Communications training

Attended a one-day training on communications yesterday. Guess it is one of the management's plans to improve nursing communications. This course was deemed important enough that all SNs and above must attend and is conducted by the DON, the ADONs, an NO handling PR, a consultant doctor, and a nurse educator (of course!).

The consultant doctor had a wonderful sense of humour. He made several important points which I felt should be given stronger emphasis.

1. People generally fall into a bell curve. We meet the extraordinary nice and extraordinary nasty ones, be it patients, doctors and even colleagues. Try not to let the few extraordinary nasty people take over the bulk of our nursing experience/memories.
2. People are the way they are, most often after years of upbringing. It is pointless to change others who are not interested to change. It is more productive to change ourselves to learn to handle others. [Edit: If this area was explored further, we could delve into the different personality types and how to work in synergy. Hmm, I forgot to add that into the course feedback. Then again, I have already given my 2 cents worth in course feedback as usual.]

At the end of the training, the DON requested us to write what we would do if we were "DON for a day". I wrote down 3 urgent and important ideas. I had more ideas but did not write them down because I quickly filled up a page while others were struggling to write any comment. Anyway, there will be opportunities to bring up further ideas in future.

From the discussions during training, it looks like the management is serious about changing the corporate culture to improve its support for nurses. However, one has to see what actually happens in a crisis/incident, when support is needed most.