Successful Psychological Strategies of Experienced Chronic Fatigue Patients: A Qualitative Study, 2021, Hall et al

A hearty laugh thanks to you both. It would not be surprising that the editor publishes Michiel's letter.

Social strata aside, medical doctors are incited to push through long, busy and stressful working hours from their first year of education at medical school. This behavior is encouraged early on and all throughout their education by senior staff that supervises them as students, interns and residents.

It may be that a significant proportion of MDs deals with chronic fatigue to some degree, especially in financially overstretched, understaffed hospitals and surgeries. The result is that disregard or scorn rather than compassion towards patients presenting with chronic fatigue is the norm.

 

Ah, well, that's simple: we don't. This can end here. We don't live well. At all. This is a well-documented fact. Why even make this obviously false assumption? We survive, in no way does this ever amount to living well. They'd know if they'd ever listen. And what in the hell is this "(or even because of)" doing there?! This is borderline "yes you were raped but a baby is always a blessing". Hell not even borderline it's just as disgusting.

And boy the lengths some people will go to avoid doing their job. Amazing, in the end it's literally more work.

You can find identical statements to this going back decades. No, it "may" not, we know for a fact, we have decades showing otherwise. But, sure, crippling selective institutional amnesia does just as well.

 

Basically Deepak Chopra substituting quantum woo with neuroscience woo.

 

This is why I'm assuming that this article is about 'chronic fatigue' and not ME.

 

My reading is that the authors don’t think they need to make this distinction.

They understand the symptom of chronic fatigue is not the same as CFS which they acknowledge may be a distinct biomedical condition, which they confusingly also seem to regard as solely defined as persistent chronic fatigue. However I think they see it as irrelevant if their subjects have ME/CFS or not and assume that any conclusions they chose to draw from their arbitrarily pre selected subjects will be relevant to anyone with the symptom of chronic fatigue including CFS and MUS.

[corrected typos]

 

Just wanted to bump this one. It hits it on the head: Yes, I do as a pwME want to learn more about successful strategies to live as well as I can when I can with this condition. But it is not a doctor’s role to focus on that.

I especially like your last paragraph.


Ultimately (as I’m pleased to see @Trish already mentioned), this is a selection of people who would choose to characterise themselves as doing well, who would volunteer to take the time to do this and are happy to be held up as an example case for others to learn from.
I’m afraid that demonstrates a correlation with the attitudes observed and reported on …and not much about causation. (Added for clarity: Nor about treatment or what to do if you’re not currently ‘doing well’. To put it very simply: people selected for thinking they have a ‘good attitude’ report having a ‘good’ attitude)


And this bit I’m just very sad to find out that this is closer to home than I initially realised.