A pediatrician’s view on critical self-talk among patients and doctors
A young teen patient, eyes averted, clutching a cell phone, sits in my office. It’s a scheduled annual exam, and the patient reports some ailments—fatigue, anxiety, and poor sleep. Across the room, the parent sits in apparent composure, but as my eyes meet the parent’s gaze and hover here for an instant, I register pain, frustration, and desperation. The patient’s symptoms are not new, and there may have been calls …