No place in medicine for bad behavior

Our favorite characters on "Grey's Anatomy" may be able to get away with outrageous behavior on the job, but in real life medical authorities are saying enough. The Joint Commission, an agency that evaluates and accredits more than 15,000 healthcare organizations nationwide, issued a bulletin Wednesday saying that rude, hostile and disruptive behavior among doctors, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, support staff and administrators will no longer be tolerated.

Intimidating and disruptive behavior in healthcare settings is a serious problem that undermines patient safety, the report said. The commission will enforce new standards requiring healthcare organizations to create a code of conduct and a formal plan for managing bad behavior. The report noted that healthcare professionals are reluctant to take action against a misbehaving colleague. A survey found that about 40% of clinicians have kept quiet or remained passive when witnessing bad behavior. The Joint Commission defined disruptive behavior as verbal outbursts, physical threats, refusal to perform assigned tasks, uncooperative attitudes, condescending language or voice intonation, impatience with questions and failure to return phone calls or pages.

Granted, healthcare settings are often stressful places, says the vice president of the Joint Commission Peter B. Angood. Healthcare providers work under challenging conditions and patients' emotions often run high. But that's no excuse for unprofessional behavior, he said. Though this advisory comes too late for the former staff of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, there's hope for others. But, said Angood: "It's going to take a lot of work to drive this disruptive and intimidating behavior out of healthcare."

-- Shari Roan

Actress Sandra Oh portrays Dr. Cristina Yang on the TV series "Grey's Anatomy."

Photo: NBC 

Comments

[steven c. jackson]

This is a tough one for me personally. I am guilty of bad behavior period.
This behavior has resulted in a life of failure to conform to social standards
which because of company rules creates a guarantee of failure to succeed
even when you are really good at what you do as I was.
Now for my input on this article. Good doctors ,I mean really good doctors, are in short supply. When this, I daresay politicaly correct Human Resources power takes hold ,as It has in nearly every other workplace type, difficult and troublesome doctors and other health care professionals will be weaned out as they have been in many other "correct fields". Good people are often difficult to get along with, you go figure why.
There is no easy solution only guarantees of loss of good doctors.
I know that society thinks it knows whats best but only time and results will prove them to be right or fataly flawed in there solutions to "incorrect" behavior. No excuses from me ,whats your excuse?

[Someone Who Works In HealthCare]

As someone who works in a healthcare giant in California, I believe that this is one more politically correct brick in the wall intended to create a healthcare crises in this nation. The purpose of such a crisis: To take healthcare out of the private sector and move it to the U.S. Politburo where it can line the pockets of the elite. We already face a frightening shortage of good people wanting to become good nurses and physicians and healthcare staff, because who can work under the pressures of such a bureaucracy? I tell you this (I am not a doctor)--I behave badly on occasion and I am the recipient of bad behaviour occasionally. This does not make me entirely bad. Next thing you know, I will have JCAHO coming around to judge my "attitude." Hey JCAHO, remember that the other shoe will certainly drop, and when it does...

[George Anderson]

As a provider of Executive Coaching/Anger Management for "disruptive physicians", I can say with certainty that without these standards most of the physicians who need assistance would not receive it. Since these standards were announced, I have received a substantial increase in mandated phlysicians who actually express relief at finally getting the help needed in this area.