Lies my mentee told me…

[heathpack]

So I have a mentee assigned to me at the University. This individual is a trainee that I need to work with on a daily basis. She’s in a one year position that’s meant to prepare her to apply for a more competitive 3 year position which would start next year. I have successfully mentored 17 individuals through this process over my career, with only 1 of my mentees not successfully achieving the next step. I’ve possibly had more success mentoring young veterinarians to this next step than anyone else in my field. I fully know what it takes.

Right now, my mentee is so frustrating to me that we’re going to switch her to a different mentor. My issue is that she is foreign and it turns out her prior training was inadequate for her current position. She’s in over her head. That actually isn’t the issue- we have the resources to get her up to speed.

The issue is that she cannot admit a mistake and lies to cover her mistakes. Even when the mistake is obvious to all, she will make up some elaborate story the gist of which is that it was all a misunderstanding. If I was not fully involved with every aspect of the mistake, now I have to contact multiple involved parties, find out what happened, try to talk to mentee, who will be outraged and hurt by others’ versions of events differing from hers.

IMO absolute honesty is essential for a veterinarian. First you have to be honest with clients on ethical grounds. Next you have to be honest with coworkers because you need to work successfully as a team. But most importantly you have to be honest with YOURSELF. Being a veterinarian is a constant self-assessment: did I handle X wrong, could I do better, what do I need to get better, does this new publication mean what I’ve understood about disease Y has been wrong all these years? It’s a tricky thing to be constantly self-assessing but to also understand that becoming a better veterinarian is a life long process and you can’t feel crushed if what you’ve learned today suggests what you did yesterday wasn’t completely right.

So here’s my problem: I can solve the issue of not being this individual’s mentor. I can do my part in protecting the American pet owner by not recommending her for the next step training program (because she’s not eligible to work in the US as a veterinarian unless she’s in a training program). But I have to work with her nearly every day and I cannot stand the lying.

It’s better for our program if we have her finish out the year, and we’ve not started the disciplinary process yet. She’s on a path that could result in her getting fired but so far she’s lying about things we can’t prove. ”This client declined test Z” when client can’t remember it being offered. “I didnt miss this shift, I signed up to work a different shift, I don’t know what happened that I was still on the schedule”. I could go on and on. One nationally-published outcome metric of our program however is how many trainees complete the program. Last year we fired the person who was in this position for openly talking about how she cheated on a final exam. Interestingly from the same country- honesty must not be big there. So- we will fire her if necessary but it is strategically better for the program for her to finish the year.

I am hoping that some of y’all can give me practical advice for dealing with someone like this. I’ve done all the standard things- written reviews, in person face to face private mentoring conversations, a stern close-to-formal-discipline talking-to with multiple others present. All of those things have failed, and now I just need daily coping strategies. Because I find myself simply not wanting to even talk to her, which is ok this week with all the $hit she’s done and the formal meeting in which she knows I’m displeased. But I need to put my big girls pants on a figure out how to deal with her for the next 7 months.

Input?

 

[callwill]

"we will fire her if necessary but it is strategically better for the program for her to finish the year." I dont understand nor have the working knowledge of what strategically better means in this situation, but: Do it now.
A person like that destroys morale among others and destroys credibility. Its a life sucking force she has and will drain everyone around her.
This will also be a moment for her to possibly learn from (doubfull but there is a chance).
Get all those ducks in the row and then can her.

 

[WorldT]

I would tell the person the consequences of continuing on this part in black and white. If the individual continues, then you guys just need to follow through and dismiss her.
You can guide a horse to the river, but you can't force it to drink.
I know the completion metric is important (based on your statement ) but is it more important than wasting everyone's time and resources accommodating the behavior that shouldn't be happening. She might actually cause real harm during the accomodating period.

 

[mcara00]

So I have a mentee assigned to me at the University. This individual is a trainee that I need to work with on a daily basis. She’s in a one year position that’s meant to prepare her to apply for a more competitive 3 year position which would start next year. I have successfully mentored 17 individuals through this process over my career, with only 1 of my mentees not successfully achieving the next step. I’ve possibly had more success mentoring young veterinarians to this next step than anyone else in my field. I fully know what it takes.

