how to respond when someone’s manager makes them apologize to you

by Alison Green on September 3, 2024

A reader writes:

I was reading one of your recent posts where you mentioned you don’t believe in forcing adults to apologize in a professional setting. I am on the same page with you about that, and it made me think of a similar type of experience I had once where I was on the receiving end of such an apology and I’m curious how you think I should have handled it.

I (male) had gone to a doctor’s office to have an extremely minor surgery done. Despite it being minor, it still required me getting disrobed down to my boxers and putting on a hospital gown. This medical facility was one of those setups where the patient rooms has entrances from the front, and each room has a door in the back that leads to the area where all the doctors and nurses work.

After the procedure, I was alone with the doctor (also male) in the room and we were talking while I changed back into my clothes. As I was doing so, the nurse (female, and the same one who had assisted in the procedure) came in the back door to drop off some paperwork and I instinctively stepped to the side to be out of view of the open door. It was very quick and I didn’t think much of it, since by that point I had both my boxers and t-shirt on. I may have let out a midwestern “ope,” but I didn’t say anything else about it otherwise. The nurse was in and out in just a matter of seconds.

After the discussion with the doctor was done and I was fully dressed, he asked me to wait a moment and disappeared to the back area. After a couple of minutes, he returned with the nurse, who looked ashamed and stumbled out an apology to me about opening the door so fast and leaving me “exposed.” I was caught off-guard about what was happening in the moment so I just said something along the lines of, “Oh, it’s no big deal, but thank you.”

I felt really weird about it afterwards. It was, at worst, a simple accident on her part, but at the end of the day the only people who would have seen me are a bunch of medical professionals who have seen lots of people in various states of undress so I wasn’t worried about it at all (especially since I was basically clothed anyway).

Is there a better way I could have handled this? Or is there something else I could have said to the nurse or the doctor to smooth this over better?

You handled it fine!

The doctor is the one who mishandled it.

He wasn’t wrong to be concerned about what happened; while you weren’t terribly bothered by it, someone else might have felt exposed or embarrassed. And I suspect they have protocols to make sure that doors aren’t opened while a patient might be in a vulnerable state, and the nurse may have violated those.

But the way for him to handle it was for him to acknowledge it with you — “I’m so sorry, you deserve privacy while you’re changing and we generally do X to ensure that; I will talk with our staff about being more careful of that” — and then talk with the nurse privately afterwards.

Because to whatever extent someone in your position might have appreciated an apology, it didn’t need to come from the nurse herself, just from someone with some standing there to say “I’m sorry, that shouldn’t have happened.” The doctor qualified.

Making a point of dragging her back in to apologize just made things awkward for both of you.

All that said, if you’re asking in general how to respond to an obviously forced apology, I think these principles work:

* If you really don’t think an apology was warranted, say that! “No need to apologize, it wasn’t a big deal at all. These things happen.”

* If you do think what happened was a big deal and you don’t want to downplay that: “I appreciate that, thank you for saying it.”

* If you think what happened was a big deal and they need to be doing something beyond apologizing: “I appreciate that. What I’d really like to see is…”

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  1. The Bill Murray Disagreement*

    My suspicion is that the nurse in question had done this before. Still, the solution to that problem (if it is the problem) is for the doctor to apologize in the moment and reiterate with the nurse that it’s unacceptable to just open a door without knocking and ensuring the patient is ready. It may not have been a big deal to this OP, but it is a big deal.

    1. Butterfly Counter*

      This was my thought: The doctor was doing something to handle a recurring problem with this nurse and has resorted to shaming. I don’t know if that was specifically warranted, and maybe the doctor was overreacting to a first-time offense. But I’ve also seen similar responses in medical settings when someone just isn’t getting “don’t do this in front of patients” rules.

    2. Toupeee*

      Then the doctor can bring that up with the nurse’s actual boss (who isn’t the doctor) later on. And they can bring it up in a way that does not involve this weird power trip because the optics of this whole story just are not great.

      1. rudster*

        LW did say that it was a “doctor’s office”, as opposed to a facility like a hospital or outpatient center. In a solo or group medical practice, there’s probably only a handful of nurses working and there isn’t going to be a separate “nursing manager” who doesn’t also work for the practice owner(s).

  2. IT in WI*

    Just so that folks are aware, doctors are not the managers of nurses. Nurses have their own management, so if this was repeatedly noticed by doctors, they should have a talk with the nurse’s chain of command.

