Happy, Healthy Docs

Anger Mangement Video - A Holiday Gift

I'd like to wish you peaceful and joyous holidays, and most of all a relaxing break from work.  Make time for self-care, connecting with others, and for quiet introspection as you enter the new year.

My gift to you is a new video, "Anger Management Guided Introspection."  With the stress of the holidays, the economy, and patients - tempers can flare - often at the most inopportune time. And perhaps your anger gets the best of you more often than you'd like.  Or you know someone else like that.  This short video on Youtube, using a sample new coaching technique (see next paragraph), offers a simple way to better handle anger.  Find 10 quiet, private minutes and try this guided meditative process that helps you get to what's underneath your anger so you can better manage it and not let it control you. 

And by the way, thanks for your support this year by attending or scheduling my seminars, and/or reading my blog.  I have great new things in store for 2010 (including 2 newly healing ankles, thank God) - a website and new company name (referred to in the video), new seminars, and a new service, Visionary Leadership Coaching.  I look forward to seeing you and working together again soon, or meeting you for the first time, in 2010.  Have a happy and healthy new year!

Disruptive Behavior - Owning Your Anger

 

"Disruptive Behavior" is the 2009 buzz word by The Joint Commission with their new Leadership Standard LD.03.01.01 mandating hospitals to address this issue head on.  A major hallmark of a disruptive individual is an angry outburst, often at the most inopportune times - in front of colleagues, patients, and their family members.  The "classic" profile of disruptive physicians are male surgeons who yell in the operating room, but they are by no means the only doctors who may engage in this behavior.  In fact nurses and other health professionals also project their anger outwardly.  Often such individuals have difficulty taking responsibility for their behavior.  Instead they blame their anger on others, such as laboratory personnel who produce late test results.  While it's true that poorly functioning departments or hospital systems can be very frustrating, screaming at those who work in them is not the answer. 

If you are quick to respond with anger in frustrating situations, especially if it happens more than you - or others - would like, the problem may also lie within you.  When I first saw the above cartoon, I  thought Lucy's response to "Why are you always yelling at me?" might be, "Because you're an idiot!"  To my surprise, she took responsibility for her yelling.  That is the start of the healing process for those who can't control their anger.  Chronically angry people may blame others for everything and see themselves as right.  They can't see how their outbursts exacerbate their problems.  They don't do this on purpose.  They really believe they're not at fault. 

This topic can take up many blog posts.  As a first step, ask yourself:  "How well do I handle my anger?  Does it handle me?  Do I feel powerless to control it?  Does it get in my way at work?  Is it affecting my relationships?"  If you answer yes, consider that you could possibly use some help.  The first step is owning the fact that this area of your life isn't working and is causing you pain.  Give it some thought, and stay tuned for more on this.  

New Tough NY Physician Discipline Laws

  On 11/3/08, new legislation became effective in New York making the disciplinary system more strict for physicians reported to the Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC) for misconduct, and makes such information more accessible to consumers. 

These law changes make it even more imperative for clinicians with addictive and psychological problems to seek immediate treatment to regain their health and avoid discipline.  A report to OPMC can result in quick publicizing of charges, and possible losses of license, job, career, income, self-esteem, and thousands in legal fees.  Colleagues in leadership positions should ensure such individuals get help ASAP.  Such individuals can also self-refer or be referred to the Committee for Physician Health at 1-800-338-1833 or 518-436-4723. 

A synopsis of the law changes include:

1.  OPMC now makes charges against a physician public much sooner: after they are served vs. after an order is issued, and before appeals.  

2.  OPMC can more easily obtain a physician's personal medical records if they believe s/he may be impaired by addictive and psychiatric disorders.    

3.  Physicians must update their profiles every 6 months, a condition for license re-registration.  

Other law changes involve mandating clinical competency exams, reviewing malpractice histories to see if doctors should be investigated, and more.  Courts must also notify OPMC of physician misdemeanor and felony convictions, such as DWI's.

Go to www.abramslaw.com for an article fully describing the new law, "The Office of Professional Medical Conduct:  How Changes In Public Health Law Section 230 May Affect You" by Lawrence F. Kobak, DPM, JD and Michael S. Kelton, Esq.  

   

Physician Discipline: The Case of Impairment

Several articles (6/17+20/08) have appeared in Newsday, a major newspaper of Long Island, New York, about publicizing physicians being investigated for misconduct. New York is not one of 40 states that publicizes charges brought against physicians - such charges are secret. NY only publicizes disciplinary actions taken against physicians. Governor David Paterson has proposed a bill to change this, where once a doctor is formally charged, all proceedings would become public. The bill was prompted by the case of Dr. Harvey Finkelstein, a Long Island doctor whose infectious disease practices led to giving at least one patient Hepatitis C. It took the health department 3 years to inform his patients.

Whether this bill becomes law or not, it raises the issue of early intervention to save the lives and careers, and to prevent the discipline of physicians suffering from substance abuse and other addictive and psychiatric disorders. Doctors who have colleagues who show up at work with alcohol on their breath, who act out with inappropriate expressions of anger, who steal narcotics from the worksite, etc., are still hesitant to intervene with such colleagues. Not wanting to get their friend in trouble, thinking it's none of their business, and being fearful of retribution are some of the many reasons colleagues don't interfere. This avoidance of the issue enables their ill peers to continue on in their sickness with no consequences, and with no medical help. This enabling can literally be deadly for the affected physician. And if their negative behavior is left unchecked, it can lead to a loss of job, license and career - and more public humiliation if this bill gets passed. My point here is not to condone or not condone the publicizing of charges brought against physicians.

My point is to strongly encourage physicians to intervene with impaired colleagues well before the problem ever reaches the disciplinary level - when their illness is still in a very early stage. Enabling addicted or psychologically ill physicians does not help them, their patients, or anyone else in their lives. Viewing these problems as the medical illnesses they are can drastically change the willingness of colleagues to intervene. While negative behaviors cannot be used as excuses to avoid discipline, they must be seen as reasons to quickly help peers in trouble to save their lives. Avoiding discipline becomes an added advantage in such circumstances.

An important resource in the US for impaired physicians are Physician Health Committees run by State Medical Societies. To find the program in your state contact the Federation of State Physician Health Programs. In New York, from whence I write, that program is the Committee for Physician Health.