The following examples show how bullying, undermining and harassment behaviours may affect the surgical team, compromising patient care.
Having completed a very busy night shift, a Core Trainee is exhausted and struggles to present a patient’s history to the Surgical Registrar’s satisfaction. At the patient’s bedside, the Registrar, who has recently passed their FRCS exam, asks the Core Trainee several questions about the finer points of the relevant evidence base. They cannot answer any of these difficult questions. At the next bedside, the Registrar says to the patient: ‘I’d better ask you what’s been happening, this doctor doesn’t know anything’. Similar comments are made in front of the patients for the rest of the ward round.
The patients may lose confidence in the Core Trainee’s ability as a doctor, and may even communicate this openly to the them. As a result, the doctor–patient relationship has been unnecessarily compromised. The Core Trainee’s confidence is likely to be affected, both by the undermining behaviour of the Registrar and by the patients’ loss of faith in their ability. The Core Trainee may become anxious about doing further post-take ward rounds with this registrar, which may threaten an important learning opportunity. In addition, the Registrar may gain a reputation as someone to be feared. If more junior staff are too anxious to confidently and clearly present important information, then the Registrar’s ability to assess and treat a patient safely may be impeded.
If you have feedback on this campaign or wish to share a personal account of undermining and bullying you have experienced, please contact the College's Bullying and Undermining Group by emailing comms@rcsed.ac.uk.