How would you deal with a disagreement among colleagues or a senior fellow as a trainee with our program?
Due to the complexity and differences in cases you will be performing, disagreements requiring outside help are inevitable during your time in Surgical Oncology fellowship 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 immediate colleagues.
"It would depend on the disagreement. If the disagreement was with a senior fellow on a particular case, 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. 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 either a senior fellow on the team or an attending surgeon. If there is a significant and imminent risk of harm to the patient, you should rely on the attending surgeon. 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 as a fellow with their program.
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 am very respectful of the chain of command, it always works for me if I trust the knowledge and the capabilities of my colleagues. If there's a disagreement with a peer or with a senior fellow and there is no immediate urgency, I try to constructively discuss and at the same time I try to find literature that supports my idea, if there's urgency I'll go up in the chain of command to explain my reason.
Jaymie's Feedback
Your answer provides an excellent balance of conflict resolution between you and a peer and also knowing when to escalate a situation. Well done!
Anonymous Answer
These types of disagreements are sometimes inevitable given the complexity of the care we provide, however, when they arise my focus is always on using my communication skills. I would ensure to provide evidence-based reasoning to support my side, recognizing my level of training in comparison to my college and always acknowledging that there is more for me to learn. If we were unable to achieve an agreement that is safe for the patient I would escalate the issue up the chain of command while remaining respectful, professional, and appreciative for the learning opportunity.
Jaymie's Feedback
You did a great job walking the interviewer through your conflict resolution process. You touched on communication, open-mindedness, compromise, problem-solving, and escalation, which are all critical aspects that the interviewer will find valuable in a candidate.
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