We've all heard about the epidemic of bullying in schools. But did you know that there is workplace bullying too? This is a real phenomenon of which I was unaware until it happened to me. True story. Sort of. I may be overreacting. At least according to my husband.
I was on service and was caring for a patient with a persistent pain issue. She had undergone multiple studies looking for the source of the pain but nothing was found. I consulted a surgeon to get some guidance as to where to look next. He made a recommendation that did not make logical sense to me, so I planned to say "Thank you for your time" and move on. Afterall, the patient was on my service. On a side note, I don't usually ignore my consultants' recommendations. In fact, I often err on the side of being overly gracious and thankful for their help. BUT, I feel very strongly that I am responsible for the well being of my patients and if I don't think that a recommendation makes sense I won't jump to follow it. Anyway, the next day the surgeon called me to ask why I hadn't done what they said to do and you know what? I suddenly saw myself as 3 feet tall and the surgeon as 6 feet tall. I got sweaty and clammy and stammered over my words as I tried to politely explain that I didn't understand their logic and didn't feel like I wanted to follow their plan. I did my best to dance around the fact that I was really saying "I don't agree with you and I plan to do what I want to do instead." The surgeon strenuously repeated his plan and I timidly danced around the phrase "I don't want to do that because I think you're wrong." He went so far as to threaten to move the patient to his service so that he could do what he wanted and I wouldn't be involved at all. Ugh. I felt completely undermined and self-conscious and wasn't at all sure I was ready, after being at this job for 8 months, to go head to head with an experienced surgeon. In short, I felt bullied. In a big way. But I went ahead and implemented his plan even though I felt sick about it. I knew it wasn't going to hurt my patient, but I firmly believed that it wouldn't help. The next day a new surgeon came on service and completely changed the plan that I had put into place after being bullied into it. And she got better. "I knew it! I told you!" I screamed. On the inside.
If you google bullying in the workplace you get a ton of hits. Did you know there is a Workplace Bullying Institute? There's also a blog called Bully Free at Work with links to a book and an e-course. Wow. Now you know.
No comments:
Post a Comment