There have been numerous cases dealing with disruptive physicians and concern for patient safety with in the past seven years. Why is this? Have physicians become more rude, arrogant, and disruptive? Or is it is because more and more this behavior is being recognized as not acceptable and staff is not tolerating this behavior anymore? In this paper I will define what a disruptive physician is, examine the nature, challenges, magnitude of the problem, contributing factors, impact, and what can be done about disruptive physicians.
Is disruptive physician behavior an issue in healthcare or is it simply “acceptable operating room behavior and potentially beneficial because it helps weed out those whom were really not suited for the best surgical care” (Sataloff, 2008). I know that as a future healthcare worker this statement concerns me. There are multiple reasons why it concerns me but the top reasons are what exactly is the behavior used to weed out these co-workers, if healthcare workers are able to do this when it is too far, and what is acceptable and professional behavior no matter the situation or environment.
Disruptive physician behavior consists of a practice pattern of personality traits that interferes with the physician’s effective clinical performance (Norman T. Reynolds, 2012). Disruptive behavior negatively impacts those that work with the physician and those in the same environment. This disruptive behavior includes inappropriate anger, inappropriate resentment, inappropriate words, inappropriate actions, and inappropriate responses to the staff or patients’ needs and requests. Disruptive behavior can be aggressive or passive aggressive. Aggressive behavior consists of yelling, foul language, threatening gestures, p...
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... examine the nature, challenges, magnitude of the problem, contributing factors, impact, and what can be done about disruptive physicians it is an issue that needs to be addressed for patient and staff safety.
Works Cited
Firm, T. H. (2012, March 27). More Disruptive Physician Clinical Privileges Cases Physicians Should Know. Retrieved from The Health Law Firm : http://the heatlhlawfirm.com
Norman T. Reynolds, M. (2012). Disruptive Physician Behavior: Use and Misure of the Label. Journal of Medical Regulation, 1-19.
Porto, G., & Lauve, R. (2006). Disruptive Clinician Behavior: A persistent Threat to Patient Safety. Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare.
Rosenstein, A. (2009). Disruptive Physician Behavior: Fact vs. Frenzy. Journal of the ASPR, 25.
Sataloff, R. T. (2008). Disruptive physicians: Sound more familiar than you thought? Ear, Nose, and Throat Journal.
When confidential patient information is disclosed without consent it is a violation of the HIPAA Title II Security Rule. This rule was enacted in response to private information being leaked to the news and emails containing privileged information were read by unauthorized people. Identity theft is a real concern so patient privacy should be taken seriously. This is a rule can easily be broken without the offender feeling any malice towards the victim for example gossip and curiosity. Gossip in a medical office can have devastating effects on a health care facility’s reputation. Employees engaging in idle chatter to pass the time can inadvertently be overheard by patients or family members. Simply not using the patient’s name may not be enough if the person overhearing the conversation sees the resemblance. Professional behavior should be exercised at all times and juvenile behavior such as spreading gossip, has no place in a business that relies on its credibility. This rule will impact the way patient medical records are handled because we know the seriousness of it. Hospitals that don’t enforce HIPAA rules will have negative repercussions. The patient can have irreversible damage done to their view on the medical field and that hospital if their information is not treated with care. They may even feel so violated that they bring litigation against the hospital.
While working at the OB-GYN department in the hospital, Dr. Vandall, as a Vice Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, learned that another employee of the hospital, Dr. Margaret Nordell was engaged in a level of treatment that was unethical and violated accepted standards of care. It was his duty to the hospital and to the patients, to monitor the competence of his staff members. Although he tried to take the proper steps to deal with it within the hospital, he ended up reporting this to the North Dakota Board of Medical Examiners. It was concluded by the Board that the treatment of Dr. Nordell was gross negligence and they suspended her license to practice medicine.
In her personal essay, Dr. Grant writes that she learned that most cases involving her patients should not be only handled from a doctor’s point of view but also from personal experience that can help her relate to each patient regardless of their background; Dr. Grant was taught this lesson when she came face to face with a unique patient. Throughout her essay, Dr. Grant writes about how she came to contact with a patient she had nicknamed Mr. G. According to Dr. Grant, “Mr. G is the personification of the irate, belligerent patient that you always dread dealing with because he is usually implacable” (181). It is evident that Dr. Grant lets her position as a doctor greatly impact her judgement placed on her patients, this is supported as she nicknamed the current patient Mr.G . To deal with Mr. G, Dr. Grant resorts to using all the skills she
There has been a shortage of physicians, lack of inpatient beds, problems with ambulatory services, as well as not having proper methods of dealing with patient overflow, all in the past 10 years (Cummings & francescutti, 2006, p.101). The area of concern that have been worse...
