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Ask the expert: What constitutes disruptive behavior?

Medical Staff Leader Connection, May 21, 2008

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Unacceptable behavior includes behavior that:

• Disrupts hospital operations
• Affects the ability of others to do their jobs
• Creates a hostile work environment for hospital employees or other medical staff members
• Interferes with an individual’s ability to practice competently
• Adversely affects the community’s confidence in the hospital’s ability to provide quality patient care

But these descriptions aren’t specific enough. It is helpful to add examples of unacceptable behavior to your policy, including, but not limited to:

• Personal, irrelevant attacks—verbal or physical—leveled at other medical staff members, hospital personnel, and patients and their families
• Impertinent and inappropriate comments (or illustrations) made in patient medical records or other official documents that impugn the quality of care in the hospital or attack particular physicians, nurses, patients, or hospital policies
• Criticism leveled at the recipient in such away that it intimidates, undermines confidence, belittles, or implies stupidity or incompetence
• Refusal to accept medical staff assignments or to participate in committee or departmental affairs in a professional manner
  

  The preceding information is an excerpt from A Practical Guide to Preventing and Solving Disruptive Physician Behavior by Richard A. Sheff, MD and Todd Sagin, MD, JD.

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