Internet CME Course: MedPEP, the Medical Professionals Empowerment Program MedPEP) – Episode 10: Conflict Management

Activity ID

2950

Expires

January 24, 2025

Format Type

Internet

CME Credit

1.0

Fee

$0

CME Provider: Massachusetts Medical Society

Description of CME Course

MedPEP, the Medical Professionals Empowerment Program, is a Free podcast series jointly provided by Physician Health Services, Inc. (PHS) and the Massachusetts Medical Society.  PHS is a charitable organization dedicated to improving the health, well-being and effectiveness of physicians and medical students.

Regulations, technology, organizational complexity, and the explosion of medical knowledge have created a perfect storm for most practicing health professionals. Physician burnout rates now exceed 50%. MedPEP’s star, Dr. Marie Curious, is a young, primary care internist who has started to fantasize about leaving the profession that she loves. On her MedPEP journey, Marie joins Dr. Les Schwab and a group of specialized physicians, coaches, and other experts, who offer a broad range of practical techniques to help her survive and thrive in today’s tough medical environment. The territory they cover includes nutrition, exercise, getting along with difficult colleagues, dealing with bureaucracy and bosses, multi-tasking, system improvement, meditation, and addiction. The MedPEP journey helps Marie, and other health professionals facing similar challenges, gain insight into practical methods for empowering themselves as well as their teams, employers, and the broken system.

Marie and professionalism expert Jo Shapiro, MD, have a deep conversation about resolving interpersonal conflicts that come up on medical teams and at different levels of health care organizations. Dr. Shapiro, a surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, directs the Center for Professionalism and Peer Support there. She believes that conflict in medical settings is inevitable and may be healthy when it allows for a respectful synthesis of multiple perspectives. Dr. Shapiro helps Marie unpack and process her negative feelings about a colleague who at times comes across as overly demanding. They consider this situation from the perspective of both Marie and her colleague, and they embrace the assumption that all team members are trying to do their best. They discuss providing colleagues with behavioral feedback that is both positive and critical, and how tricky it is when others are not aware of how they come across. A careful approach that is helpful, respectful, and tactful is called for. Such discussions should center on observational data, whenever possible, and antagonism should be avoided. When such attempts to iron out interpersonal complexity do not go well, one should promptly obtain help from those with the skill to ameliorate situations of this kind.

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