The return trip home from a lecture in Virginia is on a Cessna 182, a single propeller plane. The pilot sits in front of me and meticulously checks and rechecks each gauge and all sorts of other things I know nothing about. Before we even got in the plane, he had checked and rechecked the plane’s exterior, and he spent quite a bit of time before that checking and rechecking the weather for flight conditions. He is compulsive. Obsessive compulsive. I like that in a pilot.
Face It, We’re Compulsive
His compulsivity doesn’t strike me as unusual. I’m surrounded by compulsive people. Medicine is pretty competitive, and those who get into the profession are generally compulsive. Plus, you don’t get a spot in dermatology by slacking off, so we’re likely to be even more compulsive than the average doctor. Patients probably like that about us.
Our Patients are Usually Not
We may be so surrounded by compulsive folks that we take this character trait for granted in other people. We shouldn’t. Most of our patients are not as compulsive as we are. They don’t floss their teeth every day. They may not attend to diet and exercise. Above all, they don’t follow our treatment recommendations very well.
There are Some Exceptions
Oh, there are exceptions. You probably recognize them. CPAs and engineers who come to the office with a list of every medicine they’ve ever taken — either in an Excel spreadsheet or handwritten in block letters on graph paper. These folks may be downright anal retentive! But they are compliant; they do what you tell them, exactly the way you tell them.
Behold the Compliance-Challenged
However, the rest are a motley crew as far as their compliance behavior is concerned. They may say the previous medication didn’t do much good (because they didn’t apply it very well). They may say it stopped working (probably because they stopped using it). They may say, “Nothing seems to work” (probably because they don’t use any medication very well).
Rising to the Challenge
I have to admit, these are the patients I consider most fun to treat. Making the diagnosis and choosing the treatment aren’t nearly as much fun or as challenging as trying to figure out some practical way to get them to actually use their prescribed medication.
Someday there will probably be a very nice, safe and effective pill that increases people’s compulsive behaviors. Until then, we’ll have to manage patients with older, more traditional approaches of patient education and counseling to improve their compliance behavior.
The return trip home from a lecture in Virginia is on a Cessna 182, a single propeller plane. The pilot sits in front of me and meticulously checks and rechecks each gauge and all sorts of other things I know nothing about. Before we even got in the plane, he had checked and rechecked the plane’s exterior, and he spent quite a bit of time before that checking and rechecking the weather for flight conditions. He is compulsive. Obsessive compulsive. I like that in a pilot.
Face It, We’re Compulsive
His compulsivity doesn’t strike me as unusual. I’m surrounded by compulsive people. Medicine is pretty competitive, and those who get into the profession are generally compulsive. Plus, you don’t get a spot in dermatology by slacking off, so we’re likely to be even more compulsive than the average doctor. Patients probably like that about us.
Our Patients are Usually Not
We may be so surrounded by compulsive folks that we take this character trait for granted in other people. We shouldn’t. Most of our patients are not as compulsive as we are. They don’t floss their teeth every day. They may not attend to diet and exercise. Above all, they don’t follow our treatment recommendations very well.
There are Some Exceptions
Oh, there are exceptions. You probably recognize them. CPAs and engineers who come to the office with a list of every medicine they’ve ever taken — either in an Excel spreadsheet or handwritten in block letters on graph paper. These folks may be downright anal retentive! But they are compliant; they do what you tell them, exactly the way you tell them.
Behold the Compliance-Challenged
However, the rest are a motley crew as far as their compliance behavior is concerned. They may say the previous medication didn’t do much good (because they didn’t apply it very well). They may say it stopped working (probably because they stopped using it). They may say, “Nothing seems to work” (probably because they don’t use any medication very well).
Rising to the Challenge
I have to admit, these are the patients I consider most fun to treat. Making the diagnosis and choosing the treatment aren’t nearly as much fun or as challenging as trying to figure out some practical way to get them to actually use their prescribed medication.
Someday there will probably be a very nice, safe and effective pill that increases people’s compulsive behaviors. Until then, we’ll have to manage patients with older, more traditional approaches of patient education and counseling to improve their compliance behavior.
The return trip home from a lecture in Virginia is on a Cessna 182, a single propeller plane. The pilot sits in front of me and meticulously checks and rechecks each gauge and all sorts of other things I know nothing about. Before we even got in the plane, he had checked and rechecked the plane’s exterior, and he spent quite a bit of time before that checking and rechecking the weather for flight conditions. He is compulsive. Obsessive compulsive. I like that in a pilot.
Face It, We’re Compulsive
His compulsivity doesn’t strike me as unusual. I’m surrounded by compulsive people. Medicine is pretty competitive, and those who get into the profession are generally compulsive. Plus, you don’t get a spot in dermatology by slacking off, so we’re likely to be even more compulsive than the average doctor. Patients probably like that about us.
Our Patients are Usually Not
We may be so surrounded by compulsive folks that we take this character trait for granted in other people. We shouldn’t. Most of our patients are not as compulsive as we are. They don’t floss their teeth every day. They may not attend to diet and exercise. Above all, they don’t follow our treatment recommendations very well.
There are Some Exceptions
Oh, there are exceptions. You probably recognize them. CPAs and engineers who come to the office with a list of every medicine they’ve ever taken — either in an Excel spreadsheet or handwritten in block letters on graph paper. These folks may be downright anal retentive! But they are compliant; they do what you tell them, exactly the way you tell them.
Behold the Compliance-Challenged
However, the rest are a motley crew as far as their compliance behavior is concerned. They may say the previous medication didn’t do much good (because they didn’t apply it very well). They may say it stopped working (probably because they stopped using it). They may say, “Nothing seems to work” (probably because they don’t use any medication very well).
Rising to the Challenge
I have to admit, these are the patients I consider most fun to treat. Making the diagnosis and choosing the treatment aren’t nearly as much fun or as challenging as trying to figure out some practical way to get them to actually use their prescribed medication.
Someday there will probably be a very nice, safe and effective pill that increases people’s compulsive behaviors. Until then, we’ll have to manage patients with older, more traditional approaches of patient education and counseling to improve their compliance behavior.
