Summary: Episode 45: They sting. They hurt. But aren’t these criticisms supposed to by “constructive”? Podcast transcription provided by Rev.com “In this episode, I’m going to be taking on a subject of how to handle criticism on clinical rotations. Criticism it’s not fun. You’ve heard the term constructive criticism, things to work on in other words. That’s all great. Suddenly it feels a little better than being cost at, but not a whole lot. Anytime someone in a position who power or authority such as a senior resident, or the attending or something like that is criticizing something that you’re doing. Whether it’s inadequate note taking, or if something is missing here or there or mistake, or some kind of habit, let’s face it. Not all doctors are very good, at coaching mentoring, or teaching some of them are very [abrought 00:01:07] in some cultures and specialties. They pride themselves in being mean to each other. You’re going to have criticism, the question is how do you handle it. What I like to think of is to make the criticism constructive. It may not come across to you, in a way that’s constructive. It’s your job to find out what can I do different, what can I learn from this, what process do I need to change in order to make this improvement in this area. You’re going to put a positive spin with the tangible handle, something physically different that you’re going to do. Make it action based, very much like the book Getting Things Done with David Allen. I highly recommend that audio book while you’re straightening at your office, and cleaning up your house. Especially if you’re going through a massive inbox, or making new files, anytime you’re organizing. The bottom line there is that instead of putting somebody on a to do list, that just says paint the house. Break it down to the next physical, tangible step in that big project and put something like, go to Lowe’s and look at different paint colors, or something like that. Something that you can break down, in the simple action task. You’re going to do the same thing whenever it comes to criticism you received on clinical rotations. Let say for example, and I bring this up now because I just got a criticism. I wasn’t putting enough information in my HPI, in my History of Present Illness section, okay. It happens sometimes I think it happens when you start getting a little [inaudible 00:03:12] that’s still a little bit early but regardless the straight forward, and wrote simple to me now and they want me to kind of write a little bit more. Most in this don’t. That’s a good side bar here is criticism you may get maybe just one person’s opinion and you might be getting prices in that same area from everybody else. It could be just that one person, that’s giving you the criticism. Take it with a green assault, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Remember the difference between shame and guilt, it just doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, it means you could improve in this area, your job is to turn it into a tangible handle. Look at that thing and say okay what specific task could I do different to change the process here, so that I can improve based on this criticism. In other words how can I make this constructive. In this example, of not putting enough information in the history of present illness section. One thing that I could do different would be to before I’m done with my note, and complete my note. Go back and look and make sure that my note reflects all the substantiation and documentation require to make whatever diagnosis I’m suppose to make in the bottom, okay. I normally do that, I made a mistake today. That happens, I can make more thoughtful effort. Let say I catch myself next week, doing the same thing again. I can realize, “Hey, just to have that memory, of I[...]
