'Heartsink' patients in general practice: a defining paper, its impact, and psychodynamic potential.

摘要

In his 1988 paper 'Five years of heartsink patients in general practice', Tom O'Dowd is said to have coined the term 'heartsink'. In that paper O'Dowd refers to a publication in which the term heartsink' had been employed 2 years previously, but in which the author, CG Ellis, preferred 'dysphoria' to describe: 'the feelings felt in the pit of your stomach when their [the patients'] names are seen on the morning's appointment list'. O'Dowd believed that Ellis's 'pit of your stomach' definition had 'an intuitive ring about if; he quoted it and attached it to the term 'heartsink', a term which, according to O'Dowd, 'more clearly refers to the doctor's emotions which are triggered by certain patients'.