As chronic patients, we are acutely aware of the strain that can creep into patient-physician relationships. You can try everything in an appointment — being quiet and polite, assertive and confident, well-informed and prepared… and still end up feeling that something went wrong. Every negative experience with doctors who don’t listen or believe our stories, or simply have poor bedside manners, added to a heightened state of emotional vulnerability and physical fragility, can condition us to feel fear and pain by simply entering a doctor’s office. For some of us, this becomes medical PTSD or, as one specialist named it, “doctor-induced PTSD.”
It’s difficult to then meet new doctors without projecting these fears. Yet, how can we expect doctors to believe in us when we are too guarded to trust them? In the end, the frustration, fear, compassion fatigue, and lack of perceived respect causes both parties to stop