Conflict In Health Care

Conflict among health care workers is common and has been associated with lack of collaboration, communication and disruptive behavior with the potential to have a negative impact on teamwork (Kim, Nicotera, & McNulty, 2015).

A recent conflict that I have observed at work about few days ago was between one of my coworker, a staff member and a surgeon. The staff member arrived for the night shift and took report from the day shift nurse, who had a rough day at work. She noticed that the patient had a bowel surgery four days ago and is still on patient controlled analgesia (PCA). The patient was found very much dependent on PCA, reluctant to ambulate and his bowels were still inactive, above all, the order was not been renewed as per the policy

The charge nurse called the surgeon after the incident and tried to convince him that the dayshift was overloaded because of staff shortage and even apologized for the late notice. The charge nurse initially tried to use a compromise style of conflict handling mode, but on the other hand the surgeon was continuing with his competition style, win-lose approach to conflict. A dominating or competing person goes all out to win his or her objective and as a result, often ignores the concerns and expectations of other party (Borkowski, 2009). The charge nurse got frustrated by the surgeon’s inappropriate behavior through the phone and decided to end up the conversation ignoring his concerns, at the same time demanding a specific answer to their question. Here the charge nurse switched from compromise style to avoidance style of conflict handling mode. The incident was reported to the director next morning and the director arranged a meeting with all the members involved. The surgeon appeared reluctant in the beginning, and then agreed to meet all the members involved behind the closed doors. During their meeting they exchanged their concerns, expressed their thoughts and perceptions and even surgeon apologized for his inappropriate behavior. The nurse director used collaboration style of conflict handling mode, which involves openness, exchange of information and examination of differences to reach an effective solution acceptable to all parties involved (Borkowski,