICU visits. I had to play advocate a lot and saved his life one time by informing the doctors and nurses about his deteriorating condition. Were they surprised and did they have to move fast to save his life. This was in a hospital where there were no residents. Things can happen that we don't expect and they can happen so fast. We do have to pay attention.

I will add that where there are student nurses plus the residents working closely with the  staff nurses caring for you or your loved one try to keep in good communication with staff nurses as they can help so much when there are students and residents working also. Medicine is really a group effort much of the time. Good luck all. meirish

[vrystaat]

I just got out of the ER, after checking in with acute LUQ pain. Once again, I was triaged by a young man, who turned out to be a Doctor of Osteopathy. I had a CT Scan which was called normal. I was discharged without a diagnosis, and now I need to see a regular MD for follow-up. I still have the abdominal pain & fever; so I am very perturbed at this chain of events. I do not want to be taken care of by a trainee DO, 2 months in to his residency. I will not complain, but I will not go to this hospital again.

[meirish]

I have to add that I have never seen a resident DO or Doctor of Osteopathy but I did live in a town that had several DO on staff. I saw them a couple of times and being a registered nurse O was a little leary as their training is somewhat different that regular MD's. However, I was totally impressed with the ones I saw as to their knowledge of medicine and also their acute awareness of our emotional and spiritual well being affecting my health. It was a very insightful event for me and I have seen a couple DO's since then and been pleased.

It is possible that every hospital situation deals with DO's differently and has different expectations of them. That is something that we as patients will have to deal with when this occurs....Also always talk with management of departments, etc if one has questions regarding your care.  Enjoy the weekend.Almost time for school to start. meirish

[Judie P]

My regular hospital that I go to is a teaching hospital and clinic.  My poor doctor is overworked and I think it is finally getting to him.  He has a staff of other doctors and NPs under him that all seem to be knowledgeable.  I do have to say that sometimes I prefer a Nurse Practitioner because they are eager to get to the bottom of the problem instead of sending you home.  I hate going to ER as you never know what specialty doctor you are going to get and the wait can be many hours.

My cervical surgery will be done in a different hospital, which is not a teaching hospital, and I find the doctors and nurses very rude.  I am not going to be happy for the 3 days I will be spending there.

[meirish]

Have no clue, but maybe kill them with kindness and see what happens. I know that a lot of people who work in service industries where they take care of people and their needs are subjected to a lot of really nasty, rude, snotty people and it can affect how they treat people back over the years.

I can tell you this as my son has had a service business for a very long time and he gets so sick of the rude way people treat him. He is very soft spoken and respectful to people but says that sometimes he says he can hardly make himself be nice back. I know cause I have been there when this happens. People yell, insult and walk out and slam the door. These people have been told when they come in with their product to be fixed that it will take a certain length of time to get their product done. They will call my sons business and be told that it will take until the next day to be done. People will then come in the very same day and lose their temper and have a fit cause they want it now.

This service is not something that is an emergency situation. Often these people will not even come back and pick up their product nor will they pay for the service and it can be many hundreds of dollars. There are many other customers getting service and parts delivery and other issues can come up. My son says people have gotten more and more rude and self centered over the decades he has been in business. Life is interesting!! Hope everything goes well for you and your hospital stay is better than you think. Nobody like being in the hospital anyway, that is for sure. Good luck. meirish