Rude Behavior Hurts Medical Team Performance and Our Patients

Numerous studies suggest that hospitalization carries a high risk of iatrogenic harm, especially among pediatric patients who are critically ill. To assess whether rude behavior adversely affects medical team performance in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), researchers in Israel randomly assigned care teams to hear scripted, timed comments by phone that were either mildly rude (intervention) or neutral (control), made by a fictitious expert observer from the U.S.

The 24 teams comprising 72 providers were observed during a simulation training exercise in which a preterm infant had become acutely ill due to necrotizing enterocolitis. All participants were blinded to their intervention status. During the simulated event, three independen…