Following on from the last 4 posts we are uncovering the ‘8 things’ you should never say to a patient & this Monday we dig into – “I fully understand what you are going through.”

This may seem just the right thing to sat to a patient but unless you’ve been in the exact same position as your patient – and to be honest, that may be quite rare – you don’t understand or comprehend what he/she is going through. You might have had a family member who struggled with a serious illness, but that doesn’t mean your experience is anything like that of your patient’s, you really have no idea. What’s more, some patients don’t want to know how you are personally relating to them at this moment – they want you to help them heal. They do not want to know about your story or the story of a close friend of yours…

Some patients respond well to your personal perspective but wait until you are more familiar with them and their diagnosis before you launch into a story about your cousin who has the exact same low back surgery which failed but then recovered with conservative care.