Healthy Thinking by Tom Mulholland

Author:Tom Mulholland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: tom, mulholland, healthy thinking
Publisher: Tom Mulholland

Chapter 8

Select your attitude

Selecting the right attitude is crucial to achieving success.

For a while I was working in a very busy medical practice. I would have to see sometimes 50 patients per day. Sometimes driving to the office was tiring, thinking about how busy I would be. Sometimes I had only five minutes per patient — not long enough to do a good job. I prefer to see 30 patients in the same amount of time. That way I have more time to communicate and do a better job.

I could have stressed about the day ahead and tell myself and everyone else I didn’t like the job. I chose instead to try and enjoy myself as much as possible, and to do the best job possible until we could employ an extra doctor to cover the workload. I would laugh and focus on making everyone’s life better, even though I had such a short time with each patient. I took each patient one by one and didn’t think about the ones before or the many in the waiting room.

My attitude pulled me through many months of this. However, I decided it was becoming unsafe to see so many patients in one day. As it was a rush and there was a great demand, it would be easy to miss something. For example, I would ask patients if they had anything wrong with their bowel motions. If they said no, then I would move on to another question.

In another clinic with a more manageable workload, I had once asked the same question. When the patient said no, I had asked about going more often than usual. ‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ came the reply. On further questioning I found that the motions seemed to be very dark and like tar — symptoms that can be an indicator of bowel cancer.

I decided that it was too easy to not ‘get to the bottom of things’ when I had only five minutes. My goal was to deliver quality medicine. I needed to change my attitude and behavior to achieve that goal. After meeting with the management of the clinic I decided to leave on safety grounds, among others.

Having been the medical director of a large, busy clinic I have always believed in being positive with patients. I have tried to teach the doctors and other staff to treat everyone as important and to enjoy it. You can have fun at work. It is more rewarding and offers more opportunities. Unhealthy emotions, attitudes and behaviors are damaging in any workplace. Not only does productivity drop off, customers are more likely to complain.

Healthy Thinking takes practice. Even after writing this book I had to remember to select another attitude today, to make work fun for everyone, even the sick.

Once you have identified your goal you need to identify the attitude needed to achieve that goal. It will not always be plain sailing. If you aren’t getting the results you want, you could choose one of a number of alternative attitudes.

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