The Patience of Patients
Our world is a world of instant gratification from cell phones, blackberries, high speed internet, overnight mail, faxes, air planes, highways, and fast food. This fast paced world has spread even into our medical world with CT scans, EMR, urgent care centers.
The expectation is to have quality service ASAP. The saying “customers are always right” seems to be the standard business motto. This expectation holds true for those seeking health care. In medical school, we are taught to always listen to our patients but that does not always equate to doing whatever they demand of us.
The Hippocratic Oath says to first and foremost “do no harm”. Sometimes the best thing medically to do for a patient is to wait and watch or provide comfort care measures despite all of our new medicine and technology. These recommendations for some creates a sense of dissatisfaction and dissappointment. The fact that there is no medicine for a virus to take away their ailments “right now” or by tomorrow seems unbelieveable. When you tell some people there are no antibiotics for what they have, they think it is a cruel punishment and that you are keeping them from the medicine because we don’t like them or find pleasure or power by not giving it to them. The public forgets that medicines can have side effects worse than what they have now. MRSA is so rampent now because of the over used of antibiotics. Fluids, Tylenol, Motrin, and rest seem like “old fashion” medicine. I love when patients ask us doctors to look into a crystal ball to tell them if they will feel better by their baseball tournament or party tomorrow or feel worse. Why does it seem unreasonable to see how they feel each day to decide their activity level?
In this fast paced world there are so many appointments in everyone’s schedules. It is sometimes hard to take a step back, slow down, and see the big picture. We need to realize that people get sick and that our bodies’ are sometimes better at fighting infections than we give it credit. It is unfortunate that we feel inconvinenced by our body’s ability to heal itself. The body is amazing and we can’t forget that patience is still a virtue.
DrC