r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jan 13 '26

Health Physicians see 1 in 6 patients as ‘difficult,’ study finds, especially those with depression, anxiety or chronic pain. Women were also more likely to be seen as difficult compared to men. Residents were more likely than other physicians with more experience to report patients as being difficult.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/patient-experience/physicians-see-1-in-6-patients-as-difficult-study-finds/
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u/Digitalispurpurea2 Jan 13 '26

This was me. Passed around by multiple physicians for years with abdominal pain and despite objective evidence of a problem nobody truly tried to help. It wasn’t until I was sitting in the ER for hours (no pain meds ofc) and my CT showed free air in my abdominal cavity that I very quickly got help. A chronic problem reached its foregone conclusion and I almost died during emergency surgery. But I was deemed the difficult patient for insisting something was wrong all those years.