What not to say to people with complex chronic illness

Medscape, a leading outlet for physicians and health care professionals worldwide, published an article advising clinicians on what not to say to people with complex chronic illness, based on a paper by Nancy J. Smyth, PhD, professor in the School of Social Work, and Svetlana Blitshteyn, MD, a neurologist who is the director of Dysautonomia Clinic at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB.

“With this paper, we hope to highlight the wide gap in communication and attitudes among clinicians and other health care practitioners toward a patient population that has been largely neglected by the medical community, but that deserves equally effective and compassionate care as patients with diabetes or heart disease,” Blitshteyn said.