Why do so many Americans watch sporting events when one team is favored highly over the other? We love the possibility of an upset. Upsets occur for many reasons including a highly favored team mentally believing they are “untouchable” and that winning is close to automatic. The same applies in optometry and can lead to poor patient care and in some instances negative litigation. The best care a patient can receive is from an optometrist that is confident in what they know and aware of what they don’t know. Here are questions to help yourself to do a self assessment to determine, confident or conceited?
- Do you hesitate to review cases that are “easy” and have always been the same?
- If it has been 5 years or more since you graduated optometry school then there is a good chance that things have changed. Consider reviewing the basics to ensure a strong foundation.
- When is the last time that you called a surgeon to discuss complications in patient care?
- Too often we let our pride get in the way of asking questions to ensure our thinking remains in line with the surgeon that you utilize. It is always a good idea to keep good lines of communication open with your referrals. Ophthalmologists are people too, and people are not perfect. A good working relationship has an optometrist and ophthalmologist acknowledging cases post-op and are each willing to admit they don’t always know what is going on.
- Are you unwilling to meet with peers or outside coding/billing experts to do chart reviews?
- When was the last time that your charts were reviewed by another party? The longer that you practice the more intimidating it can be to admit that you may not do a good job charting. With the advent of electronic medical records optometrists can assume that charting is good and coding/billing is correct. Do not shy away from a friendly audit as it will make you a better optometrist.
- Do you blame yourself for unhappy patients or is it always someone else’s fault?
- It is easy to explain away the unhappy patient as your staff’s fault or blaming the patient who did not listen and therefore has problems. Many problems arise from poor leadership or poor communication, both of which the optometrist is responsible for. When patients are unhappy, do you take the time to reflect on what you, the optometrist, could have done differently?
The result of routinely asking yourself hard questions leads to a confident optometrist. Having all the answers or getting patient care right all the time does not define a confident optometrist. A confident optometrist lives in the reality that he or she is not perfect nor will ever obtain perfection. Optometrists who continue to strive to be better for the sake of giving better patient care are the ones that do not find themselves in a position where they can’t ask colleagues questions because they have been so conceited for so long. Conceit is a place of loneliness and ultimately leads to poor patient care. Be confident in knowing that smart, wise optometrists are continually asking the hard questions.
