Curmudgeon Doctors
Anyone that works for any kind of organization that employs more than two people knows how a bureaucracy can grow and, growing, get in the way of actually doing the work of the organization. Once this happens, people start figuring out how to evade the rules, even when it isn’t needed. Hospitals are no different.
Some years ago, we had some doctors that could only be described as ‘characters’. They all hated having to countersign orders that they had given over the phone the night before, (usually when they had been woken from a sound sleep.) They’d whine and complain and finally do it only after the nurse had jollied them around to it.
One Monday morning, the Chief came in and I tried to get him to sign his orders from the weekend. He bucked and danced and finally said, “You sign ‘em for me.”
I told him I couldn’t and he knew it. Besides, “A forgery is pretty obvious when you don’t happen to have an example to work from.”
He agreed that I had a point and signed the orders. Then he demanded a piece of paper and signed that. “There, now you have an example. No more excuses!”
I was gobsmacked.
About that time, ‘The Falcon’ showed up. Deciding to see just how far this might go, I asked him to sign my ‘forgery template’.
“Sure Captain,” he replied as he threw on a few wavy lines. “What’s this for?”
“It’s just an example in case I ever need to forge your signature,” I told him.
“Oh, very good, very good,” he said. “Carry on, lad.”
I never actually needed to use these, of course. The Chief just wanted to get his point across and the Falcon just wanted to mess with the Administration, if possible. He was known to vary his signature on purpose in order to mess with the pharmacists.
The old line doctors couldn’t type very well or fast, since they’d grown up using dictation. When computers came in, (using ancient text based programs instead of Windows), they suffered severe culture shock. Frustration caused the Falcon to destroy several keyboards when the program refused to cooperate. I was walking by one day just as his temper boiled over and he swung the keyboard clear up above his head to smash it on the desk. Just as it reached peak elevation, I snatched it out of his hands and told him, “STOP that!”
He was a bit startled and muttered a shame faced, “Oh, OK.”
The Falcon luxuriated in phraseology. Giving someone a specific course of antibiotics was, “Give this lad the poison.” His explanation of the risks involved in any and all surgical procedures was, “Now son, you understand that certain things can go wrong with any surgery. Fire, flood, earthquake, famine, pestilence and sudden mortality may strike you out of the sky, but you’re going to trust us and let us violate you anyway.” That seemed to make perfect sense to our patients and they were always pleased with his work.