As a practitioner or staff in a practice, you probably have a lot of patients or clients streaming through your practice in a day, a week and a month. You will like many of them, others you will tolerate, and there may even be a few who are downright obnoxious and mean. This is not your personality disorder, this is theirs.

These troublesome patients or clients may try to make you feel like you have done something wrong when you haven’t, or feel even worse if you have made a mistake and already feel bad enough.  Somehow, these types seem to be able to sense when you have a chink in your armor and they know when to insert the knife.

Half the battle is to stand tall and know that you are almost perfect and that it is alright if you make a mistake once in a while.  It would be weird if you didn’t.

The second half of the battle is to recognize that you are dealing with someone who is not going to be a friend or like you no matter how hard you try. So quit trying, and see them for who they really are. Treat them with as much dignity as you can and fix the problem if possible, or dismiss them if you don’t want to put more care into them or can’t.

Most dogs have fleas. Well, you should have a few enemies – why not?! Just don’t keep them in your practice! As Churchill said in the quote above, “It means you have stood up for something some time in your life.”