Patients have families / Henry B. Richardson.

  • Henry B. Richardson
Date:
1945
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Patients have families / Henry B. Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    prove to be misleading, and at best they provide very little under standing of the disease, and correspondingly little as to the proper treatment. The medical records do, however, supply certain clues to the family situation, which was a vital factor in the respective ill nesses. From them we learn, in addition to Mrs. Q—'s statement at her first visit, that the family had had trouble for several years, that at the beginning of this period she had a miscarriage which she said was the result of a fall. The parents used withdrawal as a contraceptive measure. Agnes had malnutrition and amenorrhea 1 and her x-rays were negative. The doctor stated that she was afraid of eating. She was not doing well at school. The younger daughter, Catherine, had to be taken out of school for six months because of nervousness and crying spells. Mr. Q— vomited, but his x-rays were negative. In fact, none of the special tests had revealed any cause for the symptoms in any member of the family. The teeth were very bad, but there was no medical reason for supposing that they affected the family relationships. Mrs. Q— accompanied her nine teen-year-old daughter to the hospital out-patient department, and did most of the talking for her. When the medical social service department was finally con sulted, it cleared the family through a central office and found that they had been in contact with a number of organizations, only one or two of which had been listed on the hospital records. These included a family agency which reported a wealth of information about the family. Particularly illuminating was the description of the intra-family relationships and tensions. It comprised also the identifying data, the historical development of the family-social situation, a list of medical contacts in the form of the official diag noses, and descriptions in each case of the symptoms of illness as viewed by the patient. This information was vital to the under standing of the family and to the adjustment of the family situation, but it had not been sought by the hospital. The family asked for aid on the basis of economic considerations. The interviews were mo nopolized by Mrs. Q—, and it was felt that no progress was made. 1 Loss of menstruation.