One time I went for my normal checkup and experience something which showed that the hospital which I went to did not have an effective communication system. This was because of an experience that I got between my resident doctor and visiting doctor, the incident that occurred was that my doctor had a certain list of test that was recommended to me and to which I had to go through after a certain period of time. On this particular day my resident doctor wasn’t available so I had to go to a visiting doctor. This new doctor gave me a whole other array of tests which ended up being more expensive than my insurance could cover. This enraged me and I had to consult the management. And the following was what I discovered as the problem. The name of my resident doctor is Doctor Dickens. The new doctor had experienced hostility from my doctor and this meant that he did not relate well with my doctor and hence the mishap when it came to my treatment.
Dickens is a resident doctor at St. Mary’s hospital. He has been working for the hospital for 5 years. Previously the hospital has not been allowing a lot of visiting doctors. Just the occasional few who had special emergency requests. However the hospital noticed that resident doctors had started getting too much work which he couldn’t handle as well as he used to. So they decided to employ a visiting doctor who would come frequently. However after working for a while the hospital discovered that the two doctors don’t agree as much as they hoped and this has been causing a lot of conflict among them. After conducting some further research they discovered that the two doctors lack an understanding because these two doctors are from different ethnic backgrounds and the also have specialized in different areas. This meant they could barely interact comfortably. The other discovery they made was that the management team had not made the proper introductions between these two doctors and therefore the resident doctor had started feeling threatened, the reason for the hostility towards the visiting doctor
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It was necessary for management to make formal communication in its written form then later communicate the presence of the visiting doctor later (Vermier et al., 2015). The situation had to be solved immediately since it was slowing down the work they had thought to speed up by adding another doctor. The main issue in this case was actually discovered to be lack of communication. Both between the management and the doctors and among the doctors themselves. Most times, ineffective communication happens in such scenarios and causes issues because ineffective communication results in a lack of understanding and which has a ripple effect that ends up in conflict. Just as Marquis and Huston (2017) identify, formal communication from management down the hierarchy is important to prevent such misunderstandings. They further believe that it should not be a one-way channel but an interactive part of the organization where all parties are involved (Marquis & Huston, 2017).
In order to solve this issue before it even began, the management could at first have established a meeting to introduce the two doctors. What this would do is to establish a proper understanding amongst the doctors and also helped a lot by ensuring that the resident doctor did not feel threatened by the new doctor. As Dima, Teodorescu and Gifu (2014) identify, communication is the backbone of every community including the facility in question which made it a necessary step from the first instance the two doctors met. The other thing which communication would have done is created a sort of relationships among the doctors. This is because due to the differences they had they did not feel much need of relating. The second thing they would have done is ensured they know them strengths and weaknesses of each doctor and ensure that they use this to their advantage. This would have been particularly helpful since they would help assign the doctors tasks according to what they are best at. And when they had issues with something the other doctor was better at, they could also consult since they already had a working relationship. All this would have helped reduce the conflict that the doctors faced even before it started. As Foronda, MacWilliams and McArthur (2016) identify, miscommunication is well-linked to poor patient outcomes.
References
Dima, I. C., Teodorescu, M., & Gifu, D. (2014). New communication approaches vs. traditional communication. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences , 20 , 46-55.
Foronda, C., MacWilliams, B., & McArthur, E. (2016). Interprofessional communication in healthcare: an integrative review. Nurse education in practice , 19 , 36-40.
Marquis, B. L., & Huston, C. J. (2017). Leadership roles and management functions in nursing: Theory and application . Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E., ... & Vogelaers, D. (2015). Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations. International journal of clinical practice , 69 (11), 1257-1267.
