> Patients yell, they are demanding, they are untrustworthy.
This gets a lot of comment, but it's half the story. I get most of my medical care abroad, but have escorted family through through local medical visits. I've noticed a marked decline in empathy among medical staff the past few years, even in the secretaries at the front desk. This seems to be a general social trend, not just a problem of bad patients.
Reminds me of a friend who passed away from what was essentially doctor apathy.
While recovering from a major surgery started getting terrible abdomen pains. Doctors could hardly even be bothered to tell her to deal with it, completely dismissed her.
about a week later a new resident comes in, pokes and prods her a bit (no doctor prior could even be bothered to do that), looks horrified and orders some scans.
Her stomach had burst and was leaking into abdominal cavity the whole time, she later passed from the complications.
I gained a ton of sympathy for folks for fight and push back against doctors after that.
You hear both sides, likely the "doctors could hardly be bothered" might be in fact due to some doctors being overworked.
I was in the A&E (what is the ER in singapore and the UK I think) and I had severe chest pain due to chest infection. There were like 40 of us in there and like 5 nurses that one nurse just blew me off when I asked for pain killers because she didn't read my record properly and thought I took acetaminophen that morning. It took the pain getting worse to the point I was rocking and screaming for them to give me tramadol. that said, I sympathize with the situation, given they were running around and hardly able to fill out the paper work and do their normal tasks AND be attentive to the sick.
That said, hey I hear you. That doctor fucked up and it was on them yes, it does not absolve them. That said, things sure are getting worse in total across the system in the US, and bad attitudes doesn't explain nationwide scales. For that, you must look at systemic solutions, especially if you don't want more people to die in such situations again.
In case anybody is wondering whether there’s a game of telephone happening from mad family members, I was literally there watching this happen. I regret not speaking up.
It’s probably a runaway positive feedback loop. Someone is an asshole to you, you’re less likely to treat the next patient as well, leading to them treating the next nurse a bit worse.
This gets a lot of comment, but it's half the story. I get most of my medical care abroad, but have escorted family through through local medical visits. I've noticed a marked decline in empathy among medical staff the past few years, even in the secretaries at the front desk. This seems to be a general social trend, not just a problem of bad patients.