Hospital Politics

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First time witnessing a heated argument between 2 different medical teams and tbh still a bit shooketh. Not gonna name names here but it was also an extremely dumb argument that at its core is nothing more than politics and completely unrelated to patient care. 

Long story short, we had a new pt in ICU who was apparently referred to X team as the home team but no one from ICU or ED called them about it (the pt still showed up on X team's inpt list). A very irate X team reg came storming to our team and kicked up a fuss about how that's super disrespectful and if they knew the pt was going to be under them and not just a consult, they would've brought her consultant over to r/v the pt. She kept cutting off our consultant to the point that the consultant actually said "I apologise for the miscommunication but let's not forget that we're all here to do what's best for the patient, and regardless of whether the pt is under you guys or another team, we still need your speciality input". Tbh, the reg was probably also frazzled and embarrassed that she didn't bring her consultant to see the new pt (non-med readers, for most specialities, consultants only do ward rounds 1-2x a week). 

We all thought the drama was over when she left (w/o first examining the pt 😕), but noooooo, another reg from X team came about 10mins later being like is this pt an inpt admission or consult pt. Obviously, there's no communication w/in X team either b/c we literally discussed with first reg we believe this pt should be under then and the reg agreed. The 2nd reg kicked up an even bigger fuss saying that bedcard allocation is super important b/c it changes who examines the pt. I mean come on, you guys are both from X team, this pt req X team input which has not yet happened, why the fck can't you just do it? Again they were super rude, arguing with our consultant about administrative problems and wanting to escalate to Riskman and Director of ED 💀 Where the hell is collaborative practice and respect for colleagues? Honestly felt like she was better than everyone else and "I will not come all the way to ICU if you don't think there's any need for pt to get x investigations" and "I still have 6 more consults". Excuse me what? You're the day consult reg? Your job is LITERALLY to consult?? And when asked her recommendation, she said "Well I recommended x, but you just said they were unnecessary". Like what??? We can't have deferring opinions about pt tx and discuss about it? Also how about examining the pt first before recommending anything? Ironically she ended the "consult" with "let me examine the pt first", like bro that's what we've been trying to get you to do for the past 10mins of pointless arguing 😑 (Apparently they still didn't examine the pt...)

Honestly, I felt so indignant for my consultant, but she handled it extremely professionally 😍 Also like don't take your frustrations out on us, we're all in the hospital sys→ we're all subject to similar admin issues and inefficiencies and miscommunications. And if you really wanna complain, complain to someone that can actually do something about your grievances. Bedcard allocation does not fall under the ICU consultant's jurisdiction!

Takeaway from experience

- DON'T FORGET PATIENTS ARE THE REASON WE'RE HERE→ everything we do should have pt's best interest front and center

- Remain calm, respectful but assertive 

- "Remind" the other that we're all here to look after the patient, so can we please focus on what's important, which is assessing the pt and determining the most appropriate tx/mx path 

-  Be kind and understanding to each other

- COMMUNICATE COMMUNICATE COMMUNICATE