Right now, my mentee is so frustrating to me that we’re going to switch her to a different mentor. My issue is that she is foreign and it turns out her prior training was inadequate for her current position. She’s in over her head. That actually isn’t the issue- we have the resources to get her up to speed.

The issue is that she cannot admit a mistake and lies to cover her mistakes. Even when the mistake is obvious to all, she will make up some elaborate story the gist of which is that it was all a misunderstanding. If I was not fully involved with every aspect of the mistake, now I have to contact multiple involved parties, find out what happened, try to talk to mentee, who will be outraged and hurt by others’ versions of events differing from hers.

IMO absolute honesty is essential for a veterinarian. First you have to be honest with clients on ethical grounds. Next you have to be honest with coworkers because you need to work successfully as a team. But most importantly you have to be honest with YOURSELF. Being a veterinarian is a constant self-assessment: did I handle X wrong, could I do better, what do I need to get better, does this new publication mean what I’ve understood about disease Y has been wrong all these years? It’s a tricky thing to be constantly self-assessing but to also understand that becoming a better veterinarian is a life long process and you can’t feel crushed if what you’ve learned today suggests what you did yesterday wasn’t completely right.

So here’s my problem: I can solve the issue of not being this individual’s mentor. I can do my part in protecting the American pet owner by not recommending her for the next step training program (because she’s not eligible to work in the US as a veterinarian unless she’s in a training program). But I have to work with her nearly every day and I cannot stand the lying.

It’s better for our program if we have her finish out the year, and we’ve not started the disciplinary process yet. She’s on a path that could result in her getting fired but so far she’s lying about things we can’t prove. ”This client declined test Z” when client can’t remember it being offered. “I didnt miss this shift, I signed up to work a different shift, I don’t know what happened that I was still on the schedule”. I could go on and on. One nationally-published outcome metric of our program however is how many trainees complete the program. Last year we fired the person who was in this position for openly talking about how she cheated on a final exam. Interestingly from the same country- honesty must not be big there. So- we will fire her if necessary but it is strategically better for the program for her to finish the year.

I am hoping that some of y’all can give me practical advice for dealing with someone like this. I’ve done all the standard things- written reviews, in person face to face private mentoring conversations, a stern close-to-formal-discipline talking-to with multiple others present. All of those things have failed, and now I just need daily coping strategies. Because I find myself simply not wanting to even talk to her, which is ok this week with all the $hit she’s done and the formal meeting in which she knows I’m displeased. But I need to put my big girls pants on a figure out how to deal with her for the next 7 months.

Input?

Our profession has enough problems with immature young veterinarians who are too fragile for the rigors of veterinary medicine. This is obviously someone who is so insecure about their own abilities that they are incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions and mistakes. You definitely need to take the proper steps to document the problems so that this issue can be resolved via the processes that should be set up within your organization. If this is either Auburn or Tuskegee universities, I wish you will have to document, document and document the issues some more because taking difficult steps to address student failures is definitely not the strong point of most universities today.

 

[DrQ]

If your mentee is not being truthful, document, document, document. Then she needs to be disciplined and cashiered.

 

[klpca]

I don't understand keeping her either. When she is out in the real world, lying her way through life, it will reflect poorly on your university. And it sends the wrong message to the other people that work there that poor behavior will be tolerated.

I worked with a liar once, and I had to do it for about 3-4 years. It was honestly the worst time of my entire career. For a while, I kept my mouth shut when I discovered her lies, but after a while, I ratted her out every single time. Nothing happened, because everyone else at the office thought she was "charming" and couldn't believe that she would make the mistakes that she was making so believing her lies was easier than accepting that they had hired someone who was both incompetent and a liar. It was absolutely infuriating. In the end, she started getting caught by people higher up than me, but she was actually fired for something that happened after work hours. I could never figure out how that worked, but I didn't care because I was so relieved that she was gone. She of course, went to another company and is still there (in a leadership position!) as far as I know. As a co-worker, it was terrible to see her getting away with her lies. I would have quit, but I had a pretty sweet deal working part time, so I stuck it out.

I think that the reason that you are having such a tough time with how to deal with her on a daily basis is because you know in your heart that she should not be part of your program at all. There's no way to make that feel ok. She needs to go.

