Bedside Manners: Being Mugged in a Dark Alley with Style by Patricia L Raymond, MD FACP FACG
I’m fearful of confrontation. I’ll go through all sorts of contortions to avoid initiating a deep conversation about ‘where it hurts’. I must have been a man in a previous life.
But, as you heard last month, I’m getting much better at “pulling up my big girl panties and dealing with it.”
But what about the confrontation that you cannot control, the one where you’re the subject of the confrontation? The blindsided, dark-alley variety mugging.
Oooooh—see how your shoulders shot up and smashed your ears? Wasn’t that cool? Happens to me too.
I was a member of a practice group that did such sneak attacks on a regular basis. After a while, it felt like an episode of ‘Survivor’, where machinations had occurred behind the scenes, and although you believed that you knew the tribe’s plan on who was to be voted off island, you were blindsided by your own teammates and your torch extinguished. More than just a simple ‘bummer’, my shoulders seemed to permanently reside in my ears.
I recently learned a great method to survive such a sandbagging, and perhaps to elevate it to an actual interactive exchange of ideas. It’s just a few simple words.
Tell me more.
That’s it, the secret, the whole enchilada.
Tell me more.
The amazing power of those three little words is enhanced by opening your ears and listening, really listening. And inviting the confrontation, and softly yielding rather that stiffening up and resisting.
Tell me more.
Just keep inviting it, and the anger on the confronters part will fade, and the mission or intent will become clear.
Tell me more.
Eventually you confronter will lose steam, and will have shared with you everything on his/her chest. They will be comforted by the appearance (and may we hope, the fact) that you have listened and not ‘gotten all defensive about it.’
Tell me more.
(silence)
Once there is no more response to your last ‘Tell me more’—kind of like lancing and abscess and squeezing all those yummy juices out, no?— your line changes. Now you ask:
What do you need? or What’s missing for you?
And there you have it— your confrontation addressed with style, ease and grace. Just hold onto ‘tell me more’ and pull it out next time you are the victim of a confrontational mugging.
Because, you will find:
Resistance is futile.
Non-resistance is fertile.
In the coming months, we’ll continue the adventure of training your misbehaving medical puppy. Meanwhile, share your fun, weird, and scary physician interaction stories with me, via JNJ or tweet me at http://twitter.com/PatriciaRaymond. With your permission, we’ll discuss the scenario, grin at the medical antics, and try to figure out where we could have influenced the outcome to a win for both sides. Meanwhile, you can catch up with prior articles in this series:
I Spy With My Little Eye JNJ January 2009
Chronic Cranky Caregiver JNJ February 2009
CFJT: Curb Your Docs JNJ March 2009
Family Adventures JNJ April 2009
Distractable Doctors: Get Their Head in the Game JNJ July 2009
We Need To Talk: Dare To Say The Scary Words JNJ August 2009
Women Doctors Vs Women Nurses: Be Ourselves JNJ September 2009
How To Enjoy Confrontation With Your Most Troublesome Nursing Colleague JNJ October 2009
Follow Dr Pat @:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/PatriciaRaymond
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/patriciaraymond
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/patricia.raymond
©2009 Patricia Raymond
Tags: Conflict resolution, Dr. Pat Raymond, Pat Raymond, reducing nurse on nurse hostility, tough times ont he unit