Being Patient with Patient’s

In the health care business, we have the opportunity to see all kinds of people.  Having patience with people is a skill that anyone working in the health care field should utilize to the best of their advantage.  Basic patience with all types of people comes naturally to some while it can be a struggle for others.  Impatience with patients in the health care field can be detrimental to a health care facility.  It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one bad experience.

A way to learn from your impatience can be to figure out what triggers your impatience.  Are you hungry?  Thirsty?  Do you feel you are not being heard?  Analyze a time in which you were impatient.  Figure out what triggers you and then find the best way to improve your patience skills. You can practice slowing down, taking a deep breath and thinking before you say something that is not professional.  Most of the time, people around you can see when you are getting impatient and can help you figure out what triggered it.  Utilizing your family, friends and co-workers can help improve any possible impatience you have at home or in a professional setting.  Patience can come across as passive when it actually necessary form of self-discipline.  

In an ever changing health care field, it is absolutely necessary to be patient with patient’s.  It in inevitable that you will run across personalities that do not mesh with your own.  It is also inevitable that you will have to work with patient’s who do not hold the same core values that you do.  We have the power in ourselves to try and prevent impatience with our patient’s in order to maximize business potential.  Next time you feel yourself getting impatient with a patient, stop and think about what you can do within yourself to make the experience positive for you and your patient.

Nicki Dochniak, CCS
Physical Therapy Consultants