[Ansteorra-chirurgeon] Fwd: [KC] 3rd Quarter FAQs

Tue Oct 5 07:33:41 PDT 2004

FYI

Beth Hart-Carlock <bcarlock at worldnet.att.net> wrote:From: "Beth Hart-Carlock" 
To: 
Subject: [KC] 3rd Quarter FAQs
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 15:37:51 -0500

Hello everyone!  Thank you for your diligence in reporting.  I do appreciate it, you make the Chirurgeon office look terrific to the Board, and believe me, they say something if there’s a high non-report rate.  

There were a number of questions that cropped up during the 3rd quarter, either in reports or at the Pennsic KC meeting and they can be germane to any kingdom, not just the questioner’s kingdom, so I’ll address them in this format instead, without kingdom identification.  

1.  Q.  “There’s a male Chirurgeon in our kingdom who has developed the reputation of coming on to female patients.  What do I do?  He’s a good Chirurgeon, but his actions have made some female patients uncomfortable.”

A.  If there’s _any_ question about sexual harassment or improper behavior, discuss it with the kingdom seneschal and Crown and revoke the warrant immediately.  Depending on how bad the behavior is, other sanctions may be necessary also.  This kind of behavior puts patients at risk for further harassment or worse (like rape), puts you, the Chirurgeonate, and the SCA at legal risk, makes the Chirurgeonate in your kingdom look bad, and makes people just generally not want to be anywhere near this Chirurgeon.  The Chirurgeonate is not a place where you pick up patients for a good time.  

It’s possible this person is attempting to be flirtatious, possibly even jokingly, in some kind of attempt to make the patient relax.  He may not understand that he’s being taken the wrong way.  In this case, you need to talk with him immediately about the fact that flirting with a patient is very unprofessional at best, and opens him up for a sexual harassment suit (or police action) and SCA sanctions at worst.  The behavior needs to stop immediately, no matter how good a Chirurgeon he may be.  Be very clear on everything, and put it in writing.  Consider having a witness go with you for the meeting with the Chirurgeon.  Strongly consider having the kingdom seneschal review this with you also, since this blends into the Real World and your kingdom seneschal is experienced with the application of Real World and SCA issues.  Explain specific examples of behavior, advise him you want him to continue as a Chirurgeon but if these behaviors continue even one more time, you will revoke the
 warrant.  If he chooses not to change his behavior, revoke the warrant and talk to your Crown and kingdom seneschal.  If he does choose to alter his behavior, strongly consider having him work with someone else for, say, a year or some other specified long period of time to make sure he’s reformed.  

If you revoke a warrant for any reason, let me know immediately.  If it’s for behavior like this, I have absolutely no problem with warrant revocation whatsoever, and I will back you up.  

Always keep written documentation of what you and he say on this or related matters, and consider having a witness with you in case his behavior becomes so bad that it ends up in the courts.  If he reforms, then you have some extra paperwork to file, which is no big deal.  If he doesn’t reform, you have documentation to protect yourself, the Chirurgeonate, your kingdom, and the SCA in the event of any legal action.  It also gives the BoD specific documentation if they decide to revoke his membership permanently.  

Always remember that a Chirurgeon warrant and SCA membership are not ‘rights’, and you are not required to warrant someone just because they have all their certifications and paperwork current.  

2.  Q.  I’m not getting reports from my Chirurgeons, what do I do to increase the reporting rate?  

A.  Reporting is never going to be 100%, though we can strive to improve it.  If everyone was as good as you at reporting, we’d have no struggle finding Kingdom Chirurgeons as our replacements.  Since we work with volunteers, we may have to work a little harder at getting reports out of people than we would if these people were our employees.  Here are some steps to help you out.  

First, remind everyone.  Most people, if they fail to report, do so simply because they’ve forgotten.  This is probably the biggest reason that you don’t get a report.  Consider sending out a reminder a week before and a couple days after the due date for the report.  

Second, make sure everyone knows when and how often to report.  Some people may think they only have to report yearly.  

Third, make it as easy as possible for them to report.  Accept online reports, particularly for the ‘nothing happened’ events.  If you have an e-list, consider asking something like this:  “hey, I noticed there were a few events this month—did any Chirurgeon attend those, and if so, did anything happen?”  For larger events, you’ll have to contact the CIC—larger events (over, say, 1000) almost always have injuries _and_ a CIC, so you should expect a report, but you may still have to ask for it if the CIC has put off doing the report for whatever reason.  

