The Physician's Guide to Professional Boundaries

No clinician thinks they're at risk of committing a boundary violation until it's too late. "That will never happen to me." "My patients love me." "I would never do anything to jeopardize my career." Stephen Schenthal, MD, MSW, a leader in the field of professional boundaries for over 20 years and CEO and Founder of PBI Education, has helped thousands of clinicians grapple with situations they never imagined facing. In this book he offers an evidence-based account of how good clinicians get into potentially career-ending trouble, and how they find their way back. In part one, Schenthal explains how boundaries are defined, enforced, and what happens when they are violated. In parts two and three, readers learn about the forces that push good, ethical clinicians across professional boundaries, and how they can protect themself from those forces. In part four, readers learn how to gauge their own personal "violation potential", and how to reduce it. This method of examining one's own violation potential has helped thousands of clinicians who have attended PBI Education's remedial courses, almost always while fulfilling a requirement of licensing board discipline. Readers of this book have a unique opportunity to learn the lessons that those before them learned the hard way. Think of it as preventive medicine.