Must Read Post: Continuing the Discussion, Abusive Communication in Heathcare

Yesterday I posted about the verbally abusive physician and some "how to's" from Crucial Conversations.

Bob Sutton, author, consultant, and Stanford professor, has written about this on his site, Bob Sutton: Work Matters.

Bob has authored a new book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. He doesn't pull any punches and in a new post on his blog, he describes his own experiences from consulting in health care and shares a letter from a physician that is very revealing.

I don't want it to seem like this is a "pick on a physician" site. As Bob would say, there are assholes in all lines of work. Health care just offers a unique and different setting with the hierarchal nature usually putting physicians at the top.

What the people at Crucial Conversations discovered was that the reason a lot of health care incidents take place is because people don't speak up. Why don't people speak up? Because of fear. Why are people afraid? Because they don't like being humiliated or yelled at, etc. You can read more about that here in an executive summary of the report, Silence Kills. Let me know if you would like to read the full report.

Bob's post is very good. Check it out here. Let me know your thoughts in the Comments below.

Comments

[Bob Sutton]

Thanks for thoughtful post. As for docs, yes, if you believe published research, they do seem to be nastier than other occupations. But there is hope for some.. I repeat a note from blog that a docs sent me that wamrs my heart:

Thanks and an Anecdote

I just finished your book The No Asshole Rule in about 4 hours. Thanks for writing it. Every page resonated with my work experiences. I am a surgeon and have worked in academic medicine my entire career. I trained at an "elite" training program at an Ivy League teaching hospital. As you can imagine, my specialty has been a haven for assholes and, even worse, sociopaths. My training program was better than most; but, we still had our share of assholes. During my training, I witnessed episodes of unbelievable mental cruelty on a daily basis. As residents, we met every Friday for a few beers at a local bar after another arduous work week. We kept a leather-bound journal book. The highlight of the happy hour was nominating and electing the "Attending Asshole of the Week" or "AAOTW.” Each aggrieved individual would recount their episode with an attending that would merit their nomination as the “Asshole of the Week.” The group voted and the “winner’s” name was entered into the journal book. A brief synopsis of the "asshole incident" was also placed in the journal. We had one attending who was such an asshole, he automatically won if there was a tie. It didn't matter if he was in the running that week or not. The journal was passed on every year to the new Chief Residents. It was a closely held secret among the residents. I understand they still have a journal.

This was 20 years ago. It is possible to look at these sessions as "bitch" sessions with no meaningful result. However, every one of my resident colleagues learned from those sessions. We learned how destructive "asshole" behavior was in our specialty. We vowed not to imitate the pathologic behavior we encountered daily. 20 years later, we are now the program chairs and department chairmen. We are spread across the country. I am proud to say that everybody who was a part of that Friday group runs their training programs with an unwritten "no asshole" rule.

[Bob]

Bob, thanks for commenting and including the letter. There is hope out there. I'll write more in the future about customer service or service excellence. More and more organizations are realizing it begins on the inside. In other words, taking care of and treating employees, colleagues, and peers with respect, is the first step towards creating service excellence with external customers.