Hello all,
As you may remember my last blog was about Dug, the guy who wouldn’t share his PMH with me. Thanks to Minh and Nic for your advice, you brought up some important issues that I hadn’t really considered. To keep you up dated Dug came back in today, I decided that I would explore the PMH issue. I was quite firm and clinical in my approach, I avoided “dabbling” around the issue and just simply told him that I was a health professional, all information is confidential and that I wasn’t prepared to treat him if he couldn’t be honest with me. This worked better than I could have hoped for. He told me that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia 10 years ago and had spent a substantial amount of time since then in grey lands hospital, he has also spent time in prison and has battled depression since he was a child. I think once he told me he relaxed, I guess once that was out in the open he felt that I was more likely to be able to help him. I was very pleased with how the situation ended, I think the lesson to be learnt is to… know clearly what you want and why you want it, be confident about getting it, and respect it once you have it. (guess this can be a metaphor for anything you want in life)
Jess