Congratulations new grads! Hello new and seasoned healthcare workers. No matter how far along you are in your career, communication is inevitable. It’s mandatory in achieving the overall goal of patient care no matter what type of healthcare environment you work in and no matter at what capacity you work. From the receptionist to the chief of surgery, everyone must communicate. Let’s talk about interacting with doctors.
Some may find communicating more difficult than other because they’re new or have a different job title than those they have to communicate with. Some may just be introverts and not use to having to talk to so many different people. Or maybe you come from a smaller practice setting (like I did). Either way, you can’t get around communication.
A lot of times people find it hard to communicate with Medical Doctors (MD)/Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) because they place them on a higher playing field than others (they did put in the work to earn their titles). However, this is sometimes brought on by self. You may feel intimidated by them because of the level that they have achieved. I’ve compiled a few tips to help interacting with doctors (MDs/DOs) as a healthcare professional a lot easier.
- Forget Everything You’ve Heard About Doctors
Okay, so I can’t stress this point enough.
You might have heard that they’re hard to work with, they think they know everything (I mean they did go to school for forever), and many other negative things about interactions with physicians. And I’m sure you’ve heard some positive ones too. But it’s the negative things that most people tend to hold onto when it comes to dealing with people for the first time, which actually isn’t fair because you don’t even know the person. So, you basically let someone form a bad, strained, or stressful relationship with someone you have to work with daily for you. Be in control of how you feel about interacting with doctors. People can feel and feed off the energy you give them, and because you held onto what you heard, you put out an energy that the other individual felt and responded to accordingly. So, it’s not necessarily that it’s a bad relationship, but it just may not be a good, naturally flowing one.
Your interactions with people are what you make them. I’ve had great interactions with individuals my colleagues did not. If you work in an integrative system and have to communicate with others often, you might as well make the best of it while making it work. It has to work. That’s just it. Because that is how the end goal is achieved at your place of business.
And this goes for all interactions with individuals in life. For the students reading, there will be some teachers/professors that you’ve heard things about, but it’s up to you to make it work as smoothly as possible. Pharmacy students, you will hear about professors and preceptors. Don’t let it plant a seed. Forge your own genuine relationships and work from there. The key in this is you. Sometimes those people will live up to exactly what you heard, but it’s how you handle them that makes the difference because how you handle them can positively affect their interactions with you.
2. Be prepared and organized
Be knowledgeable about the patient. Some physicians are just covering and don’t know the patient’s history. They may even be covering outside of their normal department. I experienced this before (while being on- call myself, so I was handling patients that I don’t normally deal with) and ended up giving a lot more feedback than I expected on vancomycin titrations and how they’re normally dosed. Because I could communicate the background of the patient, their vancomycin history, and expected duration of therapy, I could help make decisions such as the dose and whether more labs were needed.
If you’re calling about a patient, it’s because you’re currently working on that patient. When you call that doctor, they’re working on something else and don’t know off the top of their head everything about that patient. So, either they will open up the chart or want you to brief them.
Physicians are busy. Just like you’re trying to get your job done, so are they. Don’t waste either of your time by having to research the patient while on the phone. After all, in most cases, everything you need to know is in the patient’s profile. It’s not hard to take a look at it before calling and having it open to reference. Jot down a few notes. This tip is a helps out a lot when it comes to interacting with doctors.
3. Be confident
This one is a biggie when it comes to interacting with doctors. Always speak clearly and confidently. No one wants to take information from someone they think doesn’t know what they’re talking about. If you followed the previous step about being prepared and organized, you’ve already reviewed the patient and everything you need to know is withing reach, whether it’s in a physical chart or open tabs on your computer. Anything you don’t know or have access to right away, you can get back to them about.
4. Stick to your guts, and document everything
You know what you know. You completed some level of school or training to be able to obtain your position. If you find something isn’t right or you have a recommendation, make it known. If the doctor doctor decides differently, that’s fine. Just document it. At the end of the day its not about you as an individual being right. It’s about providing the best care for the patient. Different suggestions doesn’t have to mean one has to be wrong. Remember, patient care experiences differ. It’s not about coming out right or on top. It’s about coming together for the patient. As a pharmacist, when a patient starts on Daptomycin we ask the doctor if they want the patient to hold their statin therapy or not. I imagine they base their decision on patient history on the drug, maybe the length of therapy for the Daptomycin, labs affected by the statin and the Dapto, and other things. However, we are never sure of the answer we’ll get. Some want the patient to hold it and some don’t. Some will even want us to hold it for one of their patients but not another. Either way, we do our part by asking and then document. We also require certain labs while a patient is on Dapto. Once a doctor didn’t want our required labs done, so we documented it. An event occurred, that maybe could’ve been caught had the required labs been ordered, but we documented what we recommended and what the response was.
5. Slow down
Everyone is moving fast trying to get things done, and you don’t want to waste anyone’s time. But slow down. As a pharmacist, I take a lot of verbal orders, and I want to make sure I’m transcribing them correctly. Take that extra time to read it back to the person transferring the information so that you can be sure you’re transcribing correctly. All the way down to the simplest things like taking down a phone number. The last thing you want is to need more information, but you’ve taken down a phone number wrong and have to do the most to reach the person you were talking to. You’ll spend more time trying to get back in contact with who you were speaking with than you would’ve just repeating it back. I did this recently smh. Forgot to ask the goal trough for a Vancomycin patient and found out via the receptionist that the doctors cant be contact directly and respond within 24 to 48 hours.
For many of you, remember, YOU ARE A DOCTOR! And for those who aren’t, YOUR JOB MATTERS TOO! If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be there. Don’t let your title scare you from interacting with doctors.
Just because you’re not an “MD” or “DO” doesn’t take away your title and more importantly, knowledge and experience. When I first graduated and family and friends would jokingly ask me certain things, I’d reply, “I’m not a doctor…. Well not that kind of doctor. I’m only the pharmacist.” WRONG! On all levels, no matter what the situation because you’re never “JUST” anything. You always “ARE” who/what it is. Know that! Anywho, before I get on my empowerment soapbox, always keep these tips in mind during these exchanges and you can confidently know that your interactions will serve their purpose, the patient.
And remember…
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