Sam M wrote:
> Just a suggestion for a name for patients who, on recovering from one
> usually rather nebulous complaint immediately develope another
> unrelated ailment and so on and on....... I have several such. Does
> anyone else and is there another name for these unfortunates? - not
> quite hypochondriasis or Munchausen's. They are very difficult to deal
> with.
Then David J PLews:
>Aren't they called "heart sink" patients?
They are - check T.C.O'Dowd's papers, namely "Five years of heartsink
patients in general practice" (BMJ 1988;297:528-30). You can also call these
patients "black holes", expression coined by TJ Gerrard and JD Riddell:
"Difficult patients: black holes and secrets" (BMJ 1988;297:530-32)- they
exhaust all your energies!
My favourite acronym on this topic was described by Edward Shahady, from
Chapell Hill, North Carolina: the "gomers" - standing for "Get Out of My
Emergency Room!". He also sweetly describes two syndromes who are in fact
the Domino Syndrome: the "Oh, by the way, Doc" Syndrome, and the "No sooner
is one thing fixed than another goes wrong" Syndrome.
Ed Shahady wrote this a long time ago. You can check it at
Shahady E. Uncovering the real problem of "crocks" and "gomers". Consultant
April 1984: 33-43.
Cheers!
Armando
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Armando Brito de Sa'
Lisboa, Portugal
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