Issue 14 - October 2004

Professional Ethics
What’s in a name?
By Angelica Redleaf, DC

Each of us has many opportunities throughout our day, as well as throughout our professional career, to either speak well of our colleagues — or not. Our reputation is directly linked to our name. When a colleague uses our name in a disrespectful manner, it tarnishes our reputation — and our livelihood.

The Golden Rule says, “Do unto others as we would have them do unto us.” If we all let this rule guide our lives (and our lips), we might elevate our profession to a higher level.

Here are a few situations you may have found yourself in along with some suggested ways of handling them. You may have developed your own way of handling such situations. (Please let us know what they are.)

Situation 1 — Party talk. You are at a party. The person you are talking to finds out you are a chiropractor. She tells you that she is a patient of a chiropractor you know. Then she asks, “Do you know Dr. X? Is he a good chiropractor?”

What would you say?

Suggested solution: If it is true, a wise answer would be: “I have never had him work on me, so I have no personal experience. But I hear good things about him.”

If you have had the doctor in question adjust you, say, “He has adjusted me and I have full confidence in him.”

To leave the “door open” for the person to come to you in the future, you might consider saying, “If you need chiropractic care in my neighborhood, I am located at …”

Situation 2 — More convenient chiropractor. One of your patients tells you that Dr. Y’s office is closer to his home than your office and he is thinking about leaving you for Dr. Y for the sake of convenience. What do you say?

Suggested solution: Encourage your patients to do what is best for them and don’t try to make them feel guilty. And never speak negatively about the other chiropractor.

Consider saying, “I will miss you as a patient but I understand the importance of convenience. You know you are always welcome here.”

I had this very thing happen with a maintenance patient. She ended up coming back and nothing was ever mentioned about her defection.

Situation 3 — Eager referral. You run into an acquaintance and she tells you that her aunt goes to Dr. A for chiropractic care, but she wants her aunt to go to you. How do you handle this situation?

Suggested solution: Consider saying, “I appreciate your wanting your aunt to come to me, but she must make her own decision about where she goes for care. That decision is based on information that she has gathered and it would be wise to respect that decision rather than cause her to doubt her choice. The healing process may be affected by trust and faith.”

Situation 4 — Bad talk. A colleague speaks negatively about you and you hear about it. What do you say and do?

Suggested solution: Depending upon what the colleague supposedly said, consider calling to ask if it is true. If the colleague says it is not, then let the situation alone.

At least now he (or she) knows that you are aware and perhaps will not repeat himself.

If the person admits to making the statement, ask him to refrain from doing so in the future.

Situation 5 — Juicy gossip. You have some “juicy” information about a colleague that would be very interesting for others to know. Do you hold back, knowing that you would not want such information spread about you? Or, do you just blurt the information so that you can be the one in the know and gain some points for knowing the information first?

Suggested solution: Before you say anything, keep in mind that every story has two sides and you may or may not have all the pertinent facts.

Also, consider the damage that could be done to the colleague by spreading such information.

The best decision may be to keep the information to yourself. Isn’t that what you would want done for you?

Angelica Redleaf, DC, has been in practice in Providence, R.I., since 1978. She is the author of Behind Closed Doors: Gender, Sexuality & Touch in the Doctor/Patient Relationship (1998) and is an instructor on boundary training for ChiroEcoCE.com. She welcomes questions that may be appropriate to answer in this column. She can be contacted at angelchiro@aol.com.