    1. silly little public health worker*

      yeah, I handle patient safety for a health center – what Allison’s describing is exactly what the correct protocol is. it would be a red flag to me if a doctor behaved like this. As someone else mentioned usually the MDs do not supervise the RNs (sometimes they do if they’re like, the Medical Director of a small health center, but not usually in a larger surgical setting and definitely not if they’re a staff physician / attending, etc.). if something like this happened to me it would flag to me as an indication of poor management practices – if the doctor thinks they CAN do this and that this is the right way to handle the issue, the MD is probably being mismanaged. and if they’re the practice director, that’s not a good sign.

      1. IT in WI*

        I agree that Allison gave the the correct protocol. The way I was reading it was that it was a surgical center, not a small/private practice. I wanted to simply clarify for some people that may be unfamiliar that doctors are part of the team, no different than how other teams in different businesses work with different heirarchies.

      1. IT in WI*

        In small offices probably not. But the situation describes a surgical center which are very rarely small or privately owned.

      2. Paint N Drip*

        In my experience, typically a small single or double doc practice is setup with at least one of the doctors as the boss. Sometimes there is an office manager or similar that might act as HR but not always

    3. Debby*

      IT in WI: I was an RN who worked in Doctor’s offices for several years. Some Doctors are the manager of the nurses, as they own the practice. But when I worked in a huge clinic in Florida that was owned by a corporation, even then the Doctor(s) you worked with had a huge say in discipline of nurses. Also in the raises we got. Just sayin’

      1. IT in WI*

        Different hospitals do things differently for sure, and yes doctors can have a big say in how things go for a nurse. But they are part of an overall care team with the teams having different hierarchy in the hopes of providing better patient care.

    4. Nightengale*

      No but doctors often do have standing to bring up things and set the tone.

      I would not have asked a nurse I work with to apologize like this
      But I very much would and have corrected patient interaction situations, such as “please make sure the person calling is the mother before you write ‘mom called’ in a note that is the medical record.”
      Serious or recurrent concerns I do also bring up with our office manager who is the de facto manager of the nursing staff in our outpatient setting

        1. Nightengale*

          yup

          loved that show. Although I definitely did NOT take my patient or interprofessional communication tips from it.

  3. Ellis Bell*

    It’s the fact that he dragged her back in with him that makes it infantalizing. If he had apologised himself, it would have been fine. Even speaking to the nurse privately so she could say “Sorry about earlier” of her own accord as OP made their way out, would have been fine. But standing over her while she apologised was probably very awkward for OP to witness.

    1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      Reminds me of a time when I was in my 20s and ordered a sandwich at Arby’s. I asked to exclude something. They didn’t. Bummer. “Excuse me, I didn’t want X.” Cashier, “oh, sorry about that. I’ll get you a new one.” “Thanks, cool.”
      My friend and I were eating at our table when the cashier approaches to explain that she is formally apologizing. The manager sent her over.
      Because that was necessary.
      I just asked, “is this what he does? Make you feel awkward? Cuz I feel awkward. He’s kind of a jerk.”
      “Yeah, he does stuff like this.”
      My friend and I were like, “yeah, this store is between a Wendy’s and a McDonald’s. We’ll see ya around.”

      1. JanetM*

        Many years ago (maybe 50 years?) my family stopped for dinner at a private college where every student was a work-study student. Someone had decided that the best possible placement for a shy girl was waitressing at the college restaurant.

        On her way out to the table with a tray full of large glasses of ice water, she stumbled and dropped the tray on my Dad (I never saw him move that fast before or after). She burst into tears and ran for the kitchen.

        Another waitress took over the table. Dad sent back several messages that it was okay, he knew it was an accident, he wasn’t upset, we were travelling, and he had been able to change into dry clothes that were in the car. The manager came over to apologize, and Dad told him the same thing.

        We didn’t see the original waitress until the end of the meal, when the manager frog-marched her out, still weeping, to apologize. Dad was a WHOLE lot more upset with the manager for that than he was with the waitress for the ice water.

    2. t*

      I think its also important to consider that if the patient was really bothered and felt voilated by the initial interaction, doing things this way also forces the patient into further awkwardness with the person they just felt violated by.

      Totally the wrong way to handle things.

  4. HSE Compliance*

    The entire thing reads a little odd to me. I don’t think I’ve ever re-dressed in front of a doctor before. They’ve always left the room, allowed me to put everything back on, and then returned. After knocking, of course.

    As a patient, I would be *way* more uncomfortable with that forced apology than the door being opened. It would feel like the apology made the entire scenario more awkward than what it was just from the open door (and I’m reading the ‘back door’ being a door into the nurse’s area, not like….to the lobby or general public hallway). To me it reads as too much of an escalation for what the situation was.

    This is a situation that is hard to contextualize in a non-medical office and I’m having a hard time thinking of analogous situations in what a more typical working environment for me would be.

