One Major Lesson From This Weekend

Heads up. I'm gonna break a big rule today. I'm gonna bring religion into this video, but it's not what you think. And if you're not religious and you're an atheist and you're about to hit stop, bear with me. So why do I want to do this? Well, I'm thinking a lot today about the seminar that I just did this weekend with Owain Evans. And we got together, first live seminar in four years. And we talked a lot. We had a really cool group of people. We talked a lot about patient centered care, communication, case management. Did some adjusting practicals as well. Really good fun, really loved it. Great crowd of attendees as well. I tend to find that it's not something to flatter people, but generally only cool people tend to come to my seminars because if they're the people I don't like, I've usually put them off early. And this was no exception. It was great, great fun. And I was thinking today about like, what are some of the, like, common themes? What are some of the lessons we learned, some of the stuff that I could like distill and share with you here. And I was thinking of a few things and then suddenly this prayer popped into my head that my wife shared with me a long time ago. And you don't have to be religious to see the wisdom in this. You don't have to use it as a prayer. It's been used by many other groups. Even things like AA have used this. And it's called the Prayer for Serenity or the Serenity Prayer. And it basically says, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. So what's that got to do with chiropractic? Well, the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, I think is something that many of us struggle with because many things about a patient's life we can't change. We can't change, you know, the amount of time that they have to come and see us. We can't change their situation they come from. We can't change the problems we have. We can't change their financial situation. And because of that, what we often do is we change the plan to under treat them. That's not courage, that's actually, that's Dr. Centered. That's putting our own worries about money, our own fears, our own insecurities onto the patient. Not going to bang on about that today because I've talked about that in other videos, but it's something that we all do. And it's something that everybody at that seminar, myself and Owen included, could put our hands up and say we've done at some point. You know, I said, raise your hand if you've over treated patients. No hands went up. Raise your hand if you've ever undertreated patients. Everybody's hands went up there. So that does happen quite often. But what we need to do is be wise and know the difference as to what are the things we can change, what are the things we can't and the things we can't. We should just be able to accept them. And one way this comes up a lot is when we are giving our recommendations, where we're giving our report of findings. We can do the best job we can and you know, be brave and recommend what we think is the best plan for them. That doesn't factor in finances. We can offer that to them. So we're not selling it, we're not trying to convince them, but we can offer it as an option. We can, you know, be brave and have the courage to improve the way we deliver that. We could maybe practice it, we could role play with a colleague. That takes a bit of courage because it's a bit awkward, but that really helps. We could go and learn how to improve our communication skills. Many, many things that we could do, but we cannot change the patient situation. And once we've done all we can, we can't necessarily change what their choice is going to be. So I think about this a lot in terms of what our job is during the report of findings. My job as far as I'm concerned, is to give information. I have done a lot of work in the initial consultation, the history to find out who's this person in front of me, what's their problem, what are their symptoms, you know, what's the technical diagnosis, what are their goals, what are their hopes, their dreams, their fears, their aspirations? What emotional impact is this having? What do they want more than anything else? What has been taken from them because of this problem? Where are they in their story circle and hero's journey, which is some things we took a deep dive on as well, found out all that stuff. So now I really know who they are and then I'm going to use my expert knowledge and my assessment and my exam findings to really work out, okay, where is the obstacle here? What hurdle do we have to get them over? And then I'm going to synthesize that to create a plan. And this plan should be the best possible plan to get them better. Once I've created that, however many visits I'm going to recommend and whether I'm going to incorporate other things as well, you know, you create your own plan, but the best one, the one that you would give to, you know, your own mother, then it's simply to offer it because that's all we ever do. I find that convincing. Persuading cajoling patients, it doesn't feel good, feels icky, it doesn't work very well as well. And it's kind of like a lose, lose thing. They don't like the experience. I don't like doing it either. So now I've taken the easy way out. I just offer it and I just say, this is the best possible plan that I can offer. And then I accept their response. Their response may be, great, let's do it. It may be, oh, I can't do that. Now, where many of us go wrong is that we, first of all, we under treat. And I'm not going to talk about that here because I've talked about that before, but we under recommend care because of our own insecurities, which is understandable, but Dr. Centered, I'm not judging because I did that for years. But if we don't under treat like that, we then create the plan and then we, we try to convince the patient, we try to get them to change their mind. If they don't agree with it, I now don't do that anymore. If they can't do plan A, I've got a plan B in mind. I go, okay, well, here's plan B. Plan B will involve this. It will probably take us longer or whatever it might be. There's a cost to it. This is why it wasn't plan A, because it's not as good. But it factors in maybe the fact that their financial situation, they can't make it to you that often or whatever it might be. So I'm going to offer them that. If that doesn't work, I might even have a plan C that I can offer. But my job is to just offer information, just provide it for them and allow them to make the right choice for them and then to have the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, which is their decision. Once they've done that and they've decided plan A, plan B, plan C, whatever, then my job becomes, well, let's deliver the best possible version of that I can. Yeah. And if I have to make some changes to accommodate for that, that may take a little bit of courage to change the things I can, but it's really key, I think, to have the wisdom to know the difference. What are the things you can change? What are the things you can't? There are many, many factors, and I would say most of the factors in your patient's recovery are outside of your control. You cannot change them. You can maybe nudge and influence some of them. We have direct control over the treatment, but we can't change a lot of what's going on in their life. And if we can accept those things, then firstly, it's a lot easier for us. It's a lot less time getting stressed out and frustrated at things that we can't even affect. That puts us in a passive state. That tends to create a lot more fear, frustration, resentment, all the stuff that leads to burnout generally. But not only that, we then, by seeming calmer and more accepting, actually the patient has a lot more confidence in us because we're not trying to, like, change them. We're accepting who they are and just saying, okay, well, if you can't do that, here's the next plan. And I find that in a little sort of like, Zen, try not to try kind of way, that often means they tend to follow our advice better as well. So it's a win win. So if you are struggling with repeated frustrations with patients, I would encourage you to have a look and go, is this something you can change or not? Try to ascertain. Have the wisdom to go, can I change this or can I not change it? If you can change it, have the courage to try something. Have the courage to try something new. It may be something you're not comfortable with, maybe something you haven't done before. Give it a try. Be a little bit brave and push the boat out there because you may well find it leads to growth, and it works better if you can't change it. Practice serenity. Just accept, okay, I cannot change this. This is outside of my control. And by trying to change it or putting a lot of energy into frustration and resentment, I'm probably going to be burning up emotional calories I could be using to better connect with the next patient. So have a look at that. You don't have to pray. Don't worry if you're not religious. If you are, great, go for it. Use it however you want. But think about that. The wisdom to notice whether you can change this or you can't. Can you accept it or do you have the courage to change? So have a little think about that and I'll see you soon for another video. Take care.