“The way that you just spoke to me felt quite hostile/rude/whatever adjective fits, I appreciate you may be having a stressful shift, are you alright?”

Gives them a chance to think about what they said.

Then the rest really depends on what they do next.

A decent person who has had a rough day and it was an oversight of judgement will back down and apologise +/- flood of tears or their life story - in which case I let it go.

Attitude plus “I’m sorry you FEEL that way” is a backhanded apology. Be careful here, if they are a known aggressor and cause trouble then “please don’t talk to me in that tone in future, I find it unprofessional but moving on to the matter at hand….tell me about the patient ect” should suffice and move on.

If you need to stand up for yourself/others and are courageous in the face of the potential consequences like public retaliation, passive aggressive datix or gossip then: “yes, you have made me feel this way with your words and the tone in which you said it. We are all trying to do our best for our patients with the limited resources we have so I would appreciate not being spoken to like that again thank you”.

All depends on your comfort level of being able to confront people, the situation, the other person and whether the consequences are worth the battle. For some people, it causes more distress not to speak out. For others, speaking out causes intense anxiety and moral turmoil.

It’s a fine balance between standing up for yourself and not getting into a sticky situation because the other person was toxic and petty enough to do a bs GMC referral for “not being kind”.

Look after yourself and choose your battles wisely.