Wilson, B. L. (2013). Horizontal hostility a threat to patient safety. Jona’s Healthare Law, Ethics, and Regulation, 15, 51-57. doi:10.1097/NHL0B013e3182861503
Bouville (2008) describes whistleblowing as an act for an employee of revealing what he believes to be unethical or described as an illegal behaviour to a higher management (internal whistleblowing) or to an external authority or the public (external whistleblowing). Whistle-blowers are often seen as traitors to an organisation as they are considered to have violated the loyalty terms of that organisation while some are described as heroes that defend the values and ethics of humanity rather than loyalty to their company. In the medical community, it is the duty of a practitioner aware of patient care being threatened to make it known to those in charge and for those in charge to address the issues and act on it. The General Medical Council (GMC) stipulated this act of raising concern as a doctor’s duty in its Good medical practice guide. This paper will be based on the analysis of the experience of whistle blowers, reasons why they chose or chose not to take such actions and personal opinions on whistleblowing in the medical community.
Assaults in the healthcare setting are recognized as a growing problem. In considering the violence and aggression in mental health units, the larger issue of violence and aggression in mainstream culture must not be ignored. It has been observed that physical attack in a mental health unit setting appear to be happening more frequently while the attacks include patient-to patient and patient-to-staff aggressive behavior. Most commonly, reporting of aggressive behavior toward healthcare staff is noted; however, it cannot be completely explained by patient characteristics or staff member behaviors (Foster, Bowers, & Nijman, 2006). To improve patient control of aggression and violence, an organization must better define the management and reporting of this behavior, identify appropriate management programs and training, and evaluate the frequency and precipitants.
Listening requires active participation to development a shared understanding and minimize misinterpretation. Some physicians possess conversational skills that would be considered downright rude. They constantly interrupt their
Though perpetuated through generic television skits, and nursing lore, poor communication does not solely or mainly occur between physician and nurse. According to Wolfle, 2007 (as cited in Arnold & Boggs, 2011), a number of authors have discovered that nurses share more animosity with other nurses.
Acts of incivility can include discourteous or disdainful speech, public censure, character assassination, or lack of inclusion in patient care decisions (Lachman, 2014). Incivility, both lateral and hierarchal, has been found to occur at all levels of health care including academia and direct health care settings (Lachman, 2014). The prevalence of incivility in the health care work place is a disturbing problem. According to Nikstaitis and Simko (2014) 85% percent of nursing personnel report having experienced incivility in the workplace. Additionally, 39.6% state they intend to leave their place of work due to lateral violence (Nikstaitis & Simko, 2014). Incivility leads to an unhealthy work environment in which decreased morale and high nurse turn-over result in poor patient care and outcomes (McNamara, 2012). Lachman (2015) states that in addition to the effect on staff and patients, the cost of incivility is felt by the employer in cost of new staff training and in decreased insurance reimbursement due to poor patient outcomes and
Each year this panel of experts put a microscope on patient safety across the board. They decide where upmost attention needs to be paid. Sometimes items leave the list because there are been strides take to improve in that area and sometimes it continues to stay on the list because they believe the relevance and importance is growing. Healthcare is evolving b...
... of potential threats such as unauthorized access of the patient information. Health care leaders must always remind their employees that casual review for personal interest of patients ' protected health information is unacceptable and against the law just like what happened in the UCLA health systems case (Fiske, 2011). Health care organizations need clear policies and procedures to prevent, detect, contain, and correct security violations. Through policies and procedures, entities covered under HIPAA must reasonably restrict access to patient information to only those employees with a valid reason to view the information and must sanction any employee who is found to have violated these policies.In addition, it is critical that health care organizations should implement awareness and training programs for all members of its workforce (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
When professionals in the health sector are compliant to the standards and ethics of practice, then accidents in the sector and any activities that undermine patient safety are bound to be addressed. In particular, whistleblowers in the sector should also be protected to improve service delivery in the health sector.
...Qualified health care personnel are required to maintain safe health care surrounding. Most im-portant part of the problem is to find the problem, and then only we can fix it.
Honesty and integrity are very important in the medical field. We as healthcare workers are given such trust and responsibility. We should always strive to do our best and when faced with tough situations. When we don't always know what to do or the proper way to react we should always be honest. Let our superiors know what is going on and ask for advice when we need to. This would show that we are honest. When we come into contact with patients they rely on us to do the right thing and always perform our job with integrity. Often people’s lives are in our hands. We have to care about the patient and care about our job in order to continue to provide quality care. If someone hates their job they are not going to give their best in every way they can. The medical field is not a place for that person.