When encountering challenging people, we can train ourselves to ask better questions. We can find better solutions by taking responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, and actions during the encounters. We can only do that by believing in our own training and feeling confident in our beneficent actions towards our patients.

Recognize that anger and frustration are normal and unavoidable human emotions that patients, nurses, and physicians have in the emergency department. Nothing has gone wrong here. Thinking that something has gone wrong or it shouldn’t be this way only makes us miserable. We can learn how to respond more effectively to intense emotions; we can’t eliminate them. Most of our patient interactions are lovely and mutually rewarding. Look for something good in them. Armed with more insight into the behavior patterns of our most difficult patients, perhaps we can actually change our negative perceptions of them.

Dr. Naidorf is an emergency physician, speaker, and author based in Alexandria, VA. She trained at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and is board-certified in EM. Her book Changing How we Think About Difficult Patients: A Guide for Physicians and Healthcare Professionals was published in January 2022 with the American Association for Physician Leadership.

References

1. Groves JE. Taking care of the hateful patient. N Engl J Med. 1978;298(16):883-887.