#PatientsAreNotFaking

#PatientsAreNotFaking
Nov 25, 2019

If you are active at all on social media, you may have seen a video posted by someone dressed as a nurse making a comment about how nurses know when patients are faking. The video then goes on to show the nurse making fun of a patient’s symptoms. While probably meant as a joke, this is no laughing matter. We see this all the time in our cases. Healthcare providers blowing off a patient’s complaints, treating the patient as a complainer and dismissing objective signs of a medical condition. Because we are involved, this usually means the case took a turn for the worse, and eventually, the healthcare providers determined that the patient wasn’t faking.

Poor Attitudes Leading to Injuries

Unfortunately, this attitude leads to delays in diagnosis which often prolong a patient’s suffering and also risk patient safety. As we’ve blogged about before, this is a danger disproportionately experienced by black women. Several recent studies show that doctors disregard and discount black women’s complaints of pain at much higher levels than they do with white patients’ complaints.

Subsequent Outrage

The vast majority of healthcare providers, doctors and nurses are caring, compassionate people who take their patients’ complaints seriously. In fact, many were outraged by this video which led to the trending of the hashtag #PatientsAreNotFaking. There, many providers took to tell stories of examples they witnessed of patients not being taken seriously. Patients chimed in and told stories of being discounted. If you have time and are active on twitter, you should check out the hashtag and read the stories.

If you believe you or a loved one are the victim of medical malpractice, please feel free to call us for a free consultation.

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