 

[DrQ]

I don't know what your situation is, but I inherited a crap show project where the project head was south asian. He had entered into a contract to deliver a Java based platform to the customer. He was of an upper caste (and made no bones about it) and hired a group of developers all of a lower caste from the same part of the world. They would not push back if they could not accomplish a task. The project lead was a complete jerk and was developing in Visual Basic in an IDE and then within their IDE took the VB and used a humongous Java virtual machine to transmogrify the code. Additionally, they were loading the ENTIRE database into memory which worked fine for demos but was unsustainable.

When management found out what he was doing, he was shown the door and I inherited the mess. The developers, all south asian, would always say "yes". when we would have meetings to set goals. I had the company's top Java developer on board to help me with the design of the database and I designed and built out the infrastructure. Every time we would ask for a status, we would see the same Visual Basic stuff that they had worked on before that would take 45 minutes to load, was slow, and would crash frequently. We would ask them if they could write the code directly in Java and they would always say "yes", but we always got the VB IDE junk.

We had to fire all but one developer and hired a contractor to develop the code in Java.

 

[VacationForever]

I would start the disciplinary process now, with documentation and reviews and get her out of the program and door. I used to work in mega corp and it was a set process. I hated doing it whenever I had an under performing staff. It's no good for you and everyone involved in trying to mentor her. She is simply too immature and dishonest to be successful in any job for that matter, let alone to be a vet which carries a ton of responsibilities where integrity is a must.

 

[jp10558]

I don't know about the requirements for keeping or getting rid of someone, but I have had to work with someone who for years would take more effort for everyone to lead them through doing a task vs just doing the task ourselves. I.e. it was a net negative. No one wanted to deal with this except management. I guess it eventually caused enough obvious issues for the managers that they had a number of meetings and this person managed to sort of turn around and focus on tasks they could do and do correctly. Like others said, this was frustrating enough - but someone who just lies is even worse.

 

[DaveNV]

No new advice, but a virtual hug. I dealt with people like that for years, in the military and afterwards. It was agonizing, because I was the one left accountable, as the liars stood in my shadow, making sure they were not held responsible. I never understood how those people got along, until I saw it was because they were passed from one supervisor to another, who just wanted them out of their hair. It was tough.

I'd suggest registering your (valid!) concerns with your managers, and strongly recommend the mentee be given her walking papers, the sooner the better. Part of a training program is to weed out those who are unsuitable, no matter how painful it may be. The woman sounds like she's not in the right profession, or at least needs to learn to admit her shortcomings. If she can't do it, how long will it be before she contributes to the death of someone's animal?

As a consumer on the other side of the examination table, the care my pets receive is critical to the quality of life in my household. I've had an incompetent vet practically kill my pet, forcing me to switch to a different veterinarian, at great expense after paying an emergency vet in the process. I was shocked to think any vet could be so cavalier, and so forcefully wrong in their handling of my pet's health. The second vet was shocked to learn the treatment plan the bad vet was doing.

I know you pretty well, and know how dedicated you are. So I know how this is weighing on you. I say it's time to rip off the bandaid, and get the liar out of your organziation. Just reassigning her to another mentor is not going to make her any better. She needs to go somewhere else, where she can't hurt someone's precious family member. Make sure the reasons for her dismissal are thoroughly documented, so there is no doubt to another organization why she was discharged.

Good luck!

Dave

 

[clifffaith]

I don't know what your situation is, but I inherited a crap show project where the project head was south asian. He was of an upper caste (and made no bones about it)

The female version of this was exactly what I pictured while reading heathpack’s post. Possibly wealthy parents pushed her into being a doctor when she doesn’t have what it takes in practice, even though she could get through the book learning.

As far as other sorts of cultural differences— I was at UCLA (go Bruins!) with a Samoan girl my first year. She COULD NOT tell you she couldn’t meet you somewhere or participate in an activity. She was not a flake, just beyond her upbringing to outright say NO she couldn’t be somewhere.