Fourth, praise reporting when it occurs in order to encourage continued reporting, and be gentle in reminders when someone forgets or doesn’t do a report.  Since we work in a volunteer organization, people are typically not going to tolerate being berated for not sending in a report.  There may be a legitimate reason for the lack of a report—it got lost in email (has happened to me more than once), someone had a family emergency, was sick, and so on.  If you summarily inform them “your report is late.  Get it in by next Tuesday”, you risk losing that volunteer.  If you approach it in a way such as “hey, I noticed I didn’t get a report from you.  Is everything OK?”  it’s far more compassionate and understanding that Life does happen to some people.  That being said, you can and should expect a slightly higher reporting standard from your regional and higher Chirurgeons.  Having someone serve as a regional Chirurgeon is a great way to determine if they’re KC material after you step
 down, and if they report regularly, that’s one very important behavior in their favor.  You may still have to remind them the report is due before the report date (and they may need this reminder far enough in advance so that they have time to contact the Chirurgeons in their region in enough time to get a report).  However, they should be missing reports very infrequently, if at all.  If they keep missing reports, you certainly should talk to them about the reasons for the missing or late reports, but you may need to re-evaluate whether they should be in the position if they are not able to meet the quarterly reporting requirements and discuss the various options with them.  

So, the short answer here to improve reporting is to remind, reward, and make the task as easy as possible.

3.  Q.  How do I get reports from events where there’s no Chirurgeon?  

A.  You don’t have to get the report.  If you hear of a serious injury at an event, consider calling the autocrat or seneschal to ask for details.  Otherwise, don’t sweat it.  We administer Chirurgeons, not groups.  Groups are not required to have Chirurgeons, and all Chirurgeons are Chirurgeons-at-large of the kingdom, not strictly attached to the local group.  Now, if a group decides to have a Chirurgeon on their officer council, that’s great—it keeps the group thinking about safety issues and preventative care like making sure there’s water at an event.  However, it’s not required.  Likewise, groups without Chirurgeons do not have to report into the KC office, either, and you don’t have to try to get a report from them—that’ll make your life easier if you’ve been doing this!  However, if you hear of a serious injury happening at an event, a call to the seneschal and/or event steward may be necessary to get the pertinent information.  

4.  Q.  I don’t know how many events we had this past quarter.  Where do I find that?  

A.  Hang on to the previous 3 kingdom newsletters.  Count only those events that are sanctioned by you kingdom.  By that I mean any kingdom events, principality events, local events that are listed on the kingdom calendar, etc.  Do not include things like local fighter practices, local or baronial get-togethers that are not on the kingdom calendar, etc.  The only official events are those listed on your kingdom’s calendar of events.  If you don’t have the previous 3 newsletters, contact the kingdom chronicler or calendar secretary and ask them how many events happened in the quarter.  While I receive all the kingdoms’ newsletters, I get 18 of these a month, and I literally do not have the space to hang on to 54 kingdom newsletters in order to do this for you, much as I would like to help you all.  

5. Q.  When do I need to send you a report about a serious incident? 

A.  As soon as possible.  Neither you nor I like hearing about the serious injuries in a quarterly Chirurgeon report as sort of an afterthought, so you may need to remind your officers to make sure to contact you within 48 hours of a serious incident, so that you know about it and can let me know in a timely manner, too.  There may be things you and I need to look into about the incident, and the sooner we do this after the incident occurs when everyone’s memory is still relatively fresh, the better.

6. Q. The principality Chirurgeon position is currently vacant, and I’m not getting any reports from the Chirurgeons in that region.  What do I do?  

A.  Advise Chirurgeons in the kingdom newsletter to report to you if there is no regional or principality Chirurgeon for their region.  

7.  Q.  My office receives donations and funds from bake sales and such.  How do I handle this?  

A.  Contact your Kingdom Exchequer for the appropriate information on how to handle this, since the laws may vary somewhat from kingdom to kingdom.  All funds donated for the Chirurgeonate should be going into a kingdom or principality fund set up for that purpose.  No donated funds should be going into a Chirurgeon’s personal account ever.  

8.  Q.  What do we do if there’s someone at an event who keeps getting hurt/sick/etc. but won’t leave the event even though they really need to go home?

A.  We Chirurgeons can’t bar someone from attending an event.  We can highly recommend, cajole, apply assorted persuasion techniques, etc.  Sometimes, a patient’s peer or beloved can have more influence than you, and you don’t have to provide medical information to those people in order to let them know it may be a good idea if the person takes a break from this event.  If necessary, contact the local seneschal, Crown, and/or the event autocrat to advise them of the situation, but do so discreetly.  They are the ones with the authority to discuss event attendance, though this should be a last resort.  

Thank you all again for your on-time and detailed reports.  I appreciate it very much.  

YIS, Dame Eleanor

Chirurgeon General

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/ansteorra-chirurgeon-ansteorra.org/attachments/20041005/1ac74416/attachment-0001.htm>