How would you deal with a disagreement among colleagues or senior fellows as a trainee with our program?
Disagreements that require help from faculty or senior fellows are inevitable for Critical Care fellows during their training. Your team of interviewers wants to know that you can be respectful and diplomatic when you face a disagreement with your immediate colleagues.
"It would depend on the disagreement. If the disagreement was with a senior fellow, I would defer to their opinion as they have more experience than I do. However, if I was concerned that they were making the wrong decision regarding patient care or providing subpar patient care, I wouldn't hesitate to discuss it with them respectfully. If necessary, I would go to the chief resident. For more serious issues, such as ignoring patient care responsibilities, I would go directly to the attending physician because these actions, or inactions, would be done under the umbrella of the attending's medical license."
For a colleague disagreement, you should go to your senior on the team. For conflicts with your senior, you should go to the chief fellow. If there is a significant and imminent risk of harm to the patient, you should go to the attending physician. Walk your interviewers through how you would first try to handle the disagreement among yourselves and then take it up the chain of command as necessary.
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Anonymous Answer
Situation dependant
- if conflict is due to a difference of opinion then generally it is important to respect seniority due to experience, further learning, etc.
- if I believe that the decision is incorrect and will jeopardize patient safety, escalate concerns within the team respectfully
- if conflict due to attitude/work ethic problem - informally discuss with the person involved, then formally discuss, then escalate.
Jaymie's Feedback
It sounds like you are professionally mature and know when to address a disagreement with a colleague directly and when to escalate. Nice job!
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