Thursday 30 June 2022 08:39 PM Doctor warns hatred of patients could get in the way of giving them good ... trends now
Patients who are disliked by their doctors could be receiving worse medical care than others, an emergency physician revealed Thursday.
Dr Joan Naidorf, who has nearly 30 years of experience on wards in Alexandria, Virginia, said medics judge patients just like anyone else.
She warned that when they don't like someone this could harm care, with doctors avoiding seeing them or failing to listen when they explain their symptoms risking a wrong diagnosis.
Writing in the Washington Post, Naidorf even mentioned a case where she had avoided a female drug-user who was 'in agony' because they would regularly sign out against clinical advice and refuse to fill out prescriptions.
She called for further research into the impact of doctors disliking patients, warning it is normally ignored because medics are meant to treat all patients equally.
Sometimes doctors may dislike patients, which could lead to them receiving worse care medics have warned (file)
Dr Joan Naidorf, an emergency physician with over 20 years experience, delivered the warning
The impact of doctor's attitude towards patients on their care has been little studied in the past.
But previous papers have suggested doctors find about 15 percent of patients they see in a day 'difficult'.
That means that in a shift where a doctor may see 25 patients a day, this means they dislike three to four of them.
Warning how a doctor's attitude to a patient can affect care, Nairdorf said: 'Health-care professionals judge patients one way or another because that is what humans do.
'Humans have a strong negativity bias and look for things that look wrong or dangerous.
'This tendency served our ancestors who had to be alert for danger well. We are experts at identifying what is wrong.'
She talked about incidents during training where colleagues used 'derogatory' and 'demeaning' terms to describe a group of patients.
She also warned that this attitude can become entrenched in a hospital environment, which could lead to worse care for a certain group of patients.
Naidorf, who grew up in New Jersey, trained at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia.
She has practiced for nearly 30 years at the emergency departments of the Inova Alexandria Hospital and Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, both in Virginia.
Describing an incident where Naidorf herself avoided seeing a patient, she mentioned an individual who would come to the ER department regularly 'in pain' because of her drug habit.
Naidorf said that by this patient's third visit
