Consider the Whole Person
Health care professionals have to remember to look at the whole person, not just the illness or the injury. Patients are not numbers or diseases. Patients are mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters. They are coworkers, bosses, and friends, and even perhaps enemies. They have families to care for, jobs to hold down, bills to pay, and lives to live.
The sum of all of these factors can influence a patient's health status in a helpful manner or hinder the situation. Health care is most effective when the team has an understanding of who the patient is and why she reacts or behaves in certain ways. Beliefs, customs, and cultural diversity all play a role in how a person reacts to an illness, copes with changes, and adapts to the healing process.
The patients (customers) may not always be right, but they have to come first and are your priority for the moment. Always treat your patients as you would expect to be treated, and more importantly, as you would expect your most precious loved ones to be treated.
Fact
Patients come in all shapes and sizes, races and genders. A patient may be an infant who has been born several months premature, or an elderly gentleman who has seen the better part of ten decades. Some are sweet, adorable, and cooperative, and some are just plain mean and obnoxious. Illness affects people in very many ways. Some cope with it better than others.
