As Dr. House said, “Patients are usually idiots.” But he is a serial doctor-misanthrope, he is forgivable. And what do people in white coats think of us in reality?
We got into a conversation with the wonderful physician-therapist Inga, who has been receiving patients at the clinic for more than 20 years every day, goes to urgent calls and never refuses to help outside of working hours. You cannot reproach her for the lack of delicacy, and yet no Hippocratic oath can save a physician from human enmity towards some patients, but to which ones?
With an unpleasant odor
– The first consultation usually goes to a therapist, so we meet people of different social status and culture of behavior. Some have habits that cannot be cured by surgery, medication, or droppers. For example, uncleanliness. As a rule, elderly grandmothers come clean and neat – fresh kerchiefs, an ironed dress. But some men, apparently, are in such a hurry to see the doctor that they run past the shower. One would like to recall with such patients the saying “dirt is not greasy, washed – and lagged behind.” In the office, sometimes there is a smell from shoes and clothes after such patients. Inconvenient in front of the next client, to whom you will not explain that this amber is not from the nurse and me. And, of course, listening and examining such a person is very unpleasant. It is clear that a doctor has to deal with people who cannot, for example, go to the toilet on their own, but in these cases professionalism and humanism blocks disgust. It is hard to accept a person who does not wash or wash.
Overly sociable
– All parts of the body are susceptible to fatigue, except for the tongue.
It is necessary to tell such patients not only what they were sick with, the diagnoses from all previous doctors, but also to discuss issues of the political situation in the world, the marital status of the five-aunt’s aunt, the financial situation on the collective farm market and many more topics pleasant to him.
There are patients who come to the clinic out of loneliness, they love queues because they have someone to talk to. Themselves, these queues are created from their own kind. It is a daily habit for such patients to come to talk. These patients are distracting and time-consuming, which is sorely lacking for the therapist at the site. In addition, there is no strength for the emotions that they expect from you.
A brawler
– There is no such service in polyclinics: “Listen to the boor”!
He doesn’t like everything: wrong shoe covers, sluggish receptionist, snotty queue, doctors who “bought themselves diplomas” and who cannot even be trusted with an experimental mouse. Such patients come in with a displeased face, grumble nervously and abruptly turn to screaming. Constructive conversation with them does not work, because instead of discussing the disease, the doctor listens to complaints about himself. As a rule, brawlers cannot be interrupted and answered in the same tone, because they are fueled by someone else’s aggression. But the time they take from other patients arguing with doctors is irreplaceable.
Alarmist
– He knows that everything will end tragically. With tears and entreaties, he enters the office, hesitantly sits down in a chair, asks for help, but I am sure that nothing will help. Horror, anxiety and vanity are present in every word and gesture. From a scratch on the heel, he makes himself a fatal diagnosis. Almost crying, he requires all possible and impossible examinations, despite the fact that he has already decided: he will not live to see the second analysis. You have to make efforts to convince this dreamer to adhere to the prescribed treatment and not to get rid of something out of the ordinary. Jokes here need to be filtered, the patient is easily suggestible and can catch on any careless word.
My own doctor
“Such people come to test your knowledge. They have already studied the Internet, diagnosed themselves and know what medications they need to take. They have many consultants in the form of well-wishers from social networks who are not related to medicine. Know-it-alls come to us to demonstrate their knowledge and get a recipe that they have already “written out” for themselves. He does not need to be examined, to take tests, too, everything is known from the SEO articles that journalists write. Journalists are not doctors! It is useless to explain that articles from the Internet are not MRI or CT, not blood parameters of a given patient.
If you don’t trust a doctor, treat yourself. Take responsibility for your life and health only!
Corpulent
– On the one hand, obesity is a disease that needs to be treated. On the other hand, in many cases, obese people have brought themselves to this state. I have several patients on the site who suffer from III and IV degrees of obesity. Because of their weight, these are seriously ill people. But, coming to them on call, I always see boxes and plates with flour and fatty foods next to their bed. As one of the victims of food addiction, who has not been able to leave the house for 15 years, “everything that is good in life is either illegal, or immoral, or leads to obesity.” She does not want to be treated for the terrifying fullness and assures that food is her only happiness.
An overweight person has more diseases, and in many ways he is to blame.
Doctors
– There is a verse: “There are no worse bastards than sick doctors.” Healing a medic is a thankless task. Especially annoying are the “sick doctors” who know everything about the consequences and still abuse: a smoking cardiologist, an obese endocrinologist, an otolaryngologist with headphones and music in decibels, a drinking nephrologist …
As Faina Ranevskaya said, “if the patient wants to live, the doctors are powerless.” This quote can be paraphrased: “If a person is tired of being healthy, medicine is helpless.”