Well goody, I’m being assigned to one of the biggest asshole doctors in our clinic next week.
Can’t wait.
Doctors are a different breed of person. I sometimes have to remind myself they are HUMAN. They have lives, they have feelings, they have bad days, they want to be included in things because it’s human instinct to BELONG to something.
But they are also highly intelligent and sometimes I feel like THEY have to remind themselves that they are human as well.
Translation; don’t be a dick to the very staff that are being paid to HELP you.
I work with neurosurgeons – brain surgeons, if that makes a bigger impact on you. I feel like brain surgeons are in the top of the doctor spectrum. They are elite, intelligent and literally save, and change, people’s lives.
They can also allow this elitism to go to their heads and they can be moody, volatile and temperamental. But they have enormous pressure put on them too. More pressure than most of us will feel in our entire lives, let alone DAILY. Cut them some slack.
If you see a doctor for whatever issue and you feel like that doctor isn’t really listening to you or acts impatient with you, try and have some patience because you have NO IDEA what sort of day he’s having. It’s very likely he just came from a room where he had to tell a patient they have an inoperable brain tumor and only have weeks to live.
(True story).
I’m not trying to excuse the doctor’s that are flat out rude or abrupt, just know that these doctors are HUMAN and you truly don’t know what it’s like to be in his shoes, what he sees or what sort of mental anguish he has to go through every day when dealing with difficult, and sad, cases.
BE PATIENT WITH YOUR DOCTOR. You just don’t know what kind of day he/she is having.
The key, at least, in my lowly medical assistant experience of working with brain surgeons for the past eight (EIGHT!?) years, is to take your cues from the doctor. Are they smiling? Kidding around? Seem to be in a good mood? Probably a good day to give them a hard time and remind them they are human – in a tasteful, professional way, of course.
Are they expressionless, staring at images intently, or highly focused/serious? Those are the days you stay professional and focused yourself. You don’t make eye contact. These are the times you put your head down and do the best job you can possibly do and work to make their day as painless and smooth as you possibly can.
I’m very, VERY, VERY lucky to consistently work with an even-tempered, pretty chill, kind and funny doctor. Patient’s also love him. I pretty much adore him. He’s ‘da bomb.com. But let’s be real, he has his moments, he’s HUMAN after all and he’s certainly allowed to be grouchy from time-to-time. A bad day for brain surgeons are VERY BAD. When you have to declare someone brain dead and then tell the family … most of us can’t even IMAGINE the absolute hell that must be to experience.
(True story)
And remembering they have to do unthinkable things like that makes me WAY more patient with them when they are being dicks to us that day. It’s the nature of the “business.” You can’t take it personally. You just can’t.
However, there are those doctors, and thankfully, I haven’t experienced very many of them in my years working for this clinic, but there are a few doctors that are just ASSHOLES. Not to their patients, but with their staff. The doctors I’m talking about are the doctors that literally throw things when something doesn’t go their way. Or they cut a person to the very bone marrow with sharp criticism. Or they threaten to walk out of their clinic because their computer will not respond fast enough to their liking. Or they arrive two hours late to clinic, CONSISTENTLY. That’s when you start being proactive and schedule his first round of patients at the time he rolls in because when you have to hand out gas cards to patients because your doctor is two hours late to clinic, THAT’S A PROBLEM.
(True story).
The kind of doctor who discards nurses and medical assistants like bags of dog poop. The kind of doctor who now has such a hellish reputation (not just in the clinic but in the OR room as well) that when an applicant finds out she’s interviewing to be his nurse, medical assistant, the applicant promptly says “no thanks” and walks out.
(True story).
Which brings us to now.
This doctor, let’s call him Dr. Bob, has scared nurses away, has thrown fits and demanded a member of his team be taken off his team and has literally walked away from a full clinic for technical issues.
Now granted, let’s be perfectly fair here, he has worked with some less than intelligent people. It could be that he has scared the common sense right out of these people, but for whatever reasons, they haven’t satisfied his level of competence, I suppose. Whatever the reason, he has gone through A LOT of people. His current nurse, who we all liked, including Dr. Bob, had to quit due to family issues. We are all VERY sorry to see her go, she was a good match. But life happens. There’s not much you can do about it. And his medical assistant has reached her limit, which honestly, I don’t blame her for not wanting to work with him anymore so now Dr. Bob doesn’t have a nurse, or a medical assistant.
Management is scrambling to try and fill those holes. I don’t envy them that job. But in the interim, he has to have someone run his clinic.
My doctor, who I adore and work very hard to take care of, is in clinic on Mondays and Wednesday, he does surgery the rest of the week. Dr. Bob’s clinic days are Mondays and Thursdays.
I can’t cover him on Mondays, I have my doctor to take care of, (THANK GOD), but that means I CAN cover him on Thursdays.
And management caught me, literally as I was walking out the door on Friday, to tell me I would be covering his Thursday clinic this next week.
And I’m foreseeing, because I’m a big picture sort of gal, that I will be his Thursday coverage for quite some time because it’s hard enough to get anyone to apply for a medical assistant job, let alone get hired.
*sigh* Awesome.
A few years ago, I would have been absolutely petrified about this turn of events. I have covered him a few times over the years, but honestly, I don’t really know him and though he probably recognizes my face, I bet he doesn’t know my name. That’s fine, whatever. I’m not being paid to be the man’s BFF, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit to thinking about next week, pretty much non-stop this entire weekend.
And by thinking I mean, planning. Mentally giving myself a pep talk.
I’m not really nervous, per se, but I’m definitely not looking forward to it. I’ve been doing this job for a while now and I’m pretty confident in my abilities and honestly, I don’t give a rat’s ass if he likes me or not, I just want to do the best job I can possibly do and move on.
I guess I’m just bummed that we have, once again, reached this impasse with Dr. Bob. Surely he sees the common denominator when it comes to his staff, he’s not stupid. I suppose he just doesn’t care.
One silver lining to this situation, his mid-level is a sweetheart. He can at least act as a buffer between me and Dr. Bob. I have no intentions of interacting with Dr. Bob, and I’m quite certain Dr. Bob will not interact with me, if he needs to tell me something, he’ll tell his nurse to tell me.
(True story).
But I’m perfectly fine with that. And when, (because it will happen), he throws a temper tantrum about something, I will simply wait for him to finish his temper tantrum and continue on my merry way.
DR. BOB WILL NOT DEFEAT ME.
I’ll keep ya’ll updated.
Write From Karen 