Turn Conflict to Opportunity and Get Back to Medicine
A Program for Physicians Who Want to Master Turning Workplace Conflict to Opportunities to Honor the Individual, Foresee Professional Successes, Maximize Team Functioning, and Reclaim Their Focus on the Art of Medicine.
Who Am I?
I am a passionate physician who has worked tirelessly on the front lines caring for patients since 2000. Throughout my career, I have seen changes that have degraded physician autonomy and have negatively impacted our outlook. Health system culture changes and operational pressures have forced physicians to alter how they are practicing medicine, ultimately impacting our ability to focus on patient care. I have concerns regarding the sustainability of the profession and want to help.
Having been through conflict myself in my medical career, I have experienced too many situations in which little attention was paid to consistency and process. A lack of process and transparency can lead to the perception of unsatisfactory outcomes for many practitioners when facing conflict. Seeing this lack of process first hand drove me into leadership, hoping to impact change and to support physicians facing issues in their practices.
The formal leadership journey that I embarked upon started in 2014 and ended up in my leading a team of 350 physicians through Covid pandemic. During the Covid pandemic, it became apparent that conflict for practitioners and their teams was at an all time high, and little resource was available to support these physicians. Physicians were losing sleep, sacrificing personal relationships, and removing themselves from their workplaces due to a lack of capacity to achieve satisfactory resolution to conflict. I spent 100s of hours coaching colleagues and teams during this time, but still saw a lack of process in the system to deal with physicians’ issues.
It was clear to me in my coaching that physicians are not trained to handle conflict, leadership, or equity and inclusion. I undertook over 2 years of intense education to become a respected advocate and teacher in these areas. As society entered summer 2022, and the new generation of the pandemic met us, I made a goal to ensure that practitioners have the skills to create professional success out of conflict. These skills can support practitioners to once again love their careers by freeing time to focus on the field of medicine that they strove so hard to enter.
Dr. Brisebois now uses her influence in high level leadership positions to advocate for physician integration into our health systems. Ultimately the understanding of our complex systems will lead physicians to the mastery of turning conflict to opportunity. Physicians will then be free to get back to medicine.
Dr. Brisebois is a certified Wellness and Executive Coach (with specialization in healthcare in process), a General Internal Medicine and Palliative Medicine Specialist, as well as having extensive training in conflict, negotiation, mediation, equity, diversity and inclusion. She has served as the Medical Director for a large 290 bed hospital, the Medical Director of the Covenant Palliative Care Institute, as well as an Associate Chief Medical Officer of Covenant Health. She is completing her Masters of International Health Leadership through McGill University and has trained at multiple world renowned organizations including the Mayo Clinic, Berkeley, Oxford, UBC, and the Justice Institute of British Columbia. Her leadership specialty is helping practitioners and teams find success through conflict, and learn from these successes to create happier, more efficient and more effective healthcare teams. She has spoken at many international events, and she is a published author in her fields of expertise.
About My Program
Who It Is For?
- If you are a physician struggling with a conflict, your job will become significantly better without the conflict, and you hope to become a master of the step wise process to turning conflict into opportunity, professional and team success, this program is for you!
- Practitioners who wish to learn how to negotiate and communicate during conflict resolution meetings, recognize conflict early and create space for collaborative conversations
- Physicians who value delineating how conflict at work integrates with their personal lives to maximize physician, mental, and spiritual wellness
- Physician, non-physician leaders, and trainees, who wish to create space to support collaborative conflict conciliation in the workplace
- Teams and practitioners who wish to work together to ensure conflict does not impact their individual practices and ultimately patient care
Who It Is Not For?
- Physicians who cannot be, or don’t want to be, coached and are not open to change
- Physicians or physician teams who are not all willing to participate fully and invest time into the process
- Physicians and physician teams expecting new results/interventions from litigation or formal organizational processes ongoing
- Physicians and physician teams looking for legal advice
- Physicians and physician teams not willing to listen to all perspectives and not willing to negotiate to optimize operations
RESOLVE YOUR CONFLICT 101
PRE-WORK (OPTIONAL MODULE)
Understanding How We Act in Conflict
Outcome
- Identify your conflict resolution style and how that impacts you when you face conflict.
- Develop an understanding of how your behavioural style may interact with others so you can function together in harmony.
- Verify effective listen strategies to embrace the different perspectives in your workplace.
- Reflect on culture, prior life experience, intersectionality (our diverse, unique characteristics that define us), and other factors that may impact you in conflict.
- Discuss with Dr. B options of completing optional assessments to allow further reflection for yourself or the team in these areas.
Description
Most of us don’t spend time contemplating how we act or approach conflict, but it is critical. We are all individuals and interact differently! This module addresses how conflict can impact our emotions, how we can separate our emotions from process, and how our personality impacts the conflict. Conflict can leave you feeling disconnected and misunderstood, but by investigating how people approach conflict differently, you will master the ability to relate to and communicate with your colleagues positively and productively.
