Tag: Dr. Victor Montori

Confessions of a non-compliant patient

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 32 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

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Consider this scenario, dear reader:  I’m lying in bed one Sunday evening, settled in to watch 60 Minutes for the next hour. But this Sunday is different from any other Sunday because I’ve had three new things to deal with during the past week that are utterly separate from my laundry list of daily cardiac concerns:

  1. I’ve been having physiotherapy three times a week because I twisted my right knee (same one I had knee surgery on seven years ago).
  2. I’m using a new prescription ointment for a pesky patch of psoriasis on my left elbow.
  3. I’m wearing a brand new acrylic mouth guard to bed every night that my dentist has just made for me to help treat a longstanding jaw alignment problem.

So. Here I am lying in bed that Sunday evening as our story unfolds . . . Continue reading “Confessions of a non-compliant patient” →

“Everybody has plans ‘til they get punched in the mouth.”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters           .  

When Edward Davies was with the British Medical Journal, he attended the Lown Institute conference in Boston, where he was reminded of some unlikely wisdom from boxer Mike Tyson. In the run up to a big fight, he explained, Iron Mike was being bombarded with media questions about how he intended to deal with his powerful challenger. Did he have a strategy?  What was his plan? The boxer’s response was simple:

“Everybody has plans ‘til they get punched in the mouth.”

In boxing terms, as Davies wrote in the BMJ, this is completely literal sound advice, but as a figurative metaphor for life, it’s not bad, either:

“Listening to a patient panel here at the Lown Institute conference, I was reminded that this is a worldview that doctors might do well to remember.”

Most patients diagnosed with a life-altering diagnosis can readily identify with what that metaphorical punch in the mouth feels like.  Continue reading ““Everybody has plans ‘til they get punched in the mouth.”” →

“To just be a person, and not a patient anymore”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 27 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Some lively online discussions recently, initiated by yet another interesting article from Dr. James Salwitz called Why Is The Doctor Angry?  This time around, Dr. Salwitz tells the story of one of his patients who had become very ill, but then emailed a doctor 3,000 miles away in California rather than consult his own doctor as he became sicker and sicker. The California doctor forwarded the email back to Dr. Salwitz, who immediately sent his patient to hospital with multiple system failures. Dr. S felt angry about his patient’s behaviour, explaining:

”    Did I look him in the eye and tell him that I was upset, that he had neglected his own care by not reaching out and in doing so he violated the basic tenants of a relationship which said that he was the patient and I was the doctor?”

“Did I remind him what I expect from him and what he can expect from me?  You better believe it – I was really pissed!”   Continue reading ““To just be a person, and not a patient anymore”” →

News flash: care improves when doctors consider the whole person

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

When I worked in hospice palliative care, I remember being gobsmacked one day while reading in a medical journal about Dr. Harvey Chochinov’s research on Dignity Therapy out of the Manitoba Palliative Care Research Unit.(1) His studies determined that – wait for it! – patients feel better when their doctors listen to them. This of course sounds like a no-brainer until it hits you upside the head that, apparently, not all doctors know this fact to be true unless it’s published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Is it actually possible, I wondered at the time, that doctors thumbing through journals madly take notes when they discover a surprisingly shocking news flash like this?

Recently, I ran across yet another fine example of the bleedin’ obvious that makes me crazy-go-nuts, as my Ukrainian relatives would say. Continue reading “News flash: care improves when doctors consider the whole person” →