“Negative people need drama like oxygen. Stay positive, it will take their breath away.” -Unknown.
Working with others who want nothing more than to complain and make everything dramatic and sad will only make your day worse… if you allow it to be that way. It’s easy to be empathetic and feel for the negative people and get sucked into their vortex of hate… if you want to make everyone else’s day the same way. We’ve all been there. The doctor you’re working with is having a bad day, so guess what? Now you will too! Unless you do something about it. 
Here are a few quick tips on protecting yourself from a dreary workplace.
1. Policies, know them.
You work in a hyper-paced environment. Even if you got your 8 hours of sleep, you ate a hearty breakfast and you have fresh scrubs on, you can still make a mistake. You could have a process down, regardless, typical failure rates in businesses using common work practices range from 10-30 errors per 100 opportunities. Your best response to an error is to fight the urge of being stubborn. You made a mistake, own up to it instead of fighting it and find a solution. Dealing with a difficult doctor at your new assignment? Try these tips: Click To Tweet In the case you didn’t know you made a mistake, maybe that’s not on you. Do you know the facility policies? Before you even leave for your next assignment, review all of the policies in the case they could help you from being frustrated by a doctor. Especially as a new person, fingers will point to you first when things go wrong and many will assume you don’t know their policies.
2. Kill them with kindness.
You have to work with doctors, you can’t ignore them, so the best way to stand up to them? Just. Be. Nice. Even if you have to bite your tongue. Fanning the fire will only make matters worse and cause workplace drama (which we don’t condone here). Instead of saying no, say:
- I’ll get that fixed right away.
- Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
- Sorry about that, here’s the solution _____.
Instead of fanning the fire at work, try these conversation starters when something goes wrong: Click To Tweet Most importantly, don’t pretend you’re unaware of how that could possibly have gone wrong and you’re not to blame. The longer you wait to say you’re sorry, or to offer a solution, the less impact your apology will have.
3. Stand up for yourself.
There’s nothing like having a doctor vs. nurse battle in front of the patient you’re supposed to be helping. Not only will this be extremely uncomfortable for the patient, this can also taint their view of your quality of service. Let’s say a doctor didn’t treat you as they should in front of a patient or other professionals. Take time to pull the physician aside and calmly explain you think they’re a great doctor, but you didn’t think the conversation was handled properly. Even more general, say you (and maybe others if this is an ongoing occurrence) believe he/she is not treating his/her assistants well. Honesty is the best approach to achieve respect and trust. Everyone likes to think they’re the busiest, with the hardest jobs and nobody else can imagine what they’re going through. Maybe this is true, but everyone will handle their workload, duties and stress differently. Conversation starter: “I understand you’ve been under a lot of pressure with ____, but I’d like to understand why you felt it necessary to take this stress out on me. My feelings are hurt, but I’m happy to help you talk about what you’re going through.” Let them know you understand what they’re experiencing (even if you can’t directly relate), to soften their stress even a little.
4. Talk it out.
Maintaining a functioning work relationship with someone who is mentally draining to keep happy takes some extra thinking to ensure the whole workforce doesn’t crumble. On top of all your regular duty stress, this is a lot. Don’t let this build. Do not suppress the way you’re feeling. Talk to your friends and family even if you have to talk their ear off over the phone, talk to your recruiter or even type it out on your computer, write it down on paper- anything to keep you from boiling over. Bottling emotions has only ever resulted in a chemical explosion later down the road because you’ve never given yourself the chance to express the way you feel outside of work. The Mental Health Foundation discovered Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction leads to a 70% reduction in anxiety. Can you imagine the relief? Don’t pass on the poison because it’s easy. Be the break in bad energy by knowing your boundaries, being a positive resource and standing up for yourself when you know you should be treated better with honesty. Want more tips on working in awesome hospital environments? Follow us on twitter! @FreedomHCS
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