I want to talk about a couple of situations at work that happened relating to patients, and I will let you decide if the outcomes were warranted.
The first one is more recent as it is much fresher to talk about.
Around two-three weeks ago I took a phone call from a patient, now she hasn’t’ been for a bit I think it was a year or two. Granted she needs to do imaging however since the last time she came to us; a few things have changed. It is my duty to inform this patient of what changes have happened since her last visit. Now, at the time it appeared like she understood those changes, or perhaps she just agreed to it and ‘listened’ because she had to, not that she really cared at that moment. Be that as it may I made sure to document this information; because the time between when we speak to a patient, to the time they come to their appointment; how they have seen, heard, been informed chan change quickly. and they came make fake accusations (this is common in our business too).
On the day of this patient’s appointment she rings in early in the morning and the conversation goes something along the lines of:
‘Patient M: I have an appointment at 9:30am and I’m still waiting to get my updated referral.’
Me: ‘All right no worries what’s your name?’
Patient M: My appointment is 9:30am
Me: ‘Can I have your name please?
Patient: My appointment is 9:30am and I’m still at my doctor’s waiting.’
The patient wasn’t listening to my question, yet I was the one that understood her request. yes she did indeed have an appointment at9:30am but she isn’t the only person in that time slot so I needed to be sure of which of the two patients I was talking to, because I simply cannont guess. It’s pretty crazy that this thought did not register in the patient’s head! Because I wasn’t (according to her) acknowledging her comments about her being at the doctors getting the referral. She, for unknown reasons that I knew then launched into a big tirade at me, saying I was being rude and not understanding, and that every interaction she has had with me has been negative (yet I had only spoken to her two previous times prior to this latest one) and there were no issues. I was pretty shocked and disappointed about this attitude from her, but I wasn’t able to really defend myself because she was on such a war path. I was close to being angry and upset but I had no other choice but to let her carry on and simply said that if her GP hasn’t updated the referral before her appointment, then it will still be fine as long as we receive it later on the day so she didn’t need to worry. She didn’t change her tone or attitude I suppose because she felt she won the situation, although she didn’t deserve to win it.
Mini boss says that when the patient comes in I need to be extremely nice to the patient, because when she spoke to her after; she told me this patient was anxious and was stressed enough about coming in. I was pissed, i Didn’t retaliate I had to wear it. My anger is because my mini boss was basically saying that the patient is allowed to act so rudely because of her own anxiety and had every right to be rude. WHY? My question is WHY she is allowed to behave so poorly to me and I’m just supposed to sit there and cop it for no reason. I, for mind never provoked her, she provoked herself by making shit up!! But no, it was never her fault it was me. Disappointed this was what I coped from management, I almost felt like walking out at that point.
I refused to deal with the patient when she came in, I wasn’t going to bow-down to such a stupid reason to be super nice when I was the one getting attacked. The others had to deal with her, and of course she was super nice and friendly with them. Yah for me, I don’t give a shit. Whether she had a nice experience or not I really don’t care I hope she goes elsewhere in the future. My issue with this is now the patient probably has the thinking that the next time she can repeat the same thing to get her way and guess who will get in trouble no matter what happens? Me, or it might be someone else next time. God I hope someone else does worse than me and really tells her off see how the fuck she handle it!
The other other situation happened a few months ago….
We had a very busy day, where not only were we doing imaging but we had one of our specialists in, and on those days things can get a little crazy. However this incident happened in the morning so it wasn’t as chaotic. anyway we had a patient that due for her appointment around 8:30-8:45am. She did not arrive, so as is our duty, I made the attempted phone call. It was not answered by the patient so the obvious assumption is:
- They forgot
- Are not coming
But we always keep our eyes and earn open in-case the patient does turn up, if they do great we will work around it. Anyway, it was around 20-30mintes later and she finally turned up. Now, normally people running late will apologies and let us know they were doing their best to call, and trying to make it on time, but first and foremost they apologies for being late. It is common courtesy. After all if you are late to a medical appointment it will stuff everyone else around; and I’m sure nobody wants to do telling me her name, it appeared she assumed we knew who she was, no we didn’t. And considering I had already attempted to call her and left a message I don’t want to assume anything. Conversation was something along the lines of:
Patient A: I’m here
Me: is it Anna?
No reply, so I had to guess as the timing of her sudden arrival seemed to match, I think she mentioned she was late.
Me: Oh, we were not sure if you were coming, as we tried to call you but got no answer and we did leave you a message.
She still didn’t apologies for her lateness and based on what I said to her she stared at me blankly as if I was speaking in a different language. Nevertheless I told her it would be fine and we would get things going for her. She did take a seat but later I was told she got so upset at what I said, because in her mind I was telling her to go away. I never said it, but perhaps it was her own mind interpretation it? Maybe. Hard to say. I got told she burst into tears later because of me and management took the side of the patient and not me.
Lately it seems no matter what I do, even if it is correct towards the patient, as long as the patient is offended, upset, rude, arrogant, and poorly behavior their side will always be the correct one. Me? Even other people in my position will be the bad apples in these situations.
Disgusting.
Have been considering leaving for a while.