Yesterday I caught myself doing something I had told myself I would never do, especially not in residency. I heard the medical student present the patient as a, “35-year-old male with a past medical history of poly substance abuse, noncompliance, and multiple stints in rehab,” and I caught myself rolling my eyes and writing drug seeker in my notes on the patient. This was not my last day practicing medicine after a long and storied career. This was just my second week as an intern, and I realized I had started becoming jaded to this patient population.
Upset I had allowed myself to get jaded so soon, I tried to convince myself this story would be different. That he was actively seeking medical care and to reform, to become one of those success stories we hear all too often on the radio or see on TV, and that his failures were not personal shortcomings, but a reflection of the flaws and apathy of our medical support system.
Unfortunately, his story sounded all too familiar. Multiple stints in rehab, multiple drug therapies and drug combinations, a history of crime, and every outreach and sober living program his family could find had failed. When we spoke with his parents, they wondered aloud if it was time to move to another city or state, hoping that the drug dealers and his addictions wouldn’t follow him behind a dumpster or into a bathroom of a seedy bar if the weather were different.
Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how.
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