    1. Somehow I Manage*

      1. Yes, a forced apology is far more uncomfortable.

      2. A non-medical office scenario… let’s say someone takes a call for me and flubs up the transfer to my extension. I’m not asking the person who initially answered the call and messed up the transfer to call back with an apology. I’ll call, apologize for the fact that the transfer didn’t work – importantly not placing blame on my coworker – and move on from there.

      Less important because of the lack of nakedness, but similar in scale, I think.

    2. Justcuz*

      I was coming here to genuinely ask if anyone had ever been forced to dress in front of a doctor? Or have them reprimand a nurse in front of them?

      1. Malarkey01*

        It depends, although typically it would be a nurse. Some surgeries and procedures that are “minor”, especially any with anesthesia may involve dizziness. Many clinics have a requirement that a provider must be within arms reach while you dress following the procedure to reduce falls. My husband’s clinic has a form you sign before the procedure acknowledging this and signs posted.
        (sometimes due to size of patient the doctor was the better choice if 2 nurses would be required)

      3. KatCardigans*

        “Forced” seems like a strong word there. They do usually leave, but I have certainly started redressing while the doctor or nurse is still in the room, especially if something holds them up a little on their way out.

        1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          This brings up another perspective. If the nurse knew the doctor was in there, she assumed that the patient was not at some level of undress because the doctor would control the situation. He could say, please don’t change until I’ve left so that the staff knows this room is being used for changing. Staff might still come in if I’m here. (OK, doctors are busy and important, but so is everyone and one simple, odd thing prevents one big awkward thing.)

      4. Msd*

        Well, one time I got up to get dressed but the ob/gyn didn’t leave. I didn’t want to clean myself up in front of her so ended up standing there naked from the waist down while she chatted with me. It was beyond awkward (for me anyway. She didn’t seem to care). I guess I wasn’t technically forced since I didn’t get dressed until she FINALLY left. Just stood there with my butt hanging out.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          I really like the setup that’s common for ob/gyns here: one corner of the room is closed off with a curtain. That’s where the patient goes to change. There’s often a stool and/or wall hooks to put your stuff, sometimes sanitary pads. That way the doctor doesn’t have to leave and come back all the time, nurses can come in, and the patient is in full control of their privacy. The curtain can be pulled back if necessary.

          Some doctors continue to chat while one is dressing, but it’s a lot less awkward with the curtain in between.

          1. Zephy*

            My gyno’s office has little built-in alcoves in the exam rooms, with real permanent walls, not just curtains. There’s a bench to put your things on so you don’t have to set them on the floor, a pack of towels and sanitary pads if needed, and a little trash can. The ceiling lights also have panels over them with pictures of serene, pleasant scenery, like gardens or sunsets, so you have something nice to look at while they’re doing whatever downstairs. Stuff like that should really be standard in any doctor’s office where patients are expected to undress, honestly.

          2. Freya*

            My GPs office has the same kind of set up – in Australia, General Practitioners cover a lot of the routine stuff that Americans would normally go to a gynie for, like smear tests and so forth, so there’s an examination table and a curtain that can pull around it so that you’re protected from accidental exposure. My GP routinely pulls the curtains back around after everything is done and she’s going to type up her notes and label any samples she took for testing, so that I can get cleaned up and dressed with the curtain between me and her typing.

          3. Mythical*

            I’m sure you didn’t mean it the way it sounded but the idea of there being hooks in a changing room for sanitary pads is making me laugh so hard.

        3. Grenelda Thurber*

          Egad! How oblivious can a doctor be? I actually left a gynecologist’s practice after the same nurse walked in on me getting dressed after an annual exam, two years in a row. There’s nothing like the shot of adrenaline you get when you’re cleaning the lubricant off yourself before putting on your underwear and the door opens unannounced. There were other small issues I had, but the second time being embarrassed was the limit for me.

      5. Nightengale*

        I’m both a doctor and a patient. . .

        I wouldn’t say forced but I have definitely started dressing when the doctor is still in the room. I’m usually FREEZING and want to get my sweater back on as quickly as possible. I know doctors are supposed to give patients privacy for dressing and this is a good thing, but I don’t feel more vulnerable during the moment of dressing/undressing than I did being examined in possibly not much clothing, and I do feel cold.

        As the doctor I generally complete visits with my patients fully clothed although sometimes my patient – who are all children with behavioral disabilities – chooses to strip.

