Partner Article

Anger management guru finds business in healthcare

By Bloomberg News

George Anderson, who founded the anger management firm

Anderson & Anderson, said last year for the first time more

than a third of his income came from medical workers.

George Anderson positioned himself on a stool across the

operating table so he could get a good angle on the

surgeon’s face. He watched for signs of irritation as the

doctor, known for temper tantrums, sewed a valve into a

patient’s heart. Then the surgeon’s phone buzzed.

The hospital earlier had called in Anderson, an anger

management therapist, to help one of their top doctors –

now cursing into his headset—control his bad temper. After

the operation, the surgeon removed his latex gloves, threw

them on the floor and left the operating room in silence.

“Everyone in the room was stunned,” said the 73-year-old

Anderson & Anderson, the business Anderson founded 30

years ago in Los Angeles, has trained and certified at least 11,000 anger management specialists.

Last year, for the first time, more than a third of his income

came from medical workers. This year he expects to add

125 more of them, sent to him because of their inability to

manage the pressures of the job, as well as increased

concerns from hospital managers and accrediting agencies

about temper tantrums in the medical workplace.

A survey published in American Journal of Nursing in 2002,

reported that 90 percent of hospital workers, including

doctors and nurses, reported “yelling, “abusive language” as

well as “condescension” and “berating colleagues.” A quarter

of the 1,200 people surveyed said they witnessed such

behavior weekly.

Medical professionals present Anderson with unique

challenges. Their hours are brutal, the stakes are high, and

the threat of malpractice suits is ever-present. The life-or-

death nature of the work wears at steely nerves even on the

best days, Anderson says.

“Can you imagine the amount of stress a doctor experiences

just by waking up in the morning?“ Anderson said.

Verbal abuse is among the milder transgressions, according

to Anderson. “Throwing instruments, like scalpels, is not

unusual,“ he said. One surgeon flung a tool after being

handed the wrong item twice. It struck the ceiling. Another

launched a used instrument, hitting a nurse on the shoulder.

‘Executive Coaching’

Courses meant for businesspeople are often innocuously

billed as “executive coaching” because of the corporate

desire for anonymity—a characteristic shared with the

medical establishment.

For some on-site courses, Anderson charges more than

$8,000 a session; in his Wilshire Boulevard office in Los

Angeles, it’s $5,000. In most cases, hospitals will happily pay

to make the rage go away.

Typically, doctors meet with Anderson face-to-face for a total

of 12 hours. After that, they talk on the phone with him twice

a month for six months. At the beginning and end of that

time, the doctor takes a test on “emotional self-awareness.”

He rates himself on a scale from “never” to “always” in

response to statements such as “It’s hard for me to

smile“ and “I care about other people’s feelings.”

Once problem physicians see how low they score on these

tests, Anderson says, they surrender to the process. This

stands in contrast with business executives; they tend to

resist and ask for further evidence that Anderson’s services

are really required.

The first thing Anderson tells doctors is that high intelligence

is no protection from stupid behavior. It cannot prevent the

flubbing of jobs, marriages, or relationships. Meanwhile,

Anderson’s workbook, “The Practice of Control,” which he

has adapted specifically for doctors, teaches them that anger

is as injurious as “smoking a pack of cigarettes each day.”

Based on follow-up calls with hospitals, Anderson says that

four-fifths of his doctors have curbed their workplace explosions. Doctors are motivated to rescue their imperiled careers and love lives, he says. “I can’t imagine any other population of clients that does as well.”

George Anderson, https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=anger+management+guru&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by George Anderson .