Over time, as experience develops, clinical reasoning themes emerge that speed our decision-making for commonly reoccurring scenarios. We begin, for example, to develop rules of thumb and analogies resulting in common pattern recognition that originate from past successes. The formal term for this is heuristics. In fact, clinicians rarely use formal computations to make patient care decisions in day-to-day practice….
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Unhealthy Patient Relationships: Five Danger Signs
Prison and jail medical units are over-represented by female staff, creating a number of challenges to avoiding unhealthy patient relationships. It is a common saying that incarcerated persons go to medical to ‘enjoy the view’, and in one prison system in which I worked, it was explicitly stated to all orientees, “You cannot have sex with an inmate.” As crass…
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When Prison is an End-of-Life Sentence: Hospice in Corrections
Terminal illness is an increasing possibility as incarcerated persons age and remain in custody. This can be a time of great sorrow, loneliness, suspicion, pain, and suffering for incarcerated individuals. They may have great fear of dying alone, in pain and without support. Every correctional facility will inevitably have an incarcerated individual who is diagnosed with a terminal condition. Are…
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