The Stupid News with Yankee Pete
DO DOCTORS TREAT THEIR OBESE PATIENTS WORSE?
Monday October 26th, 2009
There's a new study about doctors and their obese patients from researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The results are in the November issue of the "Journal of General Internal Medicine" . . . and they're pretty interesting.
The survey had 40 doctors answer a questionnaire about their 238 obese patients. The findings show that doctors have negative attitudes towards the chubbier people they treat . . . and less respect for them.
Specifically, the researchers looked at the body-mass index . . . or BMI . . . of each deliciously candy-coated patient, and how it related to the doctor's attitude.
They found that for every 10-unit increase in BMI, there was a 14% higher prevalence of low-patient-respect on the part of the doctor. In other words: The chubbier you are, the worse your doctor treats you.
Dr. Mary Margaret Huizinga was the lead researcher on the project. She said, "Obesity bias has been increasing in society, even while race and gender bias has been decreasing . . . and physicians may be mimicking what is found in society."
That leads to a couple problems. First, if a doctor has a negative attitude like that, they might give the patient less information about their condition . . . and obviously, that could negatively affect the health of the patient.
Second, if chubbier patients feel they're being treated poorly, they might avoid seeing their doctor in the first place . . . and miss out on important preventive screenings. So either way, they're more likely to STAY obese.
Another expert on this stuff . . . Dr. William O'Neill at the University of Miami School of Medicine . . . says he isn't really surprised. He says, "We have to start treating the patients not as weak-willed or basic 'pigs,' but as people who have a disease that needs to be treated."
He also says part of the problem might simply be that examining obese patients can be more difficult, because added folds of skin and poor grooming can lead to body odor . . . and that could mean a less thorough job of examining the patient. (Health Day)
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