Resolving Interpersonal Conflict (Post #1)

Conflicts permeate all levels of interaction – between colleagues at workplace, among friends in schools or even within family members.

Here, I would like to share about a hypothetical interpersonal conflict situation that some healthcare workers might be able to relate to: conflict between healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses) and patients.

In any public hospital’s Accident and Emergency (A&E) department, long waiting queues for consultations are a common sight.

For a patient that seeks effective and swift treatment for his illness, the waits can be particularly unbearable. Consequently, the patient may feel frustrated and be easily agitated.

Similarly, long waiting queues also take a toll on the healthcare professionals’ service standards as they struggle to provide comprehensive treatment to patients within a short period of time. They may try to attend to many patients simultaneously and may not be that responsive to patients’ queries.

Let us now consider a patient who decided to seek medical help at the A&E for benign abdominal pain. He had waited for two hours before it was his turn. For the past 2 hours, he had been making incessant knocks on the doctor’s room to ask when the doctor will see him. Upon entering the consultation room, the doctor quickly pointed him to a seat and hurriedly asked about his symptoms, penning them down on a memo. All this while, the doctor did not lift up his head to look at the patient. The patient queried worriedly whether the pain could be a harbinger of any serious illness, to which the doctor replied indifferently “I can’t say for sure”. Convinced that the doctor did not provide him with the service he deserved, the patient confronted the doctor over the perceived poor service. The doctor strongly denied the complaints and accused the patient of being unreasonable. This led to a conflict between both parties.  

In this described situation, both protagonists could have exercised restraint and prevent the episode from escalating.

The patient may not have realised that there were many other patients waiting to seek treatment, some of whom required immediate medical attention. The patient may have been affected by his own ailments and become overly concerned about his own needs relative to others. Therefore, the patient should have been more understanding and refrained from persistently asking when his turn will arrive.

In addition, the patient might also overlooked the fact that the doctor had a tiring day. The doctor might just be trying to attend to patients’ needs as swift as possible, albeit the uncompassionate tone.

Even though it was not wrong of the doctor to say that he cannot make any diagnosis without any confirmatory tests (i.e. blood test, x-ray or CT scans), he could have adopted a more caring tone to assuage the patients’ anxious feelings, as compared to a "I can't say for sure" suspense message.

A successful doctor not just have to possess the relevant medical expertise but also the compassion to make patients feel comfortable and reassured. The doctor needs to demonstrate that he understands the worries of the patient and will put in his best efforts to assist the patient in any way.

So, what else do you think both parties could have done so that people will not misconstrue their actions as aggressive and impolite?