 

[Superchief]

Having recently retired in the corporate world after 50 years, I finally had enough of lying and cheating people who would do anything to get ahead and had no qualms about taking credit for coworkers accomplishments. This has gotten worse over the last several years and now these people are in key management positions. It got to the point that I had to keep printed copies of email communications and other documents to 'protect' myself and get recognition for my work. This behavior is likely much less common in your profession, but will become worse as private practices join large corporations. (My 3 private practice vet clinics are now part of large groups and we are trying to find another independent). You are doing the right thing in holding this person to be accountable at least while she is in your program, and I hope you are able to discourage her from pursuing the profession.

I think that some people come to the US business world thinking all of us are wealthy and they want to get their share no matter what. I had a Russian Marketing Research intern in the early 90's who was extremely bright and an excellent worker. He did a great job for his first year and we were able to extend his work permit for another 2 years. He then became more interested in making money rather than doing the right thing for his company and coworkers. I could no longer trust him, had to cover myself in communications with him, and he spent all of his effort on office politics rather than doing his job. We were fortunate that he decided to pursue his MBA and ended up in investment banking which better suited his priorities and ethics. Perhaps this mentee will realize she can't continue this type of questionable ethics in your profession and will pursue something else. Good luck!

 

[heathpack]

Thanks for your input everyone.

I understand the consensus is to get rid of her but that’s not realistic at this point. The types of lies she tells are mostly everyday discrepancies that happen commonly but happen so frequently with her that you know she’s lying. When did the seizures start? “Um, uh, um. Owner can’t remember.” Did you look in referring veterinarian’s notes? “They didn’t send them.” Then I open the dog’s medical record and the ref vets notes are there. First seizure was June 25. Then I ask owner and they immediately say “June 25”. So I know she forgot to ask. This happens all the time. Most trainees say “Jeez, I can’t believe I forgot to ask that!” and next time they ask that.

This individual will try to say that we didn’t have the referring veterinarian’s records when she looked and she asked reception to call and get them. This would be something that very well could happen, so it’s a great lie. However I’ll find out it didn’t happen, the records were there all along. This also happens all the time, to the extent that on the first lapse, I’m not even annoyed. I just tell them to they have to read the record.

Then I’ll go in the exam room and ask the owner when the seizures started. “June 25.” This happens with maybe 30% of clients. The first time they’re asked they don’t know the answer, but they think about it for a few minutes and when I ask, they’ve remembered. But for this trainee it happens so often that you know she didn’t ask the question.

So none of these lies are lies over which we’d fire someone. They are just completely unnecessary and out of the norm. A trivial mistake is made, I have seen this mistake 1000 times, it’s no big deal. Most people you mention it and move on, they successfully learn from their mistake and thats the end of it. This individual needlessly lies about why the mistake happened (or tries to make you believe if never happened), then tends to compound the issue with a second lie. It’s exhausting.

99% of her lies are not something you’d write her up over, they go into her performance reviews (which obviously aren’t great). The structure of her training program is such that she doesn’t have the opportunity to make more serious mistakes because we won’t allow her the additional responsibility until she masters the “safer” tasks.

@DaveNV she is a fully licensed veterinarian in her home country. Nothing I can do about that. Her goal is to become a specialist veterinarian. The public is actually MORE protected from harm if she stays in our program, because the lack of a letter of reference from me as she applies for future programs would be so glaring as to exclude her from consideration from any program that’s vetting their candidates. The trainee we fired last year actually DID move on to another training program, because she neglected to tell them that she was in our program at all. Let alone that she was fired. It also does not damage our program for her to stay, because if she does not get into the next-step training position in the States, she goes back to her home country. Based on two lying trainees from that country in two years, it’s doubtful we’d consider someone from that country in the future.

Her missed shifts due to a “miscommunication” has been documented in a meeting with the wider committee that is in charge of this type of training program- including my response that her explanation of how this was a “misunderstanding” does not ring true and that I suspected she no-showed because she had something better to do. Also she is chronically late and this is documented as well. These are the type of thing she could get fired over. But mostly the biggest consequence to the trainee is whether they can get good recommendations for the next level of training, which is so competitive that there’s very little chance of success without strong letters of recommendation from the specialists who have been involved with your training. Being fired isn’t really the issue and is actually the easy way out for the trainee who isnt on track to get the letters of recommendation they need.

