Primum non nocere and Primum succurrere (Please Do NO HARM, and Hasten When you should)
Patients are at the mercy of their doctors, therapists, nurses, and even caregivers.
On the top of the totem poll for many who are ill is the God-like Doctor. Of course, we all know that physicians are not God, but many of us put our faith in them anyways especially when we are forced to turn to them for help for ourselves or a loved one. There are many wonderful, intelligent, compassionate, and empathic physicians out there who still do their job because they care about the sick and want to do their best. They may go about their work unappreciated in their daily lives seeing countless numbers of patients, and perhaps not getting too much gratitude. This also is true for people in the many avenues of medical work. On the flip side of the coin, there are those who judge harshly, argue with their patient, belittle, and even fail to bother to do appropriate testing or provide proper care for whatever reason. In the extreme, there are the medical professionals who belittle patients on a public forum with rude jokes, inappropriate comments, and exhibit possible illegal behavior by giving too much detail about a story in the workplace even if a name is not given about a particular patient. For this reason, I am beginning a blog and thus I am expressing my concerns in this first entry.
Medical professionals who only see patients as migraineurs, fake fibromyalgia freaks, fatties, retards, drug seeking wastes of breath, psychos, smelly,disgusting, apathetic, nothing but whiners, and hypochondriacs, attention seekers, etc. are every patient’s worst nightmare. For those who are relatively healthy, usually a visit to a medical establishment will produce good and satifactory results. But for those with chronic illness of any kind, such medical professionals could pose a risk to their physical and mental well being for so many reasons on so many levels. Sometimes, a trip to see a doctor or even another type of service provider, can turn into a disaster. This may be only in a minority of cases, but I personally believe it happens way too much.
For the patients who are truly ill, and truly need care, they need a good understanding physician to be there to coordinate proper evaluation and treatment options depending upon their specific complaint or diagnosis. If a medical professional is unable to handle a certain problem, then he or she should always refer a patient to whomever can provide the best care possible. If a doctor cannot figure out what is wrong, then they should be honest about it in a professional manner. No doctor should purposely bicker with, yell at, or make unnecessary comments to their patient. Even if he or she sees their patient in a certain way legitimately, it is in both the physician’s and the patient’s best interest that the physician remain as cool and collected as possible in light of the situation. A good doctor, nurse, therapist, etc. should remember that their patients are only human and that they cannot possibly begin to know what the individual has gone through if they cannot put themselves in the client’s place. There is little time with a shortage of physicians, nurses, etc. for proper care as it is nowadays. Patients may feel as if they are on an assembly line only to wait forever in an office, to be brushed off or not even listened to. Sometimes, it might be because a patient has had one too many bad experiences in the care of a medical professional. At other times, it might be that the individual is overly sensitive for one reason or another. But he/she is the patient, and the medical professional is the expert. Just like an adult shouldn’t bicker with a child, under most circumstances I feel that a medical professional should avoid bickering with a patient.
What good does it do to scare someone away? Some doctors for example, would rather have a certain person out of their hair because he/she is too difficult or even belligerent. But many have lost the ability to be understanding and not take everything too personally as well. It may very well be that the patient is frustrated because of their illness, or even because of something that the medical professional has done wrong or not done at all. These are all things to consider. Being amongst others who suffer from chronic illness, I hear these complaints all the time. Many of us go into an appointment or ER with a good attitude and treat our doctors with as much patience and respect as possible, only to be shunned, rejected, made fun of, brushed off, or turned away. Not one of us is perfect, but each patient has a story of their own and they are not just another number on a chart. Unfortunately, this is how many of us feel.
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