Saturday, June 2, 2018

Heartsink Patients


Heartsink" patients exasperate, defeat, and overwhelm their doctors by their behaviour. A group of such patients was followed up over five years in a general practice, and this paper describes what happened to them. As a group they were often in employment and in stable relationships, though women were over represented. Half the group were subjected to a management plan which seemed to make them less heartsink over the five year period. While heartsink patients often have serious medical problems, they are a disparate group of individuals whose only common thread seems to be the distress they cause their doctor and the practice. Heartsink as a phenomenon has features that are unique to general practice.

T. C. O'Dowd. Five years of heartsink patients in general practice. BMJ. 1988 Aug 20; 297(6647): 528–530.  Free Full Text.

[This is an important article.  We all see these patients.  Some of us groan when we see them on the daily list.  Others may look forward to the challenge.  Heartsink patients may be those who are stuck in a chaos story.  They are not questing and have not achieved restitution (see  Frank, AW.  The Wounded Storyteller).


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Introduction

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