The gown card reads “One act of charity by a despicable person is always held up to the light as an example of why they aren’t as bad as everyone says they are… Sure, Jan.”
You know what I am talking about in the political world.
And in the real world.
But it happens in the OR world as well.
Some doctors are just not nice people. They are demanding, and exacting, and not willing to look at issues from anyone’s perspective but their own. They are belittling and always see delays as a personal attack on them, on their time, on their golf schedule.
We have all had this surgeon, this person in our lives, this politician in our political life.
But to their chosen few, sometimes very few, they can do no wrong.
Oh, they threw suture scissors at you? Did the scissors hit you? If they didn’t, it’s okay then. They didn’t mean it.
Can you feel the eye roll from where you are?
The very fact that they thought the suture scissors throwing was an acceptable behavior is a problem. A big, write-them-up kind of problem, refer them to peer review kind of problem. NOT to be swept under the rug by management and their preferred team kind of problem. Not addressing bad behavior in the moment allows them to think they can continue it.
The fact that they are kind to the people in their room is not the flex you think it is. The team that they’ve chosen to be brought into the inner circle is definitely not the flex you think it is. Just because they are not mean to them does not give them the permission to be an ass to everyone else.
Sometimes they just need to pull up their grown-up panties and try to be such a pain in the OR’s behind.
Stop yelling, for Pete’s sake!
Yelling surgeons are kind of like yelling toddlers, it is okay to give them a chance to do better. Sometimes it is a choice- If you, Dr. X, can do this and not do that then I will see what I can do to put your next add-on into the schedule. Sometimes it is as as simple as “Dr. X, I see that you are upset. Can you not upset your patient, and your team and we will talk about the issue later.”
DO NOT give in to them. No matter how unreasonable their request is. This emboldens the bad behavior and sets you and the OR up for confrontations in the future.
Why, yes, dealing with surgeons is akin to dealing with toddlers sometimes.
Sometimes time outs are required.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 