Study: Pain Patients Have Desire to Kill Their Doctor

Would you believe that 1 in 20 pain or physical rehabilitation patients have wanted to kill their primary care provider? I’m stunned. I’d have thought the number would be much higher.

If you can’t relate to this at all, you’re lucky! Far too many of us with fibromyalgia (FMS) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME/CFS) have had doctors dismiss our symptoms, say our pain is in our heads, or tell us we’re depressed.

Some of the reasons people gave for wanting to kill their doctor include:

Perceived incompetence
Perceived harmful treatment
Being forced to see a doctor they don’t trust

If you think about it, all of those reasons actually hinge on trust. To me, that’s the sad fact of this study - it points out how profoundly we’ve lost trust in the people who are supposed to help us. And too often, insurance companies take away our freedom to find a doctor we can trust.

I’ll explore this problem more in the next 2 posts, first by looking at the doctor-patient relationship, and then by examining a predicted change in the healthcare system that I believe could be a turn for the better.

Meanwhile, if you want to vent about your doctor, post here or in About.com’s Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome forum, where I can guarantee we all understand your frustration!

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Posted by Adrienne Dellwo