Dealing with Doctors

In my present role with my organization, I interact a lot with the Doctors. All of them are Post Graduate specialists. I have always had deep regards for Doctors because I feel that their field of work involves rising above self and helping the mankind by curing diseases. But off late, this belief of mine has started weakening. Over the last one year there have been numerous instances which have caused.

I have experienced them to be extremely money minded. This is still acceptable because in today's world who isn't. But then they will still keep on glorifying themselves and their profession. Give me a break!!! Either you decide that you are God's gift to mankind or you run after money.

They do not have the basic etiquette. Calling someone at 10pm on a Saturday, just to check if you can go on leave 5 days later, is a torture. Most of them will call on Sunday afternoon to tell you that They have received Rs 500 less in their salary. Agreed that these things are important, but you were taught to read time on the watch in primary school. These can certainly wait one more day. Worst was one doctor who kept on arguing for increase in salary because he has done his MBBS, MD and studied hard to clear Pre-medical Test. I got so irritated that I had to tell him that look dude if you have slogged for PMT then I have studied equally hard, if not more, to clear Pre-engineering Test and MBA entrance exams. And, believe you me, I was not at all kind while explaining this to me.

Some where I feel that when these Doctors are studying, their exposure is only to the hospitals, where they are interacting with patients. But these days most of them chose to work in private sector medical set-ups and hospitals, and are not aware of the corporate culture. I strongly feel that even medical education should incorporate communication skills and basic management skills in their curriculum. At least e-mail etiquette are a must. Even if these Doctors have their own clinics, they need to have sense of managing things and Hospital Management programmes are the key.

Whether this happens with others or not, I am not sure. But for me this exposure has been an eye-opener. Still have a long way to go...

E- etiquette wise

Yesterday evening I read an email sent by a very senior manager in the company and looking at the way it was composed and formatted I was shocked. How can people be so ignorant as to use caps and red colour for a very simple sentence?? So, that set me to search material on Email Etiquettes on the www. I did hit upon some very informative pieces.

I must confess here that as a part of my job I send very informal mails to team members using wierd colours/fonts/images, and some of them are toooooo wierd to even think that they can be official! Well, jokes apart, formal mails call for following some basic rules nad norms. And here I was gathering information to educate people in my organization, which believe me is a very tough job. All managers think that they are know-alls! So, the information had to be convincing and yet not rude.

Some of the useful pieces I came across were by The Crabby Lady, at Amit Agarwal's Blog and a presentation by Himanshu posted on CiteHR

I did compile my own list of Do's and Do Not's and circulated the same. But, all that while I was wondering how tiny things overlooked can annoy others. Someone once said to me, "Most literate people are not educated". I could not help but relate the situation with those words. Making old economy or even current tech savvy generations computer literate does not essentially mean that they are now gurus of the e-world.

I have come across old men with laptops who do not even know how to set 'Print Area' in a worksheet! And these are the people who make strategies in the board rooms and play with data!!! I donot mean to be rude here but the computer institutes that have sprung up like mushrooms must also stress on this.

This research on Email Etiquettes has made me look at every email I come across with a raised brow. Well, as for my team members hope they do put the info to some use.