Dealing with angry patient in emergency department - Essay Example

Patients who visit an ED would be prioritized that the more serious cases would be attended to first before the physician can attend to them. A who was suffering from a bad sore throat visited the emergency when I was the doctor on duty attending my shift. At the same time a critically injured person was being rushed into the emergency on a stretcher. The person was engaged in a serious car accident and needed immediate attention. The sore- throated patient had already been waiting for an hour when I was busy in attending to another emergency case involving that of a broken limb.

After attending to the serious cases I came out and ushered in the next patient who seemed extremely angry and showed his anger by throwing the newspaper that he had been reading on the couch as I approached him and told him that he would be the next patient to go inside. While emphasis is being laid on the acquisition of examination skills, less importance is being given to the communication process while filing a patient’s history. Recent studies have shown that a “patient –centered” approach is much better and more useful during a consultation because it places the patient and his cares at the centre of the inter-action.

“A patient –centered approach is built on the philosophy that a patient is not a passive recipient of care and recognizes the importance of the patient’s knowledge and experience using it to guide the inter-action. (Bryne and Long, 1976) Preoccupying the patient by asking the right questions helps to create a communication channel which is vital to a patient- centered approach. The Emergency Doctor should practice a consultation style that is open, relaxed and responsive to patient’s cues.

It also helps the doctor to understand and address the patient’s concerns because “it is therapeutic and sets the consultation within a truly holistic framework”. (Greenhalgh & Hurwitz,