        1. amoeba*

          Yup, me too. I know some people value the privacy for dressing, but for me personally it just seems so useless! Usually, dressing takes a maximum of, like, one minute for me and I’ve been naked/in my underwear in front of the doctor a minute ago, anyway. In case of my OB Gyn, definitely in a much more exposed position than anything I could come up with while dressing.
          So, I’ll usually just quickly pull on my clothes – sometimes they leave anyway, sometimes I’m too fast, either way is fine.

      6. BlueCanoe*

        Mine usually tell me that they’ll leave the room so I can change.

        One time I started taking off my fleece jacket before an X-ray tech had left the room. In my mind, I was getting a head start on undressing and was planning to take off everything else after she’d left the room, but she didn’t know that and was quick to remind me that I could wait til she left to undress (in Midwestern speak, I think she was straight up telling me I *should* wait til she left). I live in a fairly modest and conservative part of the country.

    3. nnn*

      That’s what I was thinking – medical providers, regardless of gender, have always given me (female) privacy to change clothes. So as I was reading through, I interpreted it as the nurse didn’t realize the patient was changing because the patient and the doctor were talking.

      (Not that that affects advice to OP either way)

    4. anon24*

      I never had until the last few years, and now I’ve had several different providers ask if I’d like them to leave the room or if I want to get changed while they take the time to chart or keep talking or whatever. I honestly don’t mind, they just saw me undressed, so me dressing in their peripheral vision is not a huge deal to me. Also, I am a bit of a shy prude myself, but I also work in healthcare and fully understand that when you are in “healthcare work” mode a body is just another body and is totally not a big deal or anything to stare at.

  5. Al*

    Is this a medical office thing? I had a similar issue where they didn’t give me important blood work info right away. I told the doc about it and I was really upset. The doc made the nurse call me directly and apologize. It was very uncomfortable for both of us.

    1. Alan*

      I feel like a lot of doctors aren’t very good with people. I know that sounds stupid, but I’ve encountered it time and again.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I don’t think that sounds stupid at all. The vast majority of their training focuses on physical ailments and most of their job is documentation or fighting with insurance companies.

        There’s a reason “bedside manner” is discussed as something that doctors should have, not something that they’re expected to have.

      2. ThatOtherClare*

        I get the impression that medical school is highly competitive and sometimes adversarial, and I think some doctors struggle to switch out of that mindset when they enter the real world.

        I have a complex, hard-to-diagnose medical issue, and I’ve had several doctors treat me as though I were ‘doing it on purpose’. It was as if encountering something unfamiliar took them back to medical school and they were suddenly snarling at me like I was an unfriendly examiner trying to catch them with a trick question, instead of a vulnerable patient.

        By now I’ve managed to find doctors who work with me, the two of us against the problem, instead of just them against my body (and me). However, it was an expensive and time consuming process, and I feel deeply for those who don’t have the luxury of being able to choose their doctors.

      3. Nightengale*

        A lot of doctors aren’t good with people. There’s a lot behind this including most doctors having minimal experience in the patient role and medical school admissions and success selecting for memorization over relating to people. My medical school gave us an empathy test every year and noted scores DROPPED during the years students were in the hospital being reinforced for being fast with facts rather than thoughtful with fellow humans.

        A lot of places have recognized this, which has now led to codifying things like how to give an apology, or the gem rolled out by my current health system where at one point we were told to end every encounter with “thank you for allowing me to care for you today.”

    2. bamcheeks*

      It’s a medical practice thing to reflect on mistakes and ensure patients get an apology if something go wrong. It’s a move away from the “never apologise / admit fault or you’ll get sued” culture, and there’s strong evidence that receiving an apology reduces litigation (where it’s driven by the injured person, not insurance companies of course), AND improves patient wellbeing.

      So I think this is where it’s coming from, but this is going about it very much the wrong way! The apology doesn’t always need to be personal, and it shouldn’t be about making the institution or perpetrator feel better at the expense of the patient!

      1. Caramel & Cheddar*

        Yes, this! If an apology is warranted, I don’t especially care who gives it, but it should be the person who can do so as seamlessly as possible at the time, not someone who comes back later and makes it worse. “So sorry you weren’t given the blood work info! I’ll give you a few minutes to review it” is probably a better way to handle it than to have the nurse call the patient after the fact to apologize.

        1. TeratomasAreWeird*

          I think sometimes who gives the apology does matter. My PCP failed to find a tumor in their exam, which delayed treatment for over a year. (Fortunately it was benign, so it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as it could have been.) My PCP apologized to me and we talked about what happened, which was a pretty important part of repairing the trust in our relationship.

          Of course, if I’d thought for a moment that they were only apologizing because a manger was forcing them to, I would have been both angry and second-hand embarrassed.

