Daring to confront

Have you ever felt guilty for taking a stand against challenging behavior? If you have, you’re not alone. It’s certainly easier to delay confrontation than it is to decide, “Enough is enough,” and take action. Far too often, we allow wrong behavior to continue until an eruption occurs that could have been avoided had we dared to confront.

In an earlier post, I told you about confronting, as a nursing student, a physician who used finger-snapping as a means of communicating with nurses. Well, guess what? Years later, history repeated itself. By that time, I was a charge nurse, and I couldn’t believe I was, once again, witnessing a physician snap his fingers to get the attention of nurses. It was déjà vu all over again.

I still recall the outrage of the nurses. “He shows no respect for nursing staff,” some of them complained, but no one dared confront the physician about his behavior. The situation was delicate. After all, he was a surgeon who commanded power in that hospital. Colleagues said, “Never cross him. You’ll get fired!”

It was déjà vu all over again! 

— Photo by Ingram Publishing/Thinkstock   

Hearing those comments gave me pause, but I didn’t want to see nurses treated with disrespect. Usually, I didn’t have contact with this surgeon unless he wanted to complain that a nurse wasn’t moving fast enough. Another issue was that he would take all the charts, thereby creating problems for nurses who were trying to complete their charting in a timely manner.

Because politics and institutional power were involved, confronting this physician would not be easy, but I knew my nurse colleagues, who were fed up with his behavior and were losing morale, expected me to take action. After pondering what to do, I came up with a plan. The intervention would be simple. To force the physician to interact with me, all the other nurses would be with patients in their rooms.

Like clockwork, he came to the floor the next day to complete his rounds, this time accompanied by residents, and, as usual, the finger-snapping began. I intentionally ignored him. The snapping continued, but I remained silent. Growing frustrated, he finally blurted out, “Don’t you hear me talking to you?” He was speaking loud enough that the other nurses came out of the patients’ rooms, and the residents stood aghast. This was my opportunity.

Walking over to him, I said, “Hello, Doctor. My name is Chris. I am the charge nurse, and I have a simple request. Do not feel you need to snap your fingers to get my attention. I prefer that you address me as Chris. Also, I was wondering if we could agree on a time for you to chart so my nurses could have the charts back in time to complete their documentation?”

To my surprise, he responded, “No problem, Chris. We certainly do not want to increase the hospital’s budget,” and he chuckled. The residents stood with their mouths open. From that day forward, he never tried to get a nurse’s attention on that unit by snapping his fingers, and, yes, we were able to arrange for a suitable time for him to review charts.

Every nurse asked me, “How did you do that? I cannot believe his response.” The only insight I had to share was that, as a student, I had learned to assert myself and not allow a physician to treat me as an object—to objectify me—and my refusal to let him do so disrupted his improper behavior. Nurses do have power when we affirm our role and identity.

I knew that both the physician and I shared a desire for our patients to heal, and, to make that happen, we needed to function as a team. From that time forward, he would say, “Chris, how are my patients doing today?” I realize that communication challenges are complex, and confronting doesn’t always turn out as well as this encounter did, but the surgeon and I both discovered that a simple introduction that began with “Hi, my name is Chris” can stop disrespectful communication in its tracks and lead to positive outcomes.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.