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How to look after your patients by looking after yourself

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Raj Persaud
Maudsley Hospital, Westways Clinic, 49 St James Road, Croydon CR9 2RR, UK; r.persaud@iop.kcl.ac.uk

Keywords: patient-doctor relationships; personal view

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

It is sometimes said that the vocation of being a doctor would be simply marvellous if it wasn’t for the patients—who seem to get in the way of doing one’s job properly. Repeatedly the literature suggests that a major cause of burnout in professions that involve much dealing with the public is the emotional demands of such encounters. Yet despite the new emphasis on patient communication in various medical curricula the problem remains that it seems stubbornly difficult to train the problem away for doctors.

Is this perhaps because there is no best way of dealing with patients and attempts to teach some kind of gold standard—some perfect way of being with patients—is ultimately doomed? All of us have a tendency, linked to our personality, to be best able to undertake certain kinds of relationships, while others defeat us. So knowing what kinds of patients we can cope . . . [Full text of this article]