Learn to Say No

House job is the start of a new life, clinical as well as social. To help you survive through it, some attitudes are required.

• Attitudes are defined by priorities and priorities, in turn, reflect responsibilities. As a house officer, your foremost responsibility is your patients and your own duties. In attitudes (determined by priorities); remember, first things should come first.
• In pursuit of your professional work (and personal life as well), people will try to take undue advantage of you. What if one of your colleagues says, for example, will you come to emergency as my reliever, tonight I've to attend a Valima or can you go to out-door in my place? I have to see a friend visiting from Peshawar. You may find it very difficult to turn down such requests especially if these are from a senior or a close friend.

Learn to say 'NO'

It will save you from a lot of troubles. In general, show courtesy and grant favor where you can comfortably do so, where you think the request is genuine, where it does not compromise your own priorities, and when it is being reciprocated from the other side as well (scratch my back and I shall scratch yours).However, you cannot please everybody every bore.

• Due to your own commitments, it may becomevery taxing for you to agree to your colleague's request. Unfortunately, in our culture, we are never taught (or encouraged) to say 'NO' even when it is the only truthful answer.
• Living in a society where honesty is a rare virtue, our social norms have decayed to a level that we are expected to maintain a facade of courtesy to the degree of dishonesty and out right hypocrisy.
• Now that you are starting your practical career, it is the right time that you learn to be honest in your social interactions and attitudes. Therefore, if you decide that you cannot perform the night duty, in place of your colleague, without being very uncomfortable, then you need to say so. You should give one of the following replies.
• 'No' 'NO' .I'm sorry
• NO. I am busy tonight
• NO. I am busy tonight, I'm sorry
• Note that all the suggested responses start with a crisp 'NO'. Then depending upon the closeness of your relation with that person, you may like to add an explanation or even an apology, but the answer remains 'NO'. Starting your response with any other word than 'N'will give the other person a space and he may try to re-enforce his request with some maneuvering to extract a 'YES' out of you. On the other hand, you should also develop in yourself courage to take 'NO' as a reply to your request.