Background: Feedback on videotaped consultations is a useful way to enhance consultation skills among medical students. The method is becoming increasingly common, but is still not widely implemented in medical education. One obstacle might be that many students seem to consider this educational approach a stressful experience and are reluctant to participate. In order to improve the process and make it more acceptable to the participants, we wanted to identify possible problems experienced by students when making and receiving feedback on their video taped consultations.
ObjectiveTo explore general practitioners (GPs’) experiences from consultations when a patient’s request is denied, and outcomes of such incidents.Design and participantsWe conducted a qualitative study with semi-structured individual interviews with six GPs in Norway. We asked them to tell about experiences from specific encounters where they had refused a patient’s request. The texts were analysed with Systematic Text Condensation, a method for thematic cross-case analysis.Main outcome measuresAccounts of experiences from consultations when GPs refused their patients’ requests.ResultsSubjects of dispute included clinical topics like investigation and treatment, certification regarding welfare benefits and medico-legal issues, and administrative matters. The arguments took different paths, sometimes settled by reaching common ground but more often as unresolved disagreement with anger or irritation from the patient, sometimes with open hostility and violence. The aftermath and outcomes of these disputes lead to strong emotional impact where the doctors reflected upon the incidents and sometimes regretted their handling of the consultation. Some long-standing and close patient–doctor relationships were injured or came to an end.ConclusionsThe price for denying a patient’s request may be high, and GPs find themselves uncomfortable in such encounters. Skills pertaining to this particular challenge could be improved though education and training, drawing attention to negotiation of potential conflicts. Also, the notion that doctors have a professional commitment to his or her own autonomy and to society should be restored, through increased emphasis on core professional ethics in medical education at all levels.
Objectives. To explore general practitioners’ (GPs’) specific negotiation strategies regarding sick-leave issues with patients suffering from subjective health complaints. Design. Focus-group study. Setting. Nine focus-group interviews in three cities in different regions of Norway. Participants. 48 GPs (31 men, 17 women; age 32–65), participating in a course dealing with diagnostic practice and assessment of sickness certificates related to patients with subjective health complaints. Results. The GPs identified some specific strategies that they claimed to apply when dealing with the question of sick leave for patients with subjective health complaints. The first step would be to build an alliance with the patient by complying with the wish for sick leave, and at the same time searching for information to acquire the patient's perspective. This position would become the basis for the main goal: motivating the patient for a rapid return to work by pointing out the positive effects of staying at work, making legal and moral arguments, and warning against long-term sick leave. Additional solutions might also be applied, such as involving other stakeholders in this process to provide alternatives to sick leave. Conclusions and implications. GPs seem to have a conscious approach to negotiations of sickness certification, as they report applying specific strategies to limit the duration of sick leave due to subjective health complaints. This give-and-take way of handling sick-leave negotiations has been suggested by others to enhance return to work, and should be further encouraged. However, specific effectiveness of this strategy is yet to be proven, and further investigation into the actual dealings between doctor and patients in these complex encounters is needed.
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