I must admit I have a lot of sympathy for a patient in extremis hoping/denying he does not have a potentially deadly virus, for whatever reason. By the time you are sick enough to be admitted to the hospital with this there is a sizeable chance you will never go home.
Unfortunately this can result in patients refusing to wear masks and risking spreading the virus and endangering others. But empathy with the denial would probably help make a rapport with the patient to help increase everyone’s safety.
(I’m sure Dr. Marino behaved empathetically to the patient, I’m not suggesting he didn’t, I am only making the point that we have to bend over backwards to be empathetic in these situations in order not to act with angry counter-transference, however justified it may be)
Nor do I suggest that empathy includes allowing the patient to yell and run around spewing virus. Nope. Not at all.
I wonder how we can expand this idea to better communicate to the denialists at large. Perhaps it is not possible.
In my experience in consult liaison and emergency psychiatry work, it’s always so much easier to communicate what must be done if you understand where the patient/family is coming from, whether it’s paranoid/psychotic/denial and work from there with communication style.
Now that I think of it, I’ve said snarky things about public figures and writers speaking out against masks for reasons of “liberte!” except I do think they have evil/chaotic intent, so maybe I take that back. The protestors I have more empathy for...
...though watching them shouting at each other in tight groups makes my skin crawl.
I should also make clear I’m not criticizing @RyanMarino posting this at all. It’s important to express and vent about such a dangerous and exasperating situation, so we can fully understand and react to it professionally when it occurs, and not out of reactionary emotion.
