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A bad bedside manner can get you sued
By Lauren | May 27, 2009
My friend Phil had a bad brush with the medical profession last week when he came down with an especially nasty bug. Shivering with a high fever and muscle aches, Phil felt too sick to wait for an appointment with his regular physician. Instead he went to his local walk-in clinic, seeking immediate care.
After a seemingly interminable wait, Phil finally got to see a doctor, who quickly examined him. Thankfully, Phil turned out to have just a bad case of bronchitis that penicillin could easily have remedied - if the doctor had been willing to give it to him. But when Phil asked for a prescription the doctor refused, loftily informing Phil that the “latest thinking” from the Center for Disease Control was that antibiotics normally aren’t needed to cure bronchitis. The doctor handed Phil a set of preprinted instructions that amounted to “take Tylenol and call your primary care physician if you don’t get better,” charged a tidy sum for the visit, and sent Phil home, sick, miserable and furious.
It might have been good medicine, but it was lousy customer service.
It wasn’t the doctor’s refusal to provide medicine that made Phil so angry - it was the way he behaved. “He was so patronizing,” Phil fumed. “He acted like some cockamamie theory from the CDC was more important than a real patient who came to him for help!” Phil eventually got better but his anger lingered, and he told friends, family and co-workers about his bad experience, costing the clinic future business. Even worse, if the doctor had made a mistake in diagnosing or treating Phil’s illness, Phil would have been delighted to sue for malpractice just to take the arrogant doctor down a peg or two.
Phil’s story demonstrates the importance of bedside manner, both in the medical profession and in business. We all have to say “no” once in a while, whether it’s to a patient, client, or customer. But how you say it - kindly or condescendingly - can make a world of difference to your business and professional relationships. Technical expertise is important to any profession, and failure to exercise professional competence can lead to a lawsuit. But, as Phil’s story demonstrates, having a compassionate demeanor can be just as critical to staying out of court.
Topics: Business Ethics, Professional Ethics, business communications, customer relations, ethics |
June 1st, 2009 at 11:03 am
[...] presents A bad bedside manner can get you sued posted at The Business Ethics Blog, saying, “Cliche as it may sound, patients don’t [...]