Stabbed, punched, bitten: ER doctors face rising violence

By Liz Kowalczyk GLOBE STAFF OCTOBER 02, 2018

Dr. Sundeep Shukla expected his patient would be upset to learn that he was stuck in the emergency room indefinitely. There was no psychiatric facility that had space for him. But Shukla did not predict what happened next.

The patient leaped off his gurney and punched Shukla, hard, in the jaw. Pain shot down his neck. Shukla, who now works at a hospital in Western Massachusetts, had little time to nurse his wound: Another ambulance arrived and he rushed off to treat a stroke patient.

Angry and distraught patients and family members have scratched, spit at, bitten, hit, and stabbed doctors and nurses working in hospital emergency rooms. One Massachusetts caregiver was so badly cut in an assault that she required eight hours of life-saving surgery. Nearly everyone has a story.

A new survey of more than 3,500 emergency physicians across the United States released Tuesday suggests this type of violence against hospital emergency room staff is growing worse. Assaults against nurses have been well-documented, but this is one of the largest surveys of physicians.

Nearly half of doctors said they have been physically assaulted on the job. About two-thirds of those doctors said they were assaulted in the past year. Seventy-one percent said they have witnessed an assault on the job at some point, according to data from the American College of Emergency Physicians, based in Texas. And nearly 70 percent said violence has increased in the past five years.

The survey, which was conducted in August, included 112 emergency physicians in Massachusetts, one of the top 10 participating states, and their responses were similar to those nationwide.

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/10/02/doctors-face-rising-violence-emergency-rooms-national-survey-says/ZPP6QSBFeo8ZYY3RIag3cI/story.html