Abstract
Emergency physicians face challenges in the course of their shifts while interacting with the many patients and their families that they find to be “difficult.” That is an extremely subjective term that has come to mean any behavior or obstacle placed in the way of a satisfying course of evaluation and treatment. Some studies suggest that between one and four to five patients are considered difficult by their treating physician. Over a 12-h shift, this could mean that four or five patients either frustrate, anger, deflate, or exhaust us. Even though most of our interactions with patients are productive and mutually satisfying, we tend to dwell on those that go poorly. Those are the memories that keep us up at night and send us to look up “nonclinical jobs” online.
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Naidorf, J. (2023). Dealing with Difficult Patients and Their Families. In: Olympia, R.P., Werley, E.B., Lubin, J.S., Yoon-Flannery, K. (eds) An Emergency Physician’s Path. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47873-4_64
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47873-4_64
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