Interesting comments on the previous post. Thanks for all of them. I do think it’s hard to maintain the right perspective, and especially to remember that every patient is different, has a different understanding of their illness, and wants/needs explanation at different levels. I had a patient last week-- she comes in with her husband, and after some tests we see that the situation is not a good one. I start explaining things, in very simple terms, slowly and carefully. Then it happens to come up that she’s a doctor herself-- it wasn’t in the chart-- and it’s like a complete 180. “Why didn’t you say so?” “Oh, I didn’t think of it.” And then I really found myself completely changing the kinds of words I was using and the tone I was saying them in. She was following-- but her husband from that point on really wasn’t. And he asked me to back up, and slow down. And I did. But just my whole mental process-- from “she’s just a patient” to “she’s a doctor, so I can use the medical words now”-- was interesting. I don’t know what the lesson necessarily is, but I was surprised how different it felt to talk to “just a patient” vs. “a doctor.” Because of course she shouldn’t be “just” a patient. She’s a patient. Period. They’re all patients.jocuri cu barbie