Does a doctor come to the doctor – surviving with Lyme, Jolien Plantinga, Gopher, 212 pp. 21.75 euros.
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They are perhaps the two most difficult categories of patients for doctors: the patient who is a doctor himself, and the patient who has an elusive clinical picture. Jolien Plantinga is both in one.
In A doctor comes to the doctor, this formerly skeptical GP reports on how her own, recurring Lyme infection destroys her health thoroughly and for a long time. In doing so, she penetratingly portrays how difficult it is to be a patient in a world where the medical profession seems unable or unwilling to do anything with the wide combination of complaints she experiences. How great her despair is when fellow doctors don’t seem to listen to what Plantinga is trying to convey as a patient. Incidentally, she does not spare herself: as a doctