Assignment:
In the article by Michaelsen three different strategies for approaching difficult patients were reviewed: persuasion, compromise, and avoidance.
• Describe which approach you may have used in the past. Reflect on the patient interaction(s) and describe what your personal feelings were surrounding this. Think about how your personal feelings affected the scenario and how your "emotional filter" affected the situation either negatively or positively.
In the article by Breen and Greenberg, the authors discuss consultant physician relationships with difficult patients. The authors mention the importance of "personal awareness" and "self-reflection".
• Now that you have performed some self-reflection and hopefully gained some personal awareness, think about this difficult interaction and how you, as the professional, would approach it differently if given the chance.
Readings:
1. Emotional distance to so-called difficult patients
By Jette Joost Michaelsen
2. Difficult physician-patient encounters
By K. J. Breen and P. B. Greenberg
3. Patient-centred communication intervention study to evaluate nurse-patient interactions in complex continuing care
By Katherine S McGilton, Riva Sorin-Peters