Flip Your Script

by John Schessler, CMT, ET-C

I recently was watching TikTok and I’m on the medical side of it, so things like Grey’s Anatomy often pops up. This one particular clip was when Dr. Lincoln (played by Chris Carmack), who is the Head of Orthopedic Surgery at Grey-Sloan Memorial, was evaluating a woman for knee pain. Both the woman and his resident accompanying him were severely overweight. During the evaluation, Dr. Lincoln told the woman that she’d probably have less pain if she exercised and lost some weight. This remark got looks from both the resident as well as the female patient. The patient then got angry, which is 100% understandable btw, and proceeded to tell the doctor that she had diabetes, was on meds and the weight had nothing to do with her ‘being lazy’. After the conversation was over, the doctor and resident were walking through the hospital and the resident basically smoked Dr. Lincoln and told him that there were other factors on some of her tests that he failed to look at properly. Bottom line: Not all presenting problems such as this led to the obvious answer.

Having worked in the medical field as well as other careers where interacting with patients and people in general requires me to have some sort of sensitivity to the people I’m training, treating, etc. I’ve heard this of doctors and how they’re not some of the most sensitive people in the world and a lot of them give patient information very bluntly. My question is: Why? You would think that in one of the most people-centered careers in the world, doctors would treat cases like this with a little more tact and finesse. Sadly, DEI training hasn’t reached us all and if it has, it needs to be revisited every once in a while.

Doctors are trained extensively on how to diagnose and treat patient ailments; however, most doctors receive little to no interpersonal skills or sensitivity training. In today’s competitive medical field and litigious environment, proper sensitivity training is vital. The above scenario was obviously written by writers who work on a television show so a lot of what you hear coming out of the actor’s mouths isn’t 100% accurate. However, this happens more than people think it does in today’s society. The medical field in 2024 overall is a bustling business, doctors and other medical personnel race to heal patients, perform life-altering surgeries and give bad news to people all of the time…. every day. all day. With the demands that doctors are faced with, it makes sense that sensitivity isn’t always at the top of the list. The truth is that sensitivity training for physicians is needed today more than ever due to the fast pace that is part of the healthcare environment. Hospital administrators and HR professionals are in a very difficult position when a patient or employee makes a complaint against a physician. More than ever, patients have multiple choices when it comes to health care providers and facilities can earn the wrong reputation quickly.

Patients and their families come to hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices with certain expectations from their care providers and having a good bedside manner is right up there in the top five. An ill person or somebody having surgery should expect their medical team treating them to be thorough BUT also to take the patient’s emotional state into huge consideration when breaking bad news, going through medical testing or following up on how things are going in ways of recovery. Most doctor’s are exposed to sensitivity training courses in Medical School that touch on how to have a good bedside manner. The problem is there’s usually a disconnect between Med School and the profession because as the old saying goes, “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” A person’s sensitivity towards others is only as effective as long as it’s being reinforced, retrained or retaught and if medical professionals aren’t receiving trainings every now and then on these things, this you got a huge problem about the compassion and empathy that your staff portrays.

How do we fix this problem?

Well, normally, trainings and workshops that deal with these types of subject matter are usually set-up and structured by the company’s human resources department. So, its HR’s fault, right? Not exactly. There’s a lot of grey area here and no one person or department are we pointing fingers at. A training is only effective when you have great presenters, roleplays and vitally important information that medical professionals can actually use. Plus, if you are specifically talking about doctors who have been practicing medicine for over 30 years, odds are that they’ve gotten comfortable being straight to the point. Why? Because it’s like ripping off a band-aid, sudden shock at first with no time to process information but as time passes, the pain sets in for the patient and their family. Unless families follow-up with the doctor and call their behavior up to them, nothing gets paid attention to, nor is it resolved.

In my career, which is faaaaar from that of a doctor’s and I’d never want their set of responsibilities they have to think about on a minute-to-minute basis. The one thing that both our professions have in common is that we deal with people who come to us broken (physically and mentally) and sometimes need to be handled with some compassion and empathy. For myself, I always try to keep myself in check and I think I actually do a really good job. The secret? When you’ve had medical things happen to you, you become very empathetic to other people’s struggles, and you take them into account. Most doctors probably haven’t had that many bad things happen to them that didn’t wind them up inside a hospital for test after test, etc.

We as professionals are better than, and true most of us are but there are some that could stand to shake the dust off their emotional radars and home in on those skills that will make them exemplary in this area. We have to be better because if something bad happens to your loved ones, you had better hope you are given the heartbreaking news by a doctor who cares and understands what that feels like.

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John J. Schessler, Jr. is a Pittsburgh-Based Personal Master Trainer, motivational speaker, writer, social media creator and senior at @SNHU majoring in Child & Adolescent Developmental Psychology. He also is creator and host of the podcast, “Flip Your Script”, available on most podcast platforms. For speaking engagements and training inquiries, please email pghwellnesspt@gmail.com.