How would you deal with a disagreement among resident colleagues or senior residents as an Internal Medicine Resident?
Disagreements requiring outside help are inevitable during your time in Internal Medicine Residency Training. Your team of interviewers wants to know that you would join their program with the ability to be respectful and diplomatic when you face a disagreement with your resident colleagues.
"It would depend on the disagreement. If the disagreement was with my senior, 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 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 disagreement with your senior, you should go to the chief resident. 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.
"Most conflicts often center around breakdowns in communication. Oftentimes a conflict can be resolved by better listening to the person's concerns and hearing them out."
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
I would try to resolve the conflict with my coworker without involving our attendings as responsible and mature adults. I would assess my own actions to see if I was saying or doing anything that was causing the conflict to occur. I would then sit down with my co-worker in private to find out how they felt about the conflict and to try and establish its cause. Finally, I would work hard with my co-worker to find an amicable way forward that stopped the conflict and that was in the best interests of the team.
Marcie's Feedback
Great! It sounds like you have a good process in place for dealing with and resolving conflict. The interviewer will agree with your idea to meet privately with your coworker to discuss the issue and develop an action plan. To further strengthen your answer, can you talk about a time when you successfully resolved a conflict with someone else? This will prove to the interviewer that you're capable in this area. Good job!
Anonymous Answer
1. I would calmly speak to my fellow resident to try to understand their point of view. I would express my side of things and where I felt I may perhaps have been treated poorly (if that is the case). I would bring it to a senior supervisor, a coordinator, or my APD, PD (whatever the chain of command of protocol is for the institution) if there is no resolution. If the disagreement affects the well-being of a patient, I would bring it to an attending or PD for resolution.
Marcie's Feedback
Staying calm, trying to understand the other person's perspective, expressing your opinion, and talking to a supervisor are all great ways to handle a disagreement with another resident. You might also mention being an active listener who asks questions and repeats back key points to confirm them. Also, developing an action plan to resolve the issue and following through on this plan is important, as is meeting with the other resident in a private location to talk. Build out your answer with additional ways you'd handle this, as well as an example of a time when you successfully resolved a conflict if possible. Good job!
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