Why Feedback Matters in Medicine
What is feedback? Feedback is information sent to the person, or team, about its prior behavior so it can adjust its future behavior.
It’s not about the past - its about being better in the future
It can be positive OR negative (although we often view it negative)
Giving feedback = having an effective team, building relationships, developing trust
Radical Candor
Awesome book by Kim Scott (link here)
Care personally, challenge directly; really interesting in medicine. The average medicine group either falls under obnoxious aggression or ruinous empathy category
How to Give Feedback
DON’T give the S***t sandwich (open or closed faced)
Rather than this, you should:
Use a simple phrase - “Can I give you some feedback?” If they say no, DON’T give them feedback
Tell them the behavior
Describe the impact of the behavior; key words to try - “Heres what happens”
Discuss next steps; what can they do differently next time?
Example: “When you keep making jokes about my driving, it makes me feel like you can’t find a new joke. in the future, I think you should find a different joke to make on this podcast”
Strategies for Giving Effective Feedback
<7 days from incident; don’t wait until yearly evals
“As soon as its practical”
They will react the first 50 times you do it- why? because poor feedback in the past
Consider hot vs cold debriefs
How should i start giving feedback?
start with positive feedback only for 6-8 weeks, then transition to small negatives; as you build trust with teammates can do harder feedback
how often should you give feedback
Business research says in a 5:1 ratio (5 positives for every 1 negative)
Start at once daily then slowly increase
Barriers to feedback
Ego - remember that we are all fallible, and our worth isn’t solely in our job. Being bad at a central line does not mean bad at your entire job
Perceived Power Gradients - people who are up the perceived power gradient will take longer to build trust with; try to be open to feedback to
Timing - you may not see people often enough to give them “cold feedback” (e.g. far from the event), you want to re-consider calling someone after night shift
Receiving Feedback with Openness and Growth
Number one thing: ask for feedback yourself
ask for specific behavior based suggestions
state facts but don’t over explain yourself; appears defensive
“What can I do differently next time?”
Attributions
“Endless Rivers”, “Drowning in Air”, “Campfire”, “Cake”, “Blessed Time”, and “New Soul” by Ketsa is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0/ Songs have been cropped in length from original form
