Doctors are often too quick to label patients ‘anxious’ without considering the harm this can do to their care. We need to put ourselves in their shoes
In the dungeons of the hospital, when the nights were interminable, the sofa broken and the bread stale, I got to know a fellow resident who made the nights bearable by regaling us with the details of patients he had to see. Bed two: LOL at risk of AHF (little old lady at risk of an acute hissy fit). ICU: Peek and shriek (the ICU harboured a patient whose diseased abdomen the surgeons had just opened and shut). Bed 29: TEETH, check out TTR (Tested Everything Else, Try Homeopathy. TTR referred, of course, to the tattoo to teeth ratio, his favourite number).
But behind the mischievous words lay a sensitive and capable doctor who went on to become a favourite among patients because he always knew his boundaries, unlike for example, our surgical tutor who once threw bare a man’s abdomen and asked a gaggle of students to examine “this elephant”. Twenty years later, I still remember that surgeon’s callousness with unease.
Related: American doctors are over-reliant on medical tests and patients pay the price | Kenneth Ludmerer
Related: A letter to my patient, whose terminal cancer is the least of her worries | Ranjana Srivastava
Continue reading...
No comments:
Post a Comment