Monday October 22, 2012
Moving from frustration to fruitfulness
Dr Saw Khay Yong EVERYONE has experienced prolonged and extreme frustration. Leaders don’t wallow in learned helplessness. Here’s how to move from extreme frustration to extraordinary fruitfulness.
Name the plan
1 List everything about the problem that frustrates or perplexes you. You can’t move on to extraordinary fruitfulness before naming the reality.
Dr Saw Khay Yong, an orthopaedic specialist, was unhappy with how far his clinic was from the operating theatre and physiotherapy units. The wait times – for MRI scans, surgery and therapy – were also far apart.
“We were frustrated. There had to be a better way of doing things,” he said.
Fan the passion
2 Ask yourself what you’d love to see. If you had a magic wand, what would you want to see happen? Dr Saw wanted to deliver the ideal patient care.
“We wanted a place where the patient, the doctor, the physiotherapist and the nurse worked together in the same room.”
Form a winning coalition
3 He also wanted to push the boundaries of evidence-based medicine in Malaysia. It was obvious he couldn’t do it alone.
He invited other orthopaedic surgeons – experts in the hand, shoulders, ankles, hips and back – to join him. He collaborated with local and international universities. He shared data and techniques with top doctors who visited the centre.
Integrate medical and management expertise
4 “As a group, you draw strengths from your fellow doctors, nurses and therapists, especially to overcome your weaknesses. We kept our eyes on each other,” Dr Saw said.
That led him to an “aha!” moment. Why not create the same team dynamics at the administrative level as well?
“We practise as a team in our medical work, and we now practise as a team in how we run the administrative aspects of the hospital.”
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