Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Tips for Dealing With Your Difficult Patients


Being a medical worker such as a doctor, nurse or any worker in scrubs can be hard sometimes, especially when dealing with difficult patients. People come into medical facilities for a variety of reasons and you are there to provide a service; you must remember that. There are going to be times where patients are going to be less than cordial and you have to be ready.

In the daily practice of physicians, psychotherapists and other staff, there’s a very good chance that you will pick up on some of these the unpleasant following behaviors:

• Intense anger outbursts
• Aggressive verbal behavior
• Exaggerated expression of emotions
• Persistent desire for recognition of others
• Distrust
• Lack of follow rules
• Contentious and persistent insistence on personal rights
• Frequent need of help
• Complaining or whining
• Silence
• Constant complaints of being ill, often associated with hypochondriac-type symptoms
• Suicide threats and suicide acts
• Ingratitude

Such "difficult" behavior frustrates the workers, triggers resistance and costs time, money and effort of staff. If, however, it starts to stress the relationship between the workers and patients, treatment success is in question. Interaction skills, awareness and professionalism in dealing with patients is very important- especially with difficult patients- and is therefore a basic prerequisite for any treatment.

Sometimes unruly patients can get very violent and start throwing things. You should always have a spare set of medical scrubs uniforms on hand just in case something goes wrong and you need to change.


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