  6. Alan*

    This really feels like some sort of weird power play on the part of the doctor. That said, OP’s response sounds perfect to me.

    1. Goldenrod*

      Agreed. It did feel like a weird power play to me. I don’t like it. I would have felt bad for the nurse.

  7. Owl-a-roo*

    This is a great example of why the vast majority of doctors need some kind of administrator on-site. Being a great doctor does not translate directly to great people management skills or even people skills in general! I hate it when this kind of hierarchal BS gets pulled in healthcare settings.

    1. doreen*

      Being a doctor definitely doesn’t translate to great people management skills – but private practices are like any other small business in that the owner(s) are likely to not believe they are overstepping when they deal directly with the staff rather than just informing the manager/administrator. It’s possible that the letter is about a large practice where the doctors are employees , but it may not be.

  8. Justanobody*

    I was at the dermatologist office a few years ago when the medical assistant walked from the exam room into the hallway and left the door wide open. I was buck naked, with the dermatologist doing my skin check. He reached over and closed the door without a word to me. Luckily no one was walking by the open door.
    Between that and the doctor referring to me as ‘young lady’ (I’m not young and this is patronizing), I chose not to go back to that practice.

    1. Scottish Beanie*

      I got a procedure that required complete nakedness, and the doctor had bedside manner so bad it was probably sadistic. He openly laughed at my pain and then left the exam room door wide open to the lobby with my business end facing the door and my feet still in stirrups. The accompanying nurse, rather than apologize or acknowledge the wrong (or even shut the door unprompted), proceeded to make excuses. Even then, it would be an Administrator-level apology, not the doctor or nurse forced to return; they would’ve been the last people I’d want to see anyway.

    2. Former Student Midwife*

      I was taking care of a Muslim woman in labour on an extremely hot day when a male doctor barged into the room with no notice and threw the poor, completely naked woman into a panic. I physically forced him back out of the door and still to this day feel it was the right thing to do, though it was a complete violation of the hierarchy of the hospital.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Good for you. I’m pretty sure the hospital hierarchy has killed more hospital patients than any single disease.

        Get the fuck out, doctor, and when you come back wash your damn hands.

      2. ThatOtherClare*

        That was absolutely the right thing to do. Every second he remained was compounding her trauma, there wasn’t a moment to waste with polite words. Well done.

  9. Somehow I Manage*

    I agree that the doctor himself should have addressed it. In that kind of situation, it would have given OP the opportunity to respond in a way that would have given the doctor the right information he needed when addressing it with the nurse and other staff.

    If OP didn’t think it was a big deal, felt like he was clothed enough, and said it didn’t bother him, the doc could have just told the nurse that everyone needs to be a little more careful, versus putting her in a really awkward spot or making some sort of big deal out of saying something later.

  10. Resume please*

    Ugh, a power move and public shaming that made it awkward for the patient. Also, I don’t think that I’ve ever undressed/redressed in front of a doctor/NP/PA before. There’s always at least a curtain divider, if they don’t leave the room. And the nurse didn’t knock? The apology was weird, but their practices seem off as well

    1. Somehow I Manage*

      I (male) have had exams in which I’ve undressed / redressed in front of a provider. Depends on the level of undress, but I think I’ve pulled on my undergarments while in an exam gown. But take that with a grain of salt, too, because I’ve walked shirtless – wearing basketball shorts – from the exam room to an X-ray without putting on the gown, too.

    2. Nonsense*

      I was just at the doctor last week and I undressed and redressed in front of the nurse. But she asked if I preferred she stepped out and I told her it was fine to stay – she had to get the EKG set up anyway so may as well save time. But frankly, I’ve been to the doctor so much (for slowly resolving health issues) that it doesn’t phase me to strip down anymore.

      But everyone always knocked and waited before entering the room.

    3. Lego girl*

      I recently had a visit to check for mastitis (luckily not, probably just clogged duct) and I just pulled my shirt off and unsnapped my bra. But she offered I could go behind the curtain, take everything off, put on gown, come out and then she’d open the gown. Figured it saved several minutes to not, considering I have my boob out for the baby all the time.

    4. Indolent Libertine*

      I definitely re-dress in front of the mammogram tech most of the time; there’s nothing left to the imagination after that procedure!

      I guess I’d feel a little different about *undressing* in front of staff, but I’m not really able to articulate why.

      1. allathian*

        I would do the same if my clothes weren’t in a little alcove out of the mammogram tech’s line of sight.

        I’m in Finland, and our attitudes to public nudity are less prudish than in the US, where nudity is assumed to be inherently sexual. For example, I’ve never seen a hospital gown outside of an actual hospital. In doctor’s offices, people undress to reveal the bits of themselves that the doctor needs to see, keeping the rest of their clothes on.

