Should you call your patients 'lovely'?
This doctor thinks not, as the medical note is no place to 'pass judgement on our patients' likeability'
20th February 2019
From the 'lovely' 62-year-old Mrs Smith, to the 'delightful' Mr Jones presenting with a painful right knee, many GPs have a shorthand way of referring to their nicer patients in their notes and referral letters.
But a US doctor is suggesting these terms have had their day, and it’s time to move on from including an appreciation of a patient’s personality or disposition in their medical notes.
In a blog on the New England Journal of Medicine's Journal Watch newsletter, Professor Paul Cox wonders whether referring to