Bedside manner

This morning was an interesting one. After the night nurse gave me report on what happened overnight with my patients, I went to say hello to them. I walked into my first patient's room to find a doctor I had never met in there. This didn't exactly surprise me, as all new doctors started on July 1st. I was shocked, however, to learn that this particular doctor was the patient's attending physician, since he didn't look a day over 20. In any case, the patient had a few questions for him, none of which he could answer. He told the patient, "to be honest, I had the day off yesterday. I like to see my patients first thing in the morning, before catching up on all the notes that were written yesterday, so that I can address any emerging issues as quickly as possible, so I'll have to get back to you about the answers to your questions." The patient looked puzzled. The doctor repeated what he had said about seeing his patients before reading the charts, and then followed up with the following. "You see, one day in my residency, I came in in the morning only to discover one of my patients totally confused and we had to send him to the ICU! That's why I like to see the patients first, charts second." The patient didn't say much, but appeared to accept his explanation, and the doctor left. I spent a minute with the patient, catching up on what had happened overnight, and then went to check on my other patient.

When I walked into my second patient's room, the same doctor was there. Essentially, the same exact thing happened. She had a few questions for him, he couldn't answer them, and told her he'd have to come back later after reviewing her chart. She looked puzzled. She asked her questions again. The doctor said, "Can you imagine? One day in my residency, I walked into my patient's room in the morning and found her dead! That's why I like to see my patients before I look at the chart." The patient's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. She was brave enough to say "was it really necessary to tell me that?" He caught himself for a moment, and tried to relieve her by saying, "well, we expected it for her. Not for you!" My patient was not amused. She said again, "did you really need to tell me that?" The doctor kind of brushed it off and left. Again, I stayed behind to catch up with her and she could not stop talking about what he had said. "Where did he go to medical school? What kind of bedside manner is that? He's a nut!" Throughout the remainder of the day, she kept asking me about him and kept insulting his bedside manner. While I was also pretty appalled by these two discussions, I'm almost looking forward to my next interaction with this guy.