Patient Satisfaction Introduction

I became interested in the psychology of patient satisfaction many years ago and wrote a patient satisfaction article which was published by CEP in Inside Track and by EMN maybe 8? years ago. The patient satisfaction piece led me to “work backwards” to explain how one can be an ER doc who delivers patient satisfaction and how this connects to avoiding burnout.That was the genesis of the article and is something I have been working on periodically for many years as I have learned more. It is what I learned from handling my own burnout and I hope it can be of some general help. I presented it to Lisa Hoffman of EMN at ACEP and she decided to publish it.

I was a psychology minor in college and remain intensely interested in psychology and especially cognitive psychology. Experiences include being an Episcopalian Altar Boy, attending trainings or workshops with Albert Ellis for cognitive psychology, Jon Kabat Zinn for Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, The Course in Miracles for understanding more about perception and compassion, Buddhism study for compassion and peacefulness among others, and Ken Keyes Training about consciousness and perception (Handbook to Higher Consciousness). Ken Keyes was a fascinating individual and one of my favorite teachers- a wheelchair bound cognitive psychologist who developed The Science of Happiness to deal with his own polio. He’s deceased and unknown but there is a website  with information and a wikipedia page.

Blink obviously summarized some of the patient satisfaction issues and scenarios but Verbal Judo the Gentle Art of Persuasion really allowed me to “get it” about the psychology in the patient’s room and how you can control the situation in a positive fashion with some simple approaches. This book was fascinating because it was written by a police officer who was also a psychologist and a martial artist and was all about handling things calmly and non-violently.

James (Mac) Larson