My hope was advice as to handle the casual, needless lying. Her biggest issue actually is that she also lies to herself. She doesnt own mistakes, so she can’t address them, and grow/move forward. It’s frustrating for me because my job is to help her find the path to progress her career, but also frustrating because of the petty lies.

 

[pedro47]

To DaveNV. I love your first paragraph and your whole reply.

To the OP, all you can do now is document, document and document. Please cover your back. IMHO.

Please retain every email to this mentee and your counseling sessions for your records and documentation.

 

[klpca]

Thanks for your input everyone.

I understand the consensus is to get rid of her but that’s not realistic at this point. The types of lies she tells are mostly everyday discrepancies that happen commonly but happen so frequently with her that you know she’s lying. When did the seizures start? “Um, uh, um. Owner can’t remember.” Did you look in referring veterinarian’s notes? “They didn’t send them.” Then I open the dog’s medical record and the ref vets notes are there. First seizure was June 25. Then I ask owner and their answer and they immediately say “June 25”. So I know she forgot to ask. This happens all the time. Most trainees say “Jeez, I can’t believe I forgot to ask that!” and next time they ask that.

This individual will try to say that we didn’t have the referring veterinarian’ when she looked and she asked reception to call and get them. This would be something that very well could happen, so it’s a great lie. However I’ll find out it didn’t happen, the records were there all along, and she forgot to look at them. This also happens all the time, to the extent that on the first lapse, I’m not even annoyed. I just tell them to they have to read the record.

Then I’ll go in the exam room and ask the owner when the seizures started. “June 25.” This happens with maybe 30% of clients. The first time they’re asked they don’t know the answer, but they think about it for a few minutes and when I ask, they’ve remembered. But for this trainee it happens so often that you know she didn’t ask the question.

So none of these lies are lies over which we’d fire someone. They are just completely unnecessary and out of the norm. A trivial mistake is made, I have seen this mistake 1000 times, it’s no big deal. Most people you mention it and move on, they successfully learns from their mistake and everyone moved on. This individual needlessly lies about why the mistake happened (or tries to make you believe if never happened), then tends to compound the issue with a second lie. It’s exhausting.

99% of her lies are not something you’d write her up over, they go into her performance reviews (which obviously aren’t great). The structure of her training program is such that she doesn’t have the opportunity to make more serious mistakes because we won’t allow her the additional responsibility until she masters the “safer” tasks.

@DaveNV she is a fully licensed veterinarian in her home country. Nothing I can do about that. Her goal is to become a specialist veterinarian. The public is actually MORE protected from harm if she stays in our program, because the lack of a letter of reference from me as she applies for future programs would be so glaring as to exclude her from consideration from any program that’s vetting their candidates. The trainee we fired last year actually DID move on to another training program, because she neglected to tell them at all that she was in our program at all. Let alone was fired. It also does not damage our program for her to stay, because if she does not get into the next-step training position in the States, she goes back to her home country. Based on two lying trainees from that country in two years, its doubtful we’d consider someone from that country in the future.

Her missed shifts due to a “miscommunication” has been documented by the wider committee that is in charge of this type of training program- including my response that her explanation of how this was a “misunderstanding” does not right true and that I suspected she no-showed because she had something better to do. Also she is chronically late and this is documentable as well.

My hope was advice as to handle the casual, needless lying. Her biggest issue actually is that she also lies to herself. She doesnt own mistakes, so she can’t address them, and grow/move forward. It’s frustrating for me because my job is to help her find the path to progress her career, but also frustrating because of the petty lies.

Well that is almost as bad because when you call it out, it seems petty (but it isn't - it's a pattern of little lies).

Does your workplace have any psychologists that you could talk to to offer your program some insight on how to deal with people who can't admit to making mistakes?

Could you try asking her what she would do if a colleague kept forgetting to ask an owner a basic, but important question? How would she handle it?

Have her create a questionnaire with boxes to initial to take into the exam room when meeting with owners. Have her create another document with the basic intake tasks (such as reviewing the file) and have her initial each task as it is completed. The creation of the documents will give you an opportunity to review her knowledge of what needs to happen at each appointment, make her think about what should happen in an appointment, have something for her to refer to during an appointment to help her not make a mistake that she will have to cover up with a lie later on, and have her attest to having done each task, giving you something to review afterwards. Making her create that document will clearly put the responsibility on her. You shouldn't have to spend any time creating those checklists - you aren't the one who needs one.

