The Difficult Patient

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Learning Objectives:

• Certain patients engender strong negative feelings, despair and even downright malice in their physicians. An understanding of this “hateful” patient will lead to improved physician well-being and satisfaction, less self- destructive patient behavior, improved treatment compliance and a lower risk of litigation.
• Several specific factors, including those related to technology and health care delivery systems, confound this problem for the physician practicing medicine in the 21st century.
• Helpful tools in dealing with the “hateful patient” include empathic attitude and more effective communication, attempts to make sense of why the patient has resorted to negative response patterns, ensuring boundaries and assisting the patient to gain insight into his/her behavior.
• Physicians can actually choose more useful thoughts about challenging patients that will cause more positive emotions that drive effective actions and more satisfying results.