A Patient Who Had Nothing Wrong With Him

Abstract

In medical school we all acknowledge that we are not equipped to deal well with patients who have no immediately obvious organic pathology. We are chosen, trained and prepared for high-action and sometimes heroic interventions, but have little training in dealing with patients simply as people. We are often warned of the dangers of reducing a patient to his or her diagnosis and of referring to them as "the liver in cubicle D", yet we are given little or no training or advice on how not to do this apart from our four weeks of family medicine.