Yesterday I witnessed an unprofessional care team. The team acted cavalierly while sick people were lined up in the hallways. Since I'm not a medical professional, I watched wondering if what I was seeing was a lack of professionalism or if I simply didn't understand what was going on. Each time I looked out into the group wondering what was happening, many of the professionals were joking and laughing with ease rather than helping the sick people. I let it go thinking that a happy attitude is important for any team of caregivers, but as time passed and the care provided seemed illogical, untimely, and uncaring, I began to realize that care in this place was much different than care in other emergency rooms I had experienced during family emergencies throughout my life.
Finally, when the last act resulted in our need to call a doctor outside of this care situation and then move to a different hospital's emergency room, I knew something was not right in that first place--something was out of whack. What was it?
Looking back at this discouraging day-long and likely very expensive day of needed emergency care, I think the following issues could have been contributing to the poor care in that place:
- The emergency room was staffed by traveling nurses who did not have a sense of commitment to this particular place.
- The doctor in charge seemed harried and pulled in many directions--were they relying on too few doctors? The doctor did make good calls, but he was clearly rushed.
- The nurses in charge seemed to be cutting corners--they mentioned care procedures, but then didn't follow through--why?
- The specialists called to consult gave some good consultation and ordered some good tests, but never brought the care full circle resulting in the care team ignoring or not knowing the care procedure needed.
- There didn't seem to be a connection to my loved one's doctor or past procedure that related to this emergency--they didn't appear to seriously look at the full situation thus resulting in poor diagnosis and follow-up care.
- We rarely knew what was going on--there was little logical, coordinated communication.
- There didn't seem to be anyone in charge, and there was no sense of team or professional effort. Many people working there didn't seem to care about what was going on or the mission of the work.
- Some of the workers appeared to need greater training--their skills/knowledge were inadequate.
I followed up by calling and writing to the hospital as I want the administration to be aware of this poor care. I also read some of the emergency room reviews from this hospital which noted the same problems my loved one and I experienced. Obviously, and hopefully not purposefully, this hospital is putting little effort into their emergency room services.
I thought about this issue on a larger scale too. I thought about times in my life when I may have worked with less than ideal professionalism or with a team that didn't take their work seriously. Why did this happen? On one occasion I remembered, I was a young professional who didn't have the knowledge or skill needed. When I was called to task for poor professional work, my administrator at the time, did the right thing. She alerted me to the issue and provided the serious, professional assistance to teach me and lead me in the skills needed. The parent who spoke up in this situation did the right thing as her words let to better teaching for her child and other children too. Hopefully my words related to the poor emergency room care will result in some training and leadership changes that will remedy the situation we experienced.
I also thought about teams that don't take their jobs seriously and why this happens. One reason this can happen is that professional teams do not get the respect, training, and leadership they need to do the good work. In yesterday's situation, I wondered why that team was so cavalier and uncaring--who was leading them, and what was the mission of that emergency room? I have witnessed and been apart of teams that lost their sense of mission from time to time. One time I remember was when a team acted unprofessionally in a training session--we didn't get the training tips offered mostly because the training and trainer treated us with such disrespect, so, in turn, we acted somewhat disrespectfully. That was wrong, and the person in charge should have stopped the unprofessional behavior right away. Also rather than choosing disrespectful and uncaring trainers and training, there should have been a greater sensitivity to the professionals in the organization and the kind of training they needed and wanted rather than to simply choose for them all the time. In this regard, it's easy to see how disrespect can be a two-way street that occurs when leadership and workers don't come together in respectful ways to build an organization with mission and vision.
Yesterday's experience included a lot of wasted time and money too. We were in the emergency room far too long and the care was mostly subpar. The medical professionals were slow to figure out what was really wrong with the patient. Their communication and follow-through procedures were confusing, slow, miscommunicated, and even dangerously wrong in one instance. There did not seem to be a sense of a professional team working together to help a sick person, but instead it seemed like a disjointed group of people--some doing their job and some not doing their job.
What I'm taking forward from this experience is the following:
- When professionals don't seem to be doing their job, politely speak up and ask questions sooner than later. (We didn't speak up until it was clear that the care was dangerously wrong, and at that point I was very upset--had we spoken up earlier when care seemed out of whack, we may have been able to get better appropriate care.)
- You have to be your own health advocate--sadly, some in the medical field, don't care or know what they should. This is true in any organization.
- Speak up when poor care occurs. If you stay silent, that kind of care will simply continue.
- In your own work or situations which require skill, respect, knowledge, do what you can to be as professional as possible.
- When teams don't do the work required, politely speak up and help to right the team.
- If you lead teams, lead with regular respect, mission, encouragement, and oversight. Leadership appeared to be missing in this situation.
Onward.