You will have the opportunity to purchase a DiSCTM conflict assessment if you are interested, during this module.
Module ONE
Understanding the Conflict
Outcome
- Create a Conflict Road map list of issues that the conflict has brought to your attention
- Discover how your values align with your interests in the issues related to the conflict
- Develop a written outline of personal and stakeholder interests that can be used in a conflict conciliation meeting
Description
MODULE ONE: SESSION 1
THE CLIENT: ISSUES AND INTERESTS (WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS AND WHY DO THEY MATTER)
- Create a list of issues (neutral and solvable) that the conflict has brought to your attention
- Discover what is important to you (your values and needs) with respect to the problems that you are facing within the situation
MODULE ONE: SESSION 2
THE STAKEHOLDERS AND THEIR INTERESTS
- Define the stakeholders in the situations
- Develop a written outline of personal and stakeholder interests that can be used in a conflict conciliation meeting
- Check in on how process is impacting you (social, psychosocial, spiritual, physical). Time constraints and supports needed
- Complete a personalized Conflict Roadmap
MODULE ONE: SESSION 3
THE NEXT STEPS: DECIDING HOW TO MOVE FORWARD – OUTLINING YOUR GOALS, GAPS IN UNDERSTANDING AND WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR CONFLICT ROADMAP
- Your Conflict Roadmap will be completed at this time (I will have sent it to you prior to this session for review)
- Identify your goals in bringing issues forward (or not), and what this would look like
- Identify gaps in your understanding between yourself and stakeholders
- Make decisions leading to a plan regarding if and how to bring the Conflict Road Map Forward
- Check in on how process is impacting you (social, psychosocial, spiritual, physical). Time constraints and supports needed
Module Two
The Conflict Meeting: Preparation, Neutral Language, Negotiation and Achieving Goals
Outcome
- Master meetings discussing conflict situations, and end up with a positive outcome
- Master the art of delineating emotion from the conflict conciliation process delineate emotion from process in conflict conversations
- Gain certainty around your role in conflict, and understand how you can use this knowledge to harmonize with stakeholders
Description
When your day seems consumed with conflict and meetings without satisfactory resolution, this module will help you to gain certainty regarding how to interact with stakeholders to maximize the achievement of common goals.
MODULE TWO: SESSION 1
THE MEETING PREPARATION: How to approach a stakeholder meeting and discussing the “Conflict Roadmap”
- What meetings need to be had?
- Decide who will be at the meeting/s
- Discuss if you want anyone to attend with you or for you
- Discuss what supports you need in the meeting (if you wish to attend or lead the meeting)
- Decide timing of the meeting (when, where) and how will you share your questions, your “gaps in understanding”
- Strategize potential opportunities and management plan if the conversation moves in an unexpected or undesirable direction
- Who will you reach out to and in what way (in person, email, virtual), decide how to best use the Conflict Roadmap, and determine your time frame goals
- Set an Agenda with stakeholder review prior to the meeting
MODULE TWO: SESSION 2
THE MEETING: Moving forward with your stakeholder/s
- Set the stage for a collaborative meeting, what does this look like for each stakeholder (how do we talk to each other for the maximal benefit)
- Promote principles of appreciative inquiry, open ended questions
- Review all parties “gaps in information” and discuss openly
- Map out common goals, after reviewing goals of all parties
- Review the Conflict Roadmap from the stakeholder perspectives, focusing on discussions regarding practitioner perspectives and stakeholder perspectives
- Decide on next steps
- Documentation of the meeting, sent to all stakeholders (agreement on who will create this document)
- Follow Up Plans formed
Module Three
The Resolution: Following a New Path
Outcome
- Have continued support from a professional while your conflict resolves (standard time for most conflicts to expect would be 1 to 4 months).
- Have access for a conflict/mediator for your needs (e.g., attend stakeholder meetings with you, pre-planning to lead your meetings, team operations and supports, meeting follow up issues)
- Review a summary of the conflict and how you turned it into an opportunity, a work plan for your next opportunity!
- Consider completing the Feedback Form for the Turn Conflict to Opportunity Program. It will help improve the program, and to create new content!
- Consider getting involved in mentoring others to learn skills in managing our differences
- Consider submitting a testimonial for Dr. B and the Program (if you found it helped you)! It may encourage others to reach out for help, rather than abandon something (their career, their practice, their life) that they highly value
Description
With your conflict well on the way to resolution, you can now know that there is an end in sight, you have the follow up and support that you need, and you can get back to medicine!
MASTERING the ART of TURNING CONFLICT TO OPPORTUNITY
To unlock this program, you must complete conflict 101 OR message Dr B directly to get approval.