Medical Staff Development – Discipline of Safety

Physicians require discipline to participate on a quality medical staff. There is the discipline of personal integrity, the discipline of good interpersonal relationships, the discipline of professional development and the discipline of safety. The medical staff, through the person(s) of its officer(s) requires the same menu of disciplines. If there is a place to re-establish lost discipline, it is in the area of safety. Here is a point on which the hospital, physicians and public agree. A hospitalization should be safe. For all of that, physicians, even respected physicians try to reclaim their lost autonomy by ignoring hospital safety protocols. Just think how difficult it is to achieve compliance on the simple safety procedure of washing hands between patients. Medical science has only known about the benefits of hand washing for over 100 years. There is a problem with discipline. When the medical staff officers fail to enforce, they fail an important integrity test.

Christmas at Work

Most of us would say that Christmas is over now and that we can get back to normal if we can only survive New Years. The truth is that there are twelve days of Christmas and this is only number three. So, I thought I would indulge in a little reflection on the significance of Christmas at work in the hospital. The emphasis on gifts at Christmas diverts from the essential Christmas message, that God lives with us and among us. How do we see God working in our hospitals? Do we think about the idea from time to time? Does that kind of reflection change the way we interact with patients? What would it be like in your hospital if that awareness of God’s presence were a primary objective?

Medical Staff Development – Leadership style

Physician leaders are a key element in medical staff development. Physicians also need some management skills to lead effectively. Yet, leadership and management are different and often confused. To lead physicians effectively eludes many physicians who have been cast in the role of leader. The problem is quite simple. Physicians practice a directive style of leadership. You might call it a prescriptive style. We rehearse it daily: “Take this medicine. Do these exercises. Return in two weeks.” Unfortunately, physicians do not themselves respond to a prescriptive-directive leadership style. The beginning of effective physician leadership is to learn the most effective style. The leadership training we offer at Physician Formation Consulting emphasizes the most effective style. Visit www.PhysicianFormation.com

Medical Staff Development - The Right Relationship

Dr. William Cors recommends that one of the keys to good medical staff development is having the right relationship between the hospital and the physicians. He begins to describe different models of hospital-physician relationships: joint ventures, gain-sharing, or employing physicians. None of these is the right fit for every medical staff, but starting at this level reduces the hospital-medical staff relationship to a formula for dividing the pie. Adding a few rounds of golf and periodic social events serves to smooth the negotiations, but it is still about the pie. Why not gather around the mission flag? Why not collaborate to build the mission plan first? Most would respond: “Because it can’t be done with a disparate group of physicians.” Why not? Because we have simply chosen not to invest the time and effort in the spiritual formation of physicians. We have not invested because, for the most part, we don’t understand how to promote the spiritual formation of physicians.

Appreciative Disposition

Dear Readers,

I apologize for the interruption in posts to this blog. I thought you might want a little pause in the commentary on Medical Staff Development. So here are some other thoughts:

People naturally have certain dispositions in their personality, but dispositions can be strengthened or suppressed by intentional spiritual training. Our mission team speaks often of having and developing an “appreciative disposition,” and it is an important disposition to develop. An appreciative disposition signifies a propensity to find the good in events and situations. It fosters an accepting attitude toward people. It does not signify that all people, situations, or beliefs are good. It signifies rather a faith that God will use people and situations for ultimate good. Out of this disposition flows a capacity for forgiveness, reconciliation, charity, peace, gentleness, joy, and patience. Can we hope for a better description of a healing environment? Can we not hope that our hospitals will be dominated by people with appreciative dispositions? To that end, invest heavily in the spiritual formation of the team and the physician champion who will succeed you. How can we promote the influence of physicians with appreciative dispositions?

Medical Staff Development - physician profile

The joint commission promotes a profile of six competencies for physicians on staff.

http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag_app/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HHNMAG/Article/data/03MAR2009/090310HHN_Online_Johnson&domain=HHNMAG

Interestingly, alignment on the hospital mission is not a core competency. Its hard to imagine someone working effectively in automobile manufacture who was incompetent to contribute in some way to the construction of the automobile. Why should it be acceptable that physicians aren't aligned? The Joint Commission's competencies are the competencies of cure, but patients want to be healed. Why aren't healing competencies thought to be important for physicians? Maybe its time to rethink our expectations for physicians.