- Joined
- Oct 9, 2012
- Messages
- 97
- Reaction score
- 215
A familiar sdn tale: I've been on a rotation for the last few months with an attending who yells, verbally berates me, is quick to point out my mistakes, gives me more than the usual resident's share of work assignments, and is generally miserable to work with. Thirty or more emails per day, even when she is not the attending (although she is service chief) needing status updates on cases. It seems most other people at work have at least peripherally experienced her anger outbursts. She is sometimes overheard at work yelling at her husband or other family members on the phone. I'm not training in psychiatry, but mental illness such as personality disorder is definitely in my differential diagnosis as an explanation for her behavior. Maybe she has some complex personal/family issues going on, who knows. I figured I'd just suck it up for the short term and do my best to react professionally to whatever insults she would throw my way, and at least appear to be taking her feedback into consideration.
But, she recently confronted me in the hallway to ask about a case (it turned out to be another resident's case), which escalated to ranting and posturing about... well frankly after about two minutes into her monologue with her face centimeters from mine, I can hardly recall anything she actually said. I must have tuned her out. Realizing this was getting nowhere and we both needed to cool off, I stepped back from her, at which point she pushed me pretty hard for trying to get away. I told her that I thought pushing me was inappropriate. She then seemed to get even more angry, brought me into a room and shut the door, when she continued to berate me, and after nodding my head at her for a few minutes, I attempted to leave at which point she blocked me from the door, holding the door shut, insisting she finish her point. She pushed me away from the door. When she wasn't as close to the door, I eventually walked out, and she followed me down the hallway and continued yelling at me at my desk. This is all witnessed by various people at various times during the argument. Oh and by the way this was in academic offices in the main hospital but not anywhere near patients.
So far I haven't found any threads on sdn describing anything like this, but I'm sure there are some of you that have heard stories about hospital employees being physically aggressive, and I'm not talking about the circumstance of a surgeon hitting the hand of a resident surgeon who is fumbling up in the surgical field. This had nothing to do with a patient emergency. What was the outcome, did the person who reported the aggression have any negative consequences? I'm sure a lot of this stuff goes unreported.
But, she recently confronted me in the hallway to ask about a case (it turned out to be another resident's case), which escalated to ranting and posturing about... well frankly after about two minutes into her monologue with her face centimeters from mine, I can hardly recall anything she actually said. I must have tuned her out. Realizing this was getting nowhere and we both needed to cool off, I stepped back from her, at which point she pushed me pretty hard for trying to get away. I told her that I thought pushing me was inappropriate. She then seemed to get even more angry, brought me into a room and shut the door, when she continued to berate me, and after nodding my head at her for a few minutes, I attempted to leave at which point she blocked me from the door, holding the door shut, insisting she finish her point. She pushed me away from the door. When she wasn't as close to the door, I eventually walked out, and she followed me down the hallway and continued yelling at me at my desk. This is all witnessed by various people at various times during the argument. Oh and by the way this was in academic offices in the main hospital but not anywhere near patients.
So far I haven't found any threads on sdn describing anything like this, but I'm sure there are some of you that have heard stories about hospital employees being physically aggressive, and I'm not talking about the circumstance of a surgeon hitting the hand of a resident surgeon who is fumbling up in the surgical field. This had nothing to do with a patient emergency. What was the outcome, did the person who reported the aggression have any negative consequences? I'm sure a lot of this stuff goes unreported.