Conflict resolution in a work place In a morning shift at the acute geriatric ward were I work as a registered
nurse, an angry son of a
patient that was hospitalized a few days earlier, as I was on vacation so she was new to me, approached me. He demanded my immediate intervention as the nurse in charge,
telling me that an hour ago, he asked nurse M. to change his
mother''s wet diaper but no one came to do it. Calmly I told him that I would look into it and give him an answer. Nurse M was on break, sitting in the staff''s dinning room, I went over to her telling her what was just said to me by the son, she in return she told me that she checked the patient and found the diaper clean. At that moment the son broke into the room (seems he followed me eavesdropping to our conversation) shouting at nurse M. calling her a lair since she did not enter his mother''s room and there for never checked on her. Nurse M was rude and unprofessional as she shouted back trying to convince him that she did check on his mother and telling him that he is the lair. Now I was in a middle of a
Conflict facing a the dilemma whom should I back up, nurse M that I work with for a few years and never known her to be a lair, or the family member of a patient that I do not know, but "is always right". Anger started to build up in me, especially at nurse M. who should have known better not to raise her voice at a family member of a patient. Being the nurse in charge at that moment, I first had to quiet things down. I politely asked the son to leave the room and let me solve the problem, as I did not want to speak to the nurse in front of him. At first, he did not cooperate but then agreed to step outside the room. Checking that he really left the area, I confronted nurse M. telling her that I was disappointed at the way she acted, that it was not a professional behavior. Nurse M. as an explanation, told me that it is not the first time that, this family member had a conflict with the staff and that she thinks it is a part of his character. Doubts started to build up in me. Something in the way the nurse acted toward that man gave me the feeling that maybe there is a reason for the way he acted. Since I was the nurse in charge and I wanted to settle the problem, I assured her that I believe her but in the same time reminded her that it is very problematic to find a common language with a difficult patient and an unwilling family. I implored her to check again, she was not too happy about it but checked and found out that the diaper needed to be changed and did it. She came back and reported it to me, now new questions arose in my mind. Could it be that the son encountered this behavior before? Could it be that my coworkers do not fulfill their duty? The son of the patient had threatened to report that nurse to the nursing administration, I found myself understanding his point of view but was happy that he changed his mind later on and reported it to the head nurse of the ward. Knowing my head nurse of the ward, I expected that a staff meeting would be held to discuses the event. As I had foreseen, a staff meeting was held a few days later. The case was brought up in general not mentioning who was participating at the event. At the meeting I asked the question that bothered me since that day. I asked the staff if it could be that the son reacted the way he did because he encountered in the past or even in the last days that the staff did not treat his mother, as they should have. We analyzed the case, not to punish the nurse but to learn how to prevent conflicts like the one here in the future and when it''s inevitable to enter one – to know how to solve it quickly and professionally.