Words matter. Patients can get spooked by the words we use. All of us have heard vignettes of how some inadvertent harsh words from a physician have caused injury. I know there were times that I wish I could rewind and erase some errant words. Sometimes, an innocent remark from the doctor doesn’t land innocently. When I ask as a matter of routine, ‘is there a family history of colon cancer’, as I do with every patient, this may provoke anxiety in a patient who is seeing me for a bowel disturbance. Words Matter We ask every patient who arrives at our ambulatory surgery center if they have a living will. This often causes the patient to utter a nervous joke. We then go on to ask if the patient has ever been ‘a victim of abuse or neglect’. We are required to ask this.. It would seem rather unlikely that a patient who has just purged themselves for the pleasure of a colonoscopy, would confess to a nurse that (s)he is meeting for the first time that (s)he has been
MD Whistleblower presents vignettes and commentaries on the medical profession. We peek 'behind the medical curtain' and deliver candor and controversy in every post.