Every patient is different. But is there something specific about a patient who is also a doctor or a nurse? This essay is the result of observations, reflections, and discussions between myself, an associate professor of nursing with clinical experience in palliative care, and my GP.
I was diagnosed with grade 2 breast cancer in April 2014. I may have had years of experience working with patients with cancer, but, as far as being an NHS patient was concerned, I was a novice. It soon became clear that taking up the role of patient is a huge challenge for those working in a medical environment. Some aspects of being a patient came as no surprise, but the extent to which they affected me was startling.
There are a number of ways in which the experiences are unique.
MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES
Healthcare professionals who are patients are likely to experience their immersion in the healthcare system in a number of different ways. They are:
a patient;
a critical analyst, studying themselves being a patient;
an observant healthcare professional, assessing how other healthcare professionals do their work; and
a researcher, processing and analysing the healthcare structures and procedures affecting them as patients.
It can be difficult to switch off any of these multiple, simultaneous perspectives. I found it exhausting.
THE DISTANCING EFFECT OF BEING A HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL
Healthcare professionals should know better than anyone else that people get ill, yet it can come as a shock and a surprise when it happens to us. We have learned to protect ourselves from our patients’ distress by separating their experience from our own, resulting in a ‘them and us’ attitude as a way of coping with our patients’ fear and suffering. Such distancing may even lead to healthcare professionals ignoring their …