09.26.06
How to manage difficult patients
Original article by: May Su :: Printer friendly
There are many reasons why patient interactions can be frustrating or difficult. Most commonly these can be traced to factors relating to the patient, the physician, or the health care system (1).
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The management of a “difficult” patient requires time, good communication and firm limit setting. |
“Difficult patients” are common and unavoidable. That being the case, “avoidance” should never be the goal of management. More often than not, these patients have real physical and/or psychological health needs. Try to restrain yourself from the all too easy temptation of categorising “difficult” with “undeserving” or tossing them into the “too hard basket”.
09.21.06
Doctors’ Health Advisory Service
Original article by: Michael Tam :: Printer friendly
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Doctors’ Health Advisory Service 24 hour helpline: (02) 9437 6552 Website: |
The Doctors’ Health Advisory Service (DHAS) operates independently and confidentially, and aims to ensure that no doctor or medical student in NSW lacks access to health care.
09.17.06
Stress as a junior medical officer
Original article by: Michael Tam :: Printer friendly
Being a junior medical officer is a stressful affair. The workload is heavy, your efforts are often devalued, and at times you have the thrill (or the terror) of having the responsibility of someone’s life proverbially in your hands.
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Psychological distress is very common in junior doctors, sometimes with tragic results. Be mindful of your own and your colleagues’ mental well-being. |
Doctors are not very good at looking after their own health or psychological needs and unfortunately, neither is the system. Your employers (i.e., hospital administration) only care when it is much too late, e.g., the recent “vow of action” by the Victorian State Government after the tragic suicides of two registrars in Melbourne hospitals (1).
09.13.06
Menopause – a summary of management
Original article by: May Su :: Printer friendly
Resources
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Menopause usually occurs in women aged between the ages of 45-55 years. In general women in their peri-menopausal years are more likely to seek medical advice than the post-menopausal woman.
09.12.06
The sacred and the profane of medicine
Original article by: Michael Tam :: Printer friendly
Warning: pseudo-intellectual mumbo-jumbo ahead!
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Titian: Sacred and Profane Love (1514) |
The term “the sacred and the profane” is more commonly used in a discussion on the nature of religion. The “profane” is the “realm of routine experience”; “the sphere of adaptive behaviour and is essentially utilitarian”. The “sacred” is the realm of human experience that “evokes an attitude of awe and reverence”, is “non-utilitarian”, “non-empirical” and “impinges on human consciousness with moral obligation and an ethical imperative” (1).
