Agitated Patient.

As some of you know - I am currently on my 6 week SSC Research Attachment. Today I was lucky enough to go to clinic with my supervisor to get some clinical experience. It was quite a straight forward day. 6 patients - all mainly with osteoporosis. However, one patient does stick out. She is fairly young to be having osteoporosis and the minute she walked in there was a sense of tension. I quickly noticed that she seemed fairly annoyed/agitated. It seemed like she was forced to come and was absolutely not interested about going to clinic.

I have followed/gone to clinics several times and have seen some patients and I luckily have not come across an "agitated" patient before. All the ones I have met are quite nice and did not fuss much about going to clinic.

First question asked to the patient: "Do you know why you're here today?"

Patient: "NO."

Immediately there was a bit of an awkward silence and in your head you're already saying: "This is going to be an interesting one..." Throughout the consultation it almost seemed like the patient was not listening at all and just did not care. At one point I thought she was going to get aggressive and thump my supervisor with her bag! It was such an uncomfortable environment. Throughout the consultation there were no bad news and everything was good - my supervisor and I were smiling and thinking that the patient would be glad to hear the good news and would smile...well she still looked "pissed". My supervisor tried to inform the patient about her treatment options and that everything will be fine and that it is essentially up to her if she wants to follow with the treatment. At no point was he rude or confronting. He was actually REALLY nice and patient. He took his time to explain to her about things and the treatment.

Anyways after a bit, the consultation was done and the patient left - obviously still agitated and annoyed. She was apparently moaning to the nurses about the treatment and all that and was being a bit uncooperative. No joke I had a sigh of relief when she left as it was really uncomfortable. It didn't help that the office was TINY.

Definitely a neat experience and I will definitely encounter some patients who do not want to be in the hospital or at the clinic and will be a bit uncooperative. It was a good learning experience and it is something I will keep in mind. I felt that my supervisor handled it very well and calmly. Thought I'd mention this as I thought it was something different and made clinic a bit more interesting.