Nice Goes a Long Way

A fire department lieutenant said that there was a study about which types of doctors got sued the least. Turns out, it wasn’t the “good” or most capable doctors (although that’s kinda handy). The factors that played the biggest role in the doctor getting sued by their patients were:

Communication.
Care.

What are the two most important things you can do for your clients?

The doctors who communicated with their patients and cared about them were sued the least. So what are they really doing? They’re making it personal, they’re making a connection and they’re building a relationship with another person. Put extremely simply, you’re not going to sue someone as quickly if you know them as people and if you’re better informed.

Suing is the extreme. How about just the case for happy, satisfied, or even not-unhappy clients? Communicate and care.

Background: I’m taking a NERT training to be part of a disaster response team for my city. The fire department talk tonight was talking about disaster treatment and what do we do, as non-medical personnel, with victims who need help and we just can’t provide it. She talked about just how important it was to communicate with them and care about them. That was the most important thing we could do with the resources we had on hand. When someone asked the question, she smiled and said, “You’d be surprised. Nice goes a long way.”