Therapy thoughts (24/4/25) - Are we responsible for our patients outcomes?

WTF are therapy thoughts? Well, they are random thoughts I have about therapy : ), and have decided to write some of them down!

This is the first one, hopefully there will be a few more!

Todays therapy thought, Are we responsible for our patients outcomes?

Are you bad at your job if people don’t get better?

I think this is something a lot of us can feel! 

Simply put, NO! I don't think we are!

But that doesn’t mean that you aren’t responsible for doing a great job! This is so much more than whether someone’s pain changes IMO.

This could be things such as:

• Listening
• Caring
• Thorough assessment
• Keeping up to date with knowledge

There are so many variables around painful problems that it would be impossible to be able to affect them all, even if we could.

This includes:

• Length of pain
• Comorbidity
• Beliefs and outlook for the future
• Health & lifestyle behaviours

Patients may not be responsible for all of their outcomes either. Many aspects of health/pain are not in anyone’s control such as genetics, socioeconomics and previous experiences.

Doctors can do a fantastic job, but unfortunately their patients still die, it’s a little morbid as an example but still relevant I reckon.  

But if we are not always responsible for negative outcomes, maybe we are not always responsible for the positive ones either?