The lack of personal responsibility has to be so frustrating for you but that is probably an ingrained response for her because unlike someone like you who says that "mistakes happen so learn from them and don't make the same mistake again", her thinking is that making even the smallest mistake is fatal to her career, so never admit to making any mistake, ever. And fixing that problem is outside of the scope of your program.

Other than that, I have no idea on how to deal with her. I would have lost my cool a long time ago (and I am sure that is not the right way to handle the situation, lol).

 

[heathpack]

Well that is almost as bad because when you call it out, it seems petty (but it isn't - it's a pattern of little lies).

Does your workplace have any psychologists that you could talk to to offer your program some insight on how to deal with people who can't admit to making mistakes?

Could you try asking her what she would do if a colleague kept forgetting to ask an owner a basic, but important question? How would she handle it?

Have her create a questionnaire with boxes to initial to take into the exam room when meeting with owners. Have her create another document with the basic intake tasks (such as reviewing the file) and have her initial each task as it is completed. The creation of the documents will give you an opportunity to review her knowledge of what needs to happen at each appointment, make her think about what should happen in an appointment, have something for her to refer to during an appointment to help her not make a mistake that she will have to cover up with a lie later on, and have her attest to having done each task, giving you something to review afterwards. Making her create that document will clearly put the responsibility on her. You shouldn't have to spend any time creating those checklists - you aren't the one who needs one.

The lack of personal responsibility has to be so frustrating for you but that is probably an ingrained response for her because unlike someone like you who says that "mistakes happen so learn from them and don't make the same mistake again", her thinking is that making even the smallest mistake is fatal to her career, so never admit to making any mistake, ever. And fixing that problem is outside of the scope of your program.


Other than that, I have no idea on how to deal with her. I would have lost my cool a long time ago (and I am sure that is not the right way to handle the situation, lol).

Thanks. We do have therapists available. I have asked the governing committee for her type of training program whether we should refer her to a therapist and how exactly we make that recommendation mechanistically (I think it should come from the committee, not me, because I think we should divorce this from her performance reviews). I haven’t heard back yet but I just made this suggestion a couple of days ago.

I wrote her a performance review and said: You are having trouble with A, B, C, D, and E. I would like you to write a self assessment and tell me why you think you’re having trouble with A, B, C, D and E and how you’d propose addressing that. Then we will meet to discuss.

After the allotted time, I get self assessment. Her assessment is that she’s actually particularly good at A, B, C, D, and E! (Can you hear me banging my head against my desk?)

So then I meet with her and ask: What do you make of the fact that I said you have trouble with A, B, C, D and E but you think you are very good at those things? Do you feel that you know better than I what it takes to succeed in this field?

She tries flattery, she tries tears, she dances around and says a lot of semi-related stuff that doesn’t answer my question. Then when I’m unimpressed she tries another lap of flattery, tears, and words related to my question but no answer.

Finally I just tell her: I want you to write an exam room check list of questions, and go through case examples in X textbook so you can practice organizing your thoughts. And I want you to reflect on the discrepancy between my assessment of your performance and your own. We will meet back in six weeks.

In the ensuing 6 weeks, I was away on a research project and writing a manuscript, so wasn’t on the clinic floor. I asked my colleagues for written performance reviews and there were no changes. We were set to meet with her to discuss performance and whether she’d implemented my suggestions (I’m sure she hasn’t but will lie and say she has) when she missed her shifts. I wanted to deal with the missed shifts separately from the performance review itself. Not that missing a shift isn’t performance related but it’s not medical content, it’s responsibility and professionalism. I don’t want to confound the issues.

Her next performance review will be Dec 2. Then we will have the pleasure of dealing with her responses about whether she followed through on my suggestions, letting her know she has a new mentor, and making further suggestions that she will probably not act on.