      2. metadata minion*

        For some reason, undressing feels more intimate than just being naked for me as well. I did nude modeling for art classes in college, and there was a changing room so that I could have privacy to undress…in order to sit naked in the middle of the room for two hours. And I used the changing room, because it felt weird to undress in the middle of the classroom.

  11. Lisa*

    These seem like good scripts for responding to an apology in general, forced or not. Thank you for that!

  12. DottedZebra*

    I’m surprised by all the agreement here because I thought the doctor was right? If that happened to me, I would want an apology from the person who did it, not someone else. I don’t see it as public shaming, since the only person who saw it was the person who was violated. It’s accountability.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      I think that *forcing* an adult to apologize is what people think is odd. That’s the kind of thing you do when children are still learning how to apologize and when it’s appropriate to do so. Presumably the nurse knows how to apologize and could have done so if she thought she should; therefore a forced apology comes across as insincere and infantalizing.

      1. Caramel & Cheddar*

        Yes, this. For me, the time for the nurse to apologize was when she first stepped into the room and realised what was up. A quick “Whoops, my apologies!” would have sufficed in the moment. She didn’t do that, so if it was important to the doctor to make it clear this is out of step with their usual procedures, he could have said “Sorry about that, it’s our protocol to knock before entering a room!” He didn’t do that, so not only did LW not get an apology in a timely fashion, he got it in the most awkward way possible. There are no winners here!

      2. Kimmy Schmidt*

        I don’t want an empty apology. If the mistake is worth apologizing for, it should also have a purpose – taking ownership, correcting a mistake, figuring out a plan to prevent future mistakes, maintaining the relationship. With the doctor’s awkward apology parade, nothing of substance is accomplished and it all just feels performative.

      3. Allonge*

        What I am hoping happened is the doctor talking to the nurse and asking if she wanted to apologize (instead of telling her to).

        It’s still not awesome – the doctor could have and should have apologized, we do this all the time within our team – but at least it’s a bit less like a child being trained indeed.

        Anyway, weird.

      4. allathian*

        Yeah, no. I don’t think forcing kids to apologize is any better. All they learn is that they say a few words by rote and then everything’s supposed to be fine.

        Children learn to apologize by hearing adults apologize to each other, and most importantly, to them. Every parent alive has sometimes lost their cool with their kids and responded inappropriately. Decent parents apologize when they screw up and resolve to do better. But of course, a large percentage of us has never had good role models at home, so I understand why the idea that it’s appropriate to force kids to apologize persists.

    2. a clockwork lemon*

      Yeah I mean…it’s a little awkward but I don’t really see an issue with the nurse being expected to apologize. I’m pretty cavalier about people seeing me in various states of undress, but every medical practice I’ve ever been to the expectation seems to be that any new person coming into the room during an appointment should knock AND wait to receive an affirmative response to come in.

    3. Patent Leather Pock-a-book*

      If the Dr. apologized, I would wonder if the apology was perfunctory, and if he was never going to say anything to her. The fact that the nurse herself apologized means he actually spoke to her, and it’s actually a policy in their practice that they enforce.

      Not Tom, Just Petty makes a good point that the nurse could have rightly assumed that the patient was still gowned since the Dr. was in the room.

    4. ThatOtherClare*

      I’m not disagreeing with you, since how one receives an apology is a very personal thing, but if you’re curious, here’s one of the alternative perspectives:

      Personally, I value accountability most from those who had the most power to prevent what happened to me. Humans make mistakes, so in a workplace setting that’s actually most often not the person who caused the incident. I’d feel far more as though restitution had taken place if the practice manager had come and apologised to me and said they were going to look into screens or a red/green light system to make sure an accident like that never happens again.

      Forcing a human to be accountable for a momentary lapse of common sense wouldn’t really make me feel better. Brain farts happen, and will continue to happen. Hearing that those in control of the environment took my moment of ‘suffering’ seriously, and have the compassion for me and others to put in place something to prevent it from happening again – that would make me feel great (so long as it was true and they followed through). It would mean that my minuscule ‘suffering’ was real to them. I’d feel seen and valued. For me, that’s the worth that an apology holds, not as a sort of ‘you hurt me so now you must feel pain too’ ritual like the doctor seemed to prefer.

      (Why yes, I have thought way too deeply about this sort of stuff, how did you know?)

  13. Dawn*

    I think it really just reflects badly on a manager (which the doctor is in this instance) when they force an apology from one of their staff; ultimately, their mistake is the manager’s responsibility, and particularly if the manager is already dealing with you, they should be the one giving the apology.

