How to understand the individuality in a patient?
Firstly, when a patient visits you, a physician should keep in mind that, we are talking with a patient and, not with a person. In a healthy state a person behaves differently than when they become sick. For example, in a healthy state a person likes coffee or likes to travel. But when the same person gets sick, he says, “I don’t like coffee and have no desire to travel.”
In a healthy state, a person likes company, but after getting sick they like to be left alone.
In a healthy state, it doesn’t matter if family members or friends cares about them or not, but after getting sick, this may be different, and they may want family members, or friends to take care of them.
Secondly, we must keep in mind, that while you are talking with a patient you may take care that, they should not speak about something which is not related to their sickness. It happens very often that, while narrating their problems a patient starts telling stories from their past or present life with or without any relation to their existing problems.
Thirdly, a patient may tell you about a problem, be it mental or physical, which they had suffered during their childhood, or many years ago prior to their present sickness, but if it has no relationship to their present
sickness then we can choose to ignore that information. For example, a patient comes to you for the treatment of headache. They start narrating about something that happened to them 15 years ago, it could be some physical injury, fever or a mental issue like losing someone important or something bad or abusive that had happened in their childhood. Before you make it a part of case taking, you must clarify or ask the patient if it is related to the present problem for which they have visited you. If it is not related to the problem, then you could ignore it. “I request my patient to only talk about those things or feelings which are associated with their problems. A physician could spend hours to conclude the case if they do not limit the patient to the points related to sickness only.
Fourthly, as a physician, it is our job to understand what is important or not important in a case, in order to prescribe the medicine. As an artist a physician should be able to filter out the unreal symptoms (issues) from real symptoms (issues) from the speech or gestures of a patient. For example, when a patient starts narrating their symptom we must make sure, what the real reason is of the tear flowing out of the eyes. Upon asking, a patient, they may reply, it is nothing, but due to dust or touch of a finger in the eye that the tears started coming out of it.
Alternatively, a patient may speak loudly or starts rubbing their hand on the painful part. One may take it as if the patient is in a lot of pain and get sympathetic towards the patient. Upon asking what the need is or why they have been rubbing their hand on the painful part, one may hear from the patient that they are doing it to get attention from you.
Fifthly, If a patient says, “I have come to you for sinusitis.” Usually what happens, a physician start taking note of presenting complaints or immediately ask the patient to tell more about his sinusitis. For example, how long have they been suffering from it, what kind of treatment they have taken or have been taking? What has to be done in homoeopathic practice is, to confirm from the patient, without assuming, imagining, speculating, that the patient has actually visited you for sinusitis. That is if sinusitis is the only reason for them to visit you.
You may get astonished when the patient may tell you that, though they were troubled by the sinus problem, but the main issue which has brought them to you, is that due to their sinus problem he or she has not been able to concentrate, work, or sleep and so forth. This means, till they were able to concentrate, work or sleep properly they were not concerned about the sinusitis. So, one must confirm from the patient, the real concern for them to visit the doctor.
It helps us not to get prejudiced, and to understand our patient from the point of view of an unprejudiced observer.
Ref : ROH Books Series XIV-Kingdom of Mind
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