value your docs is too small.
"Have snacks and coffee. And, yes, buy them lunch. Check in to see
what they want that will fuel them up so they can get through their
day," says Carol Cappella, RN, MSN, CNOR, clinical and administration
director of the Delray Beach (Fla.) Surgery Center.
"I keep a chocolate stash available," says Leslie Mattson, RN, BSHM, a
nurse consultant and CEO of ALM Surgical Solutions. If her docs need
a place to return phone calls, answer e-mail or power-nap between
cases, "I've been known to let them borrow my office and give them
space."
Yes, small gestures matter, like the beautifully wrapped chocolate or
chocolate mint you find on your pillow. Or a big-boy locker stall.
Ms. Sherman's old hospital sent her out to ask 4 surgeons why they'd
left for a competing hospital. One was especially candid, saying he felt
slighted when he didn't get a locker in the new doctor's changing room.
"He left for a bunch of reasons, but the thing he harped on was the
locker room," says Ms. Sherman. "He complained, 'They left me in the
room with the orderlies.'"
Who would have thought? Respecting a surgeon's status and massag-
ing his ego? All in a day's work for surgical facility leaders.
"Each doc is different in his needs and wants," says Ms. Sherman.
"You need to get to know your docs, what they like, what makes them
tick, and do your best to accommodate them and make them feel spe-
cial."
This is not to say your role as Chief Physician Relations Officer is that
of a babysitter for a bunch of pampered egomaniacs. No, your job is to
make your surgeons feel like there's no place else they'd rather be by
whatever means necessary: bagels, block time or the Beatles.
OSM
N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 6 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 9