Different Perspectives

If there's one thing I've learned in my interactions with patients, it's that everyone's perspective can be different. And unless I can see things from their perspective, we're going to have a hard time communicating. Here's a classic example.

I have a patient who has Parkinson's Disease and came in for followup. I asked him how he had been doing since his last visit.
"Terrible. My symptoms are a lot worse."
"Hmm. What do you think changed that made them worse?"
"Well they got worse after I stopped my medications."
"So why did you stop your medications?"
"Because I thought I was getting addicted to them."
"What made you think that you were becoming addicted to your Parkinson's medications?"
"Well, every time I missed a dose of my medicines, my symptoms got a lot worse."

We went through why I thought that qualified more as his medications working and not his becoming addicted, though he still seemed skeptical. To probe his understanding, I asked if everything was clear and if he had any other questions.

"Yeah, doc, just one. What if I'm on a plane, and it crashes in the middle of the rainforest and I'm stuck with no access to my medications for a long time. Do you think I would have withdrawal, and couldn't I die from that?"
"Well, if your plane crashed in a rainforest I think you would have a few more pressing issues than being unable to access your Parkinson's medications, but... Let me try explaining all of this to you again..."

Perspective.