It’s all very annoying and I find myself taking work from her and giving it to other trainees because I enjoy working with them and she makes my head explode. But I can’t explain why to them. They can probably tell she’s in hot water with me and put two and two together. She is also someone who tries to manipulate opinion so I am sure she tries to portray herself to the other trainees as the poor misunderstood foreigner that Heathpack has it out for. She in fact tried this with one of my faculty colleagues after the initial meeting about her missed shifts, attempting sympathy by crying and saying she felt I was disrespectful about what was a “misunderstanding”. My colleague replied that he did not think she was treated disrespectfully at all, but instead she was told what she needed to hear. This attempt at playing one faculty off another was the reason I got the governing committee involved. I wanted more people in the room, and I wanted her on notice that her BS will only escalate the potential consequences for herself by involving the committee responsible for disciplinary action. The faculty and administration of our college is HUGE on the concept that we are not just providing a medical education but also training professional behavior. I can be confident that organizationally my back is covered, as long as I myself behave professionally and respectfully. But there’s zero pressure to cave to complainers or manipulators for the sake of not causing trouble.

 

[klpca]

Thanks. We do have therapists available. I have asked the governing committee for her type of training program whether we should refer her to a therapist and how exactly we make that recommendation mechanistically (I think it should come from the committee, not me, because I think we should divorce this from her performance reviews). I haven’t heard back yet but I just made this suggestion a couple of days ago.

I wrote her a performance review and said: You are having trouble with A, B, C, D, and E. I would like you to write a self assessment and tell me why you think you’re having trouble with A, B, C, D and E and how you’d propose addressing that. Then we will meet to discuss.

After the allotted time, I get self assessment. Her assessment is that she’s actually particularly good at A, B, C, D, and E! (Can you hear me banging my head against my desk?)

So then I meet with her and ask: What do you make of the fact that I said you have trouble with A, B, C, D and E but you think you are very good at those things? Do you feel that you know better than I what it takes to succeed in this field?

She tries flattery, she tries tears, she dances around and says a lot of semi-related stuff that doesn’t answer my question. Then when I’m unimpressed she tries another lap of flattery, tears, and words related to my question but no answer.

Finally I just tell her: I want you to write an exam room check list of questions, and go through case examples in X textbook so you can practice organizing your thoughts. And I want you to reflect on the discrepancy between my assessment of your performance and your own. We will meet back in six weeks.

In the ensuing 6 weeks, I was away on a research project and writing a manuscript, so wasn’t on the clinic floor. I asked my colleagues for written performance reviews and there were no changes. We were set to meet with her to discuss performance and whether she’d implemented my suggestions (I’m sure she hasn’t but will lie and say she has) when she missed her shifts. I wanted to deal with the missed shifts separately from the performance review itself. Not that missing a shift isn’t performance related but it’s not medical content, it’s responsibility and professionalism. I don’t want to confound the issues.

Her next performance review will be Dec 2. Then we will have the pleasure of dealing with her responses about whether she followed through on my suggestions, letting her know she has a new mentor, and making further suggestions that she will probably not act on.

It’s all very annoying and I find myself taking work from her and giving it to other trainees because I enjoy working with them and she makes my head explode. But I can’t explain why to them. They can probably tell she’s in hot water with me and put two and two together. She is also someone who tries to manipulate opinion so I am sure she tries to portray herself to the other trainees as the poor misunderstood foreigner that Heathpack has it out for. She in fact tried this with one of my faculty colleagues after the initial meeting about her missed shifts, attempting sympathy by crying and saying she felt I was disrespectful about what was a “misunderstanding”. My colleague replied that he did not think she was treated disrespectfully at all, but instead she was told what she needed to hear. This attempt at playing one faculty off another was the reason I got the governing committee involved. I wanted more people in the room, and I wanted her on notice that her BS will only escalate the potential consequences for herself by involving the committee responsible for disciplinary action. The faculty and administration of our college is HUGE on the concept that we are not just providing a medical education but also training professional behavior. I can be confident that organizationally my back is covered, as long as I myself behave professionally and respectfully. But there’s zero pressure to cave to complainers or manipulators for the sake of not causing trouble.

That last paragraph says everything. I know that firing her isn't an option, but it should be. It is no longer about her - her issues have permeated your entire department. I truly feel for you. When you are the one person who is calling out someone else (and you know you are right) but everyone else doesn't want to cause trouble, it is truly frustrating and it takes your energy away from the actual job and puts it on this issue.

