SLO 7: Difficult situations at work

The outcome

Manage difficult interactions and your workload, protect staff and patients, and respect consent, confidentiality and other legal and ethical duties.

St Emlyn’s summary, not the full official wording. Read the current RCEM SLO and requirements.

What this means in practice

Practise a challenging conversation, then discuss the decision and how it was communicated.

Use the referral exercise to practise communicating concern, handling disagreement and agreeing responsibility for the next step.

Start here

Choose a starting point to suit what you need to work on.

Making a useful referral
Lesson plan · Induction · Early-career EM · Preparation about 26 min · 45-minute session · 30-minute option · Paired practice available
Prepare a referral that makes the concern, urgency and requested action clear.
Learner preparation Facilitator guide
Chapter 4: Communication
Revision resource · FRCEM
Work through disagreement during a referral while keeping the patient’s next step clear.
Chronic pain: a useful emergency consultation
Lesson plan · Early-career EM · Preparation about 18 min · 45-minute session · 30-minute option
Agree a useful plan with a patient whose pain and expectations make the consultation difficult.
Learner preparation Facilitator guide

More learning for this SLO

Learn

Ep 56 – Intro to EM: How to refer a patient
Podcast · Listen 17:54
Prepare a clear referral, respond to disagreement and agree responsibility for the next step.

Discuss

Your first day in Emergency Medicine
Lesson plan · Induction · Early-career EM · Preparation about 8 min · 45-minute session · 30-minute option
Find out how to get help, hand over unfinished work and make discharge decisions on your first ED shifts.
Learner preparation Facilitator guide

Practise

One learner performs. One checks the key steps and gives feedback. Then swap roles. These are practice tools, not official RCEM mark schemes.

Make a useful referral paired practice
Paired practice · Early-career EM
Practise a clear referral and agree the next action, timeframe and responsibility.

Teaching programmes

Starting in Emergency Medicine
Teaching programme
2 relevant sessions in this programme.
Early-career Emergency Medicine
Teaching programme
2 relevant sessions in this programme.

Lesson links are St Emlyn’s educational mappings. Their individual clinical-review status still applies; attending a session does not demonstrate curriculum competence.