{"id":3906,"date":"2025-04-04T16:42:49","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T16:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3906"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:19:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:19:43","slug":"why-you-should-be-kind-to-medical-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/why-you-should-be-kind-to-medical-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Why You Should Be Kind to Medical Staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

While many people worldwide experience frustration with their healthcare system, taking it out on individual healthcare workers can backfire. Rudeness toward medical staff can lead to more delays and even errors.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Peter Bamberger<\/a> of Tel Aviv University said that being rude to doctors, nurses, and other medical staff can hurt their job performance because it consumes valuable cognitive resources. In short, rudeness creates a huge mental distraction.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur theory was that when you experience rudeness, you\u2019re distracted because of it, and you\u2019re not even aware that you\u2019re distracted. But you are distracted, and as a result, you can\u2019t pick up on a lot of the social signals that are being communicated by other people, and interactions with bosses, team members, and clients or patients are harmed by that,\u201d Bamberger said. \u201cWe actually demonstrated that in a field experiment using medical simulations; we brought in doctors to a medical simulation center where they were working on mannequins.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimulation centers are increasingly used to train doctors; they have all the equipment there: They can intubate, they can see X-rays, they kind diagnose and treat maladies,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we look at the way they interact with each other; how do they try and transmit information to each other? How do they share tasks?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bamberger and colleagues recorded the medical team processes while working at the medical simulation center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look at their diagnostic performance, their treatment performance, and their general patient management in an intensive-care context,\u201d Bamberger said. \u201cFirst of all, what we find is that individuals who are experiencing rudeness have significantly poorer performance than those who don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting that this rudeness experience at the start of the day has lingering effects throughout the day; it doesn\u2019t just go away after an hour or two,\u201d he said. \u201cThe poor diagnostic and treatment performance stays on throughout each of the scenarios that they have to deal with over the course of the day, even after lunch, so they just come in at eight in the morning, they finish at four in the afternoon, and this stuff\u2014being distracted by bosses\u2019 or patients\u2019 rude behavior while they are unconsciously trying to assess any possible threat\u2014goes on all through the afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe differences in staff performance pre- and post-rudeness are clear.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Rudeness toward medical staff can lead to more delays and even errors. 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