Maybe have a white board in your office that says "Number of days since anyone has lied" with no tally marks. If you really want to go there, have it say "number of days since <name> has lied". Ok, I know that isn't possible or professional, but at this point you don't seem to have any viable options. I can assure that it will get better - some day she won't be your problem any more. I have been there and I absolutely know how infuriating it is to be unable to fix the issue.

 

[isisdave]

This is probably a cultural thing. There are places where saving face is more important than honesty and integrity, and members of those cultures are experienced in dealing with the consequences. It's also possible that in her early life, facing truth resulted in some trauma she will do anything to avoid.

This is probably too ingrained to overcome in the short period you have to deal with it. The only suggestion I came up with is to find a counselor/therapist of the same or similar ethnicity who might help her deal with it. I don't know if the suggestion "you need to change this fast, or you're gonna find yourself on a plane to [wherever]" would help. The bottom line is that animal owners in [wherever] might put up with this, but it won't fly in the US. Should this person somehow become licensed, she and her employer are going to end up on the short end of a lawsuit.

 

[DrQ]

she is a fully licensed veterinarian in her home country. Nothing I can do about that.

Do those privileges/license extend to the United States? Could she open up a practice with her current license?

It’s all very annoying and I find myself taking work from her and giving it to other trainees because I enjoy working with them and she makes my head explode. But I can’t explain why to them. They can probably tell she’s in hot water with me and put two and two together. She is also someone who tries to manipulate opinion so I am sure she tries to portray herself to the other trainees as the poor misunderstood foreigner that Heathpack has it out for. She in fact tried this with one of my faculty colleagues after the initial meeting about her missed shifts, attempting sympathy by crying and saying she felt I was disrespectful about what was a “misunderstanding”.

Again ... document, document, document. Always deal with her with a witness and this would be advice to pass along to her next vict...mentor. It would probably be better if you did not act as the next mentor's witness.

 

[pedro47]

Do those privileges/license extend to the United States? Could she open up a practice with her current license?

Again ... document, document, document. Always deal with her with a witness and this would be advice to pass along to her next vict...mentor. It would probably be better if you did not act as the next mentor's witness.

Also, when you are having counseling session; document it; ask your mentee to sign off on your counseling session. Date and signee of session.

 

[DaveNV]

Thanks for the clarification. I can appreciate the issues you face, and why firing isn't an option. Frustrating, certainly. You don't deserve this kind of aggravation.

My advice at this point would be to pointedly call her out on her lies to her face, immediately after she lies. Stop everything, turn to her, and say, "You just lied to me. Why are you lying about this? If I can't trust you to be truthful, you are affecting the quality of care this animal receives." Document the situation, and make sure you've covered your bases, in case she lies to your supervisors about how she is being treated. If she is held directly accountable every time she lies, maybe she'll try harder. It may be her character flaw, but that isn't your problem.

And if she doesn't try harder, maybe all you can do is ignore her work, do your own due diligence with the animal owner, and pretend she isn't in the room. Hopefully her lies won't contribute to the death of a client's pet.

Another thought: Implement video cameras and microphones in exam rooms to record everything that happens. That way, when she lies, you can prove it. Just a thought.

Good luck!

Dave

 

[pedro47]

DaveNV, I disagree with the video cameras and microphones suggestion; unless the OP, is doing this to everyone under their training.

 

[heathpack]

Do those privileges/license extend to the United States? Could she open up a practice with her current license?

Again ... document, document, document. Always deal with her with a witness and this would be advice to pass along to her next vict...mentor. It would probably be better if you did not act as the next mentor's witness.

No she cannot practice in the US outside of the context of a training program.

 

[DaveNV]

DaveNV, I disagree with the video cameras and microphones suggestion; unless the OP, is doing this to everyone under their training.

If they were there for everyone, they could use it as necessary for the problem people. I wasn't suggesting to only record the one woman. But if the entire staff knew they were being monitored for "quality control" and training purposes, maybe things might improve. The point being that if this woman knows she's going to be caught when she lies, maybe she'll stop.

Dave

 

[easyrider]

But I need to put my big girls pants on a figure out how to deal with her for the next 7 months.

I think you can do it. You already have. Seven more months is only a blink of your eyes and then she's nothing more than a memory if even that.

Bill