Positive experience

I have written before about patients who complain and how they tend to be demonised rather than learnt from. Writing these articles could be described as cushy; I sit in my ivory tower, writing about issues I think are interesting, I can pontificate in comfort about my opinion and how I would deal with a situation. Well I thought I would share my experience where my ivory tower crumbled leaving me very clearly in the firing line.

I sat there in the surgery, my stomach fluttering in a way it hasn’t done since my school days when I would be told off for some misdemeanour or indiscretion. As the door opened and the patient strode in, I felt what can only be described as panic, as if the sword of Damocles poised above my head had finally dropped; this was the patient who was about to complain.

Before I carry on with the story I began with, I thought I might share a bit of background as to my view with dealing with those who have a grievance with me. As a boy at school going through the awkward phase of being angry with the world, if I was pushed I would push back just as hard. It wasn’t till the age of 15, whilst on a family holiday to Scotland that I learnt a different way. My father, a quiet man, had taken us on a hike that followed the old railway line between Peebles and Edinburgh. We had lost the line temporarily and the ordinance survey promised that we would find it once again after traversing one of the area’s many fields. Halfway through the pasture an old man appeared shaking his fist and cursing, he was shouting irately for us to get off his land.