Shifting Your Mindset

We have many levels of staff members at my job. Some are office staff, some are research staff, some are volunteers. We also have interns, post doctoral students and licensed doctors. The research and volunteer staff work for free in order to have my office as a reference for graduate school. Our name carries a lot of weight when applying for schools. For the past three years we have had a woman on our volunteer research team. She already had her Master's Degree but wanted to go back for her Ph.D. She made graduate school and was ready for her internship. We hired her as an intern. Now comes the problem. Some doctors still see her as a volunteer and not as an intern. They are having a hard time shifting gears and seeing her as a clinical professional. They think of her as the fun loving, joking around person they have known for years. She lacks the professional credibility that is necessary to be their co worker. Her feelings are being hurt and the doctors have no idea she feels this way. Today I will hold a staff meeting and let them know how she feels. I am sure things will be different tomorrow.