    Frog-marching an employee in to apologize under duress just feels like an attempt to shift the blame when part of your job is to take responsibility.

  14. Crencestre*

    99% of the time I agree with Alison’s take on a workplace problem, but in this case I have to differ with her. That nurse was an ADULT – with a degree in a challenging field, no less! – AND she chose a profession in which sensitivity to vulnerable people (patients) is essential. The doctor didn’t make the mistake in this case – the nurse did, and she was rightly held accountable.

    Was it humiliating for her to have to apologize to the OP? Yes! Would she rather be written up, put on a PIP and eventually fired with no chance of a decent reference? No! Having to apologize to one patient is small peanuts compared to what COULD happen to her if she continues to be careless about patient privacy. If she’s any good as a nurse, she’ll learn from this incident, resolve to mend her ways so as not to be humiliated again and there’ll be no further need for the doctor to drag her by the ear to apologize to anyone again. Win-win all the way around!

    1. Saturday*

      It’s not a win for the op – it sounds very uncomfortable. I would have really disliked having this apology and lesson directed at me! Sounds unprofessional.

    2. JustKnope*

      Humiliation is not an appropriate work consequence. She made a professional error and the correct response is professional consequences. The alternative to having to apologize in this one-off situation isn’t the nurse getting fired, but if the nurse had a *pattern* of disrespecting protocol that led to patients being exposed, then yeah it’s a good thing to have a written record of her doing so in the past so that she could get on a PIP and be fired if she didn’t fix the behavior.

    3. Dawn*

      If this is how one manages their employees, then one is a bad manager.

      You are correct. They are adults. Even when adults make mistakes, they deserve to be treated like adults, not children. And the person who was subjected to the apology obviously didn’t appreciate it, either.

      The nurse was “rightly held accountable” – and one can hold people accountable for their mistakes without treating them like a small child, unless one is very bad at managing people indeed.

    4. MigraineMonth*

      There are two possibilities here. Either this was a one-off mistake by an employee, in which case humiliating them is an overreaction. Employees with confidence and options will leave if they are one mistake away from being treated like misbehaving children by their managers.

      Or maybe this is part of a pattern of mistakes, in which case humiliating them is still not a useful reaction, because unlike a calm discussion, PIP or even firing, it doesn’t address the root issue. Other employees with confidence and options will leave if they realize management’s strategy for dealing with work issues is a scolding chair rather than actually addressing the issue/letting the problem employee go if necessary.

      Not to mention, the LW wrote in because they were so embarrassed by the forced apology, not by the initial incident. Any management method that makes your customers so acutely uncomfortable they ask a workplace site for advice probably isn’t “win-win all the way around”.

  15. AnonyNurse*

    Doctors love their power plays over nurses, techs, admin … all the people who can make mistakes, because lord knows they never do. Except their interns. They’ll throw them under the bus any day of the week.

    And it DOES make patients really uncomfortable. It doesn’t make whatever happened better.

    (I know, not all doctors, but I’m both a nurse and a cancer patient, and I am over some of these folks)

  16. HannahS*

    Perhaps context for the OP–I can appreciate that you did not feel uncomfortable with what the nurse did, but mishandling nudity in a healthcare setting is a Very Big Deal, and represents a fairly serious error on the part of the nurse. Making the nurse apologize to you was probably not the right move; the doctor should have apologized and said that he would discuss it with the nurse himself.

  17. NakednessHappens*

    Um, it’s a medical environment. Nakedness is not entirely unexpected. People have gotten do weird about this that they will do things that cause patients pain to preserve false modesty for an extra 90 seconds.

    Everyone should get over themselves and expect some nakedness in medical environments. No need to apologize or complain unless something actually untoward happens.

    1. Allonge*

      It’s OP’s privacy that is at issue, not the fact that the nurse saw him in boxers.

      Sure, people need to expect nakedness, but I as a person who needs to get naked have a reasonable expectation that medical staff will not expose me to others. Accidents happen, nothing terrible happened, I would survive but some doors should be opened with care.

    2. Caramel & Cheddar*

      The unexpected thing here is the door opening without warning, not the nakedness. Patients expect that for certain procedures there may be a portion during which they have to be partially or fully unclothed. What they’re probably not expecting is that at any point before, during, or after that procedure while they’re undressing/dressing, someone might randomly open a door without warning. I’m exceedingly comfortable with medical nudity, but I still wouldn’t love someone barging into the room unexpectedly.

  18. Ami*

    It’s very kind and empathetic of OP to consider the nurse’s feelings this much. However, I think that because he wasn’t really bothered by the incident, he primarily feels like this was unnecessary and unkind to the nurse, and he’s unconsciously minimizing how bad her behavior was. Walking in on a patient in the process of changing with no warning, even if you do it fast and even if the patient has most of their clothes on, is a really big violation of privacy! OP was lucky to be fully covered, but what if he was in the process of pulling his boxers up, or if some other patients had passed by the door and seen him? And OP could just as easily have been a woman who hadn’t put her shirt on yet, or someone with a skin condition they’re sensitive about, or someone with body image issues or fresh surgical scars or anxiety or any of the hundreds of reasons that someone would be really upset by having the door suddenly opened when they’re not dressed. This kind of cavalier disregard for patient comfort is careless at best and cruel at worst.

    I’m also seeing a lot of assumptions that the doctor dragged the nurse in unwillingly and forced to her to apologize, but all we know is that the doctor asked the patient to wait for a moment, and then came back with the nurse, who apologized and looked embarrassed. The nurse was in and out so fast, she might not even have noticed him there, and might have volunteered to apologize when the doctor stepped out to inform her of her mistake. It might be clinic policy that incidents like this require an in-person apology because of the level of severity. Again, even though it didn’t bother OP in this specific instance, the nurse’s behavior should be treated as a big lapse of judgement, regardless of how the patient feels, and an apology is the bare minimum she can do to make amends. The nurse SHOULD feel flustered and embarrassed to have made such a huge mistake! I hope for the sake of her future patients, she learns to do better.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      I don’t think the remedy to a situation that could have been embarrassing to a patient should be to definitely embarrass the patient, though. The nurse wasn’t the only one embarrassed by the apology.

    2. Dawn*

      It obviously is being treated as a big lapse in judgment, but the correct way to address that is not to force an apology from her, and she could have apologized to the patient after they were finished in the room. The fact that the doctor left and returned with her and her clear embarrassment makes it pretty apparent that the doctor went and told her to come apologize.

      Nobody is saying that the nurse shouldn’t feel embarrassed to have made the mistake, but the correct way to manage adults is never to treat them like children.

      1. allathian*

        I don’t believe in forcing children to apologize, either. An apology is worthless unless it’s genuine and heartfelt, it shouldn’t be a get out of jail card to continue bad behavior. I also don’t believe that kids should be forced to accept an apology before they’re ready to do so. Kids have short attention spans so they will generally get over whatever it was faster than most adults would, but sometimes they have to sit on things a while before they’re willing to accept an apology, no matter how heartfelt. And sometimes it’s OK to decide that you don’t want to accept someone’s apology, ever, regardless of age.

        There’s also a difference between accepting someone’s apology and forgiving them. You can accept someone’s apology by thanking them for it gracefully without forgiving them “I appreciate your apology but I’m not ready to forgive you for what you did.” You can also decide to forgive someone without telling them because forgiveness is something you grant to yourself so that you can let go of a grudge. Carrying a grudge takes a lot of mental and emotional energy and sometimes it’s a relief to be Elsa and just let it go.

        That said, in this situation the doctor should have apologized for what happened and told the patient that they’ll talk to the nurse in private afterwards. This would’ve avoided the second-hand embarrassment of the patient.

  19. Refugee from corporations*

    NOT healthcare related …

    I was once asked to apologize to a coworker because my answer to their question made them cry.
    I was interrupted while working on a computer program and lost my train of thought and was … not pleased.

    Well I did apologize to that coworker the next day, but after my explanation, the coworker then apologized to ME.

    Glad I’m retired. My wife knows to leave me alone if I seem busy because I will snap at her.

        1. allathian*

          Indeed, I pity the poor wife.

          Sure, sometimes I get exasperated with my husband when I’m reading or playing a game on my cellphone and he keeps interrupting me. At other times, my husband gets equally exasperated with me when I keep interrupting him when he’s focused on something else. But we’re adults and can use our words, like “I’ve almost finished reading the last chapter of this really exciting book, can those funny comics you found online wait until I’m done?” before we snap at each other.

    2. hiraeth*

      You know, people can’t tell from the outside what’s going on in your head, and interruptions are a pretty normal thing that adults need to cope with. Don’t be an ass to your wife.

  21. What_the_What*

    Oh how cringey for both you and the nurse, OP! I find that medical staff ALWAYS knock before entering my room, so it sounds like maybe that nurse had a pattern of barging right on in and Doc was fed up. Understandable, but it’s something he should have dealt with out of your presence and told her “we’ve talked about entering w/o knocking. Subsequent events will result in (consequences).” But having her come apologize to YOU? Ughhhhhh I’d have been mortified on her behalf as well as my own.

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