Biomedical subjects

Lucy M Candib

Publications and source records attributed to Lucy M Candib.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2002

Working with suffering.

The past century has shown that human beings are capable of genocidal destruction of millions of other humans based on ethnicity or race. Clinicians today are likely to encounter patients who are survivors of inflicted atrocities and abuse. People fleeing horrendous circumstances bring persisting memories that produce symptoms even for the next generation. Families carry the knowledge-personal, cultural, familial, and sometimes individual-of the depths of destruction that human beings can do to one another. Suffering derives from the memory, both physical and mental, of what other persons inflicted; it has multiple dimensions that patients may not express explicitly; instead they may frame their experience of suffering in terms of pain. Diagnostic labels such as post-traumatic stress disorder or somatization are inadequate to convey human comprehension of suffering. Clinicians around the world need to be willing and able to acknowledge and witness the profound sources of experiential pain in the lives of their patients.

Homicide↗

PubMed2002

Culture, language, and the doctor-patient relationship.

BACKGROUND: This review's goal was to determine how differences between physicians and patients in race, ethnicity and language influence the quality of the physician-patient relationship. METHODS: We performed a literature review to assess existing evidence for ethnic and racial disparities in the quality of doctor-patient communication and the doctor-patient relationship. RESULTS: We found consistent evidence that race, ethnicity; and language have substantial influence on the quality of the doctor-patient relationship. Minority patients, especially those not proficient in English, are less likely to engender empathic response from physicians, establish rapport with physicians, receive sufficient information, and be encouraged to participate in medical decision making. CONCLUSIONS: The literature calls for a more diverse physician work force since minority patients are more likely to choose minority physicians, to be more satisfied by language-concordant relationships, and to feel more connected and involved in decision making with racially concordant physicians. The literature upholds the recommendation for professional interpreters to bridge the gaps in access experienced by non-English speaking physicians. Further evidence supports the admonition that "majority" physicians need to be more effective in developing relationships and in their communication with ethnic and racial minority patients.

Communication↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The somatization in primary care study: a tale of three diagnoses.

Somatization is a common phenomenon that has been defined in many ways. The two most widely used diagnoses, Somatization Disorder (SD) and Abridged Somatization Disorder (ASD), are based on lifetime unexplained symptoms. However, reports indicate instability in lifetime symptom recall among somatizing patients. Multisomatoform disorder (MSD) is a new diagnosis based on current unexplained symptoms. To understand how knowledge about SD and ASD translates to MSD, we examined the diagnostic concordance, impairment and health care utilization of these groups in a sample from the Somatization in Primary Care Study. The diagnostic concordance was high between MSD and SD, but lower between MSD and ASD. All three groups reported considerable physical impairment (measured using the PCS subscale of the SF-36). The mental health (MCS) scores for the three groups were only slightly lower than those of the general population. Over the course of one year, physical functioning fell significantly for all three groups. Mental functioning did not change significantly for any of the three groups over this period. Utilization patterns were very similar for the three groups. The high prevalence, serious impairment, and worsening physical functioning over the course of one year suggest the importance of developing interventions in primary care to alleviate the impaired physical functioning and reduce utilization in somatizing patients. MSD should be a useful diagnosis for targeting these interventions because it identifies a sizable cohort of somatizing patients reporting impairment of comparable severity to full SD, using a more efficient diagnostic algorithm based on current symptoms.

Female↗