Complaining

Should it be suppressed? Medpundit on patients who complain:

Constructive criticism isn’t a fault, but constant complaining for the sake of complaining is. We see this a lot in medicine- patients who refuse or reject every treatment recommendation for a specific complaint but then continue to return with the same complaint. All treatment options have been exhausted, and still the complaints continue. It’s usually at that point that the realization hits that all they want is someone to listen to them. Once in a rare while someone will say right at the outset, before the mega-work up – “I don’t want you to do anything about it. I just want to complain,” but that takes a degree of self-awareness that’s extremely rare.

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