I know that there are higher psychological reasons for why I hate them, that there is transference from someone else in my life, countertransferance of someone else in their life, personality disorders, weird smells, ..... It's just that sometimes I really don't care.
It takes quite a bit of effort for me to still treat them well. I find it hard to make my clinical decisions with these patients. Before I choose a test, a treatment or a referral to someone else, I need to check in with my conscious to make sure I'm not basing any choices solely on my hatred for the patient. Is that enema really necessary? Am I trying to ditch this patient into someone else's service so that I don't have to worry about it any more? Emotionally, it takes much more out of me. It also takes more of my time because I'm second guessing why I am making the decisions I am.
Even though I know I'm not the only one who feels this way about patients, it's nice to know that there is evidence to back that up.
I also know that I will spend more time with the patients that I like. This is something that I don't spend as much time thinking about but wonder if I should start. It would be just as wrong for me to not order invasive tests because I like the patient or spend time that should be spent on other activities.
These patients are going to more likely to lie to me to make me like them more. I have a patient who has been fibbing to me since day one because she didn't want to disappoint me. I finally called her out on it and we are going to start a different therapeutic alliance. I hate that it had to come to that. I liked being lied to and feeling like I was the best doctor ever because my patient was doing so well.
I swear, every time I think I have a handle on this whole doctor thing, something new pops up to let me know I've never had any form of competence.
1 comment:
Haha, I cant help but snickering a bit. I am a nurse and sometimes I despise my patients. Especially when they cant stop nagging to me about their pain and yet they are having a full conversation on the telephone. Somedays I want to hit them over the head with a frying pan so they cant whining about their pain. I know that sounds awful, but they dont seem to understand how crazy my days are and they take out so much of their frustrations about life in general and their disease process on me. These days patients are very spoiled because they know all they have to do is complain and it sends shivers down the spine of the hospital administrators. SO they expect their every whim to be satisfied. Bedside nursing is terrible now.
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