Nurses can be just as nasty. I was an overnight Phleb at my previous hospital. One night, I came down to the lab after my midnight draws so I could help out the tech since it was such a chaotic night. The phone rang and since the tech was super busy, I decided to answer. It was an angry ED Nurse calling about a specimen she sent down two hours ago and wanted to know where the results were.
I told her I’d put her on hold and would ask the tech to see if he knew anything about it since I wasn’t logged in on the computer yet. She snapped at me and literally said, “No! Don’t put me on hold! I want to know now!” Of course, me being shocked by her nastiness because I’m just the Phleb, I said okay, and I asked the tech while on the phone with her about where the results were. The tech then told me the test she was calling about is a send out and it’s been a send out for over a month. So, I repeated this back to the RN and holy crap, she got nasty with me.
While she was chewing me out saying stuff like this is patient neglect, why is lab so irresponsible, why wasn’t she notified yadayadayada… I tried to remind her multiple times that I’m just the phlebotomist and I was literally apologizing for something that I’m not even responsible for. But she kept continuing to be nasty towards me, so I hung up lol. The tech was shocked that I just hung up on her, but I told him I don’t appreciate when someone is nasty to me for something that’s not even my fault.
The doc called back a few minutes later apologizing because he totally forgot that test was a send out. The tech then told him over the phone that the nurse who called about it earlier needed to apologize to me because again she chewed out the wrong person. Doc said he’ll take care of it and the Nurse called back about an hour later and ended up apologizing to me. I hung up on a Nurse and got her to apologize to me lol. I felt so accomplished that night hahaha!
Submitted by:
Alex Friedman
Laboratory Technologist
South Dakota, USA
