Welch, Thomas J

Humility is one of the most powerful and sometimes least understood virtues we can possess. It is often misinterpreted as a sign of weakness, especially today, where self-promotion is encouraged and celebrated. Many people view humility as “thinking less of ourselves.” In truth, humility is not thinking less of oneself; rather it is appropriately thinking less about oneself. Our ability as caregivers in putting the needs of the patient at the center of all we do is enhanced through our humility. A steady focus on the needs of the patient helps us gain an honest assessment of both our strengths and limitations. Studies have shown that patient outcomes and experiences are strongly associated with provider humility. This article aims to shine a light on the power of humility and its impact on patient experience, psychological and cultural safety, and the provider-patient relationship.

Background: In response to encounters involving misconduct, discrimination, and harassment toward healthcare workers, the Experience Training, Education, and Coaching (XTEC) team was tasked with empowering staff members to respond to biased requests and misconduct appropriately and consistently. The aim of this article is to discuss communication strategies for how to respond to patient bias and misconduct. Methods: XTEC developed a training program with two focused communication strategies: (1) SAFER, a stepped approach to respond to patient and visitor misconduct and (2) ASAP, an approach for responding to patient bias which we describe as requests related to race, religion, ethnicity, gender, and other personal attributes of staff. Intervention: SAFER ASAP workshops were delivered to 2154 health care professionals through 109 face-to-face training over a 15-month period between January 2019 and March 2020. All trainings were discussion- and scenario-based, ranging in duration from 60 to 90 min. Participants were given pre- and post-training test case scenarios, in which respondents wrote responses to a challenging behavior to assess skill attainment post-training. Results:Seventy-one percent demonstrated higher levels of response ability post-training, and 92% of respondents indicated they would likely recommend this training to others. Conclusions: SAFER ASAP is an effective communication training program for responding to patient and visitor bias and misconduct.