Are you a "Hateful Patient"? Or...doctors are human too.

The Cheerful Oncologist does it again, with this thought-provoking post, Beware of the Hateful Patient. Key excerpt:

[I] could not imagine that I would ever harbor animosity toward the very people I was devoting my career to. I was wrong. After many years in practice I understand completely what he meant. All doctors who hold themselves out to the public will acquire certain patients who annoy them or even master the art of driving them perfectly bonkers. Such patient behavior is always tolerable at first but soon it becomes tiresome and the temptation to lash back or become passive-aggressive grows. Soon our good judgment itself is at risk of being poisoned by the grudge festering within. Woe to those physicians who weaken and embrace the Dark Side! (Ahem - that's Star Wars talk). My old professor was right - doctors must always retain control of their emotions, especially with patients.

The comments are as interesting as the post, since several patients who fear they are hateful weigh in.

What's interesting is that you may not like the list of reasons CO gives that a patient might become hateful in a doctor's eyes. Reasons such as insistence on trying alternative therapies, or suffering from mental illness on top of whatever illness has the patient in the doctor's office. Bit whether you like the reasons or not they once again prove: doctors are only human.

At least he makes the point that it is the doctor's job to overcome his or her emotional response to such patients...not the patient's job to become a better patient.

Now, a good companion post to read is Flea's post: Did I Miss Again? I Think I Missed Again. Flea lost a patient (no, not the really bad death kind of losing, just the picked-up-and-found-another-doctor losing.) He feels bad. His commenters runs the range form saying "good riddance" to saying "probably because you suck." It's fascinating. And very human

Comments

[Richard Smith]

Recommended:

Trust in a Medical Setting. Hauppauge, NY: Novinka Books, Nova Science Publishers, 2006.

Experience dealing with a host of difficult to impossible situations may help others in their encounters with these difficult and distrusting patients. These individuals may make up a small per cent of patients and family members, probably less than 2 per cent, but take up 90 per cent of energy in coping with day-to-day conflicts that arise from their behavior. Difficulties managing distrustful patients and family members must be dealt with on the spot, and they don’t go away.
Examples come from office experiences or wards, including situations that keep doctors and nurses and therapists awake at night, aggravate waking hours and poison leisure, that is, empirical, based upon experience and observation alone without science or theory. To survive an outrageous patient or relative requires resourcefulness, patience and imagination. Street wisdom learned the hard way is what I present, and without a guide or mentor to soften the bewilderment and sense of failure and frustration that accompanies these individuals. We seldom talk about these difficult, distrustful and sometimes threatening individuals amongst ourselves; rather we suffer and endure them silently, by ourselves. The problem is timeless as recorded in the world’s literature.
Out of the wreckage of human behavior comes valued experience leading to maneuvers and tactics of survival that are appropriate to almost all aspects and settings of human interaction including day-to-day medical care.

Links:
www.novapublishers.com
richardsmithmd.com