Currently on my cardiopulmonary prac I was allocated a patient who was admitted to hospital for an open colectomy. She is 49 yo and her past medical history included - gall stone anaemia, lamiectomy, T2DM, ETOH, smoker, chronic back pain, appendicectomy, hysterectomy, (L) uretic stent, bowel perforation, Hep C positive. After reading her notes, I was told NOT to call her Mrs ..... as she become quite hostile and will yell and rant and rave.
When walking into the room I noticed she was aboriginal and all she did was look at me an say "What you want?". My first impression of this patient was that se was going to rant and rave at me (because my aim was to run her up and down the corridor a few times!), completely refuse physio treatment and quite frankly tell me where to go.
I introduce myself and asked her how she was, what was her pain at rest and with movement, had she been coghing etc etc etc. Then I asked her how she would feel about heading up and down the corridor for a change intead of sitting in her room. To my surprise she said that sounded like the best idea she had her all day and off we went.
I have seen this patient a few times now and I think she is a wonderful kind lady who really likes a good gasbag. My first impression were horribly wrong. I have learned from this experience and now have stopped pre-judging patients by their PMH or what the nurses are saying.
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3 comments:
thank you for your advice about not pre-judging patients according to their PMH or by other staff's comments. after reading your post, i found myself in a similar situation where i was given a physio transfer summary about a new patient who had just arrived for rehab. the summary basically said the patient was uncooperative, rude and lazy. i took your advice and entered the patients room with an open mind and introduced myself and explained my role. i found the patient to be pleasant and cooperative. the patient mentioned the previous hospital he was in and he said the physio treating him had been rude and abrupt from day 1 and obviously wasnt happy in her job because she complained about it throughout her treatment sessions with him. thank you for your advice, i might have entered this patients room with preconceived ideas which may have changed my attitude to him thus affecting our professional relationship.
Thanks for the interesting blog, I have found so often that patients respond so differently to different attitudes. Some patients respond really well to heaps of reassurance and others need a less sensitive approach. The important thing is to keep an open mind like you said and treat each patient individually as they present to you, not how you have been told they will be.
heya.. i so totally agree... i have been through this same situation where my supervisor warned be about this pts behaviour prior to me treating her that made me feel apprehensive and a little afraid to meet her. Upon meeting her she was just so different... so copoerative and chatty. I believe we just have to keep an open mind with meeting our patients and the varied handovers we get from out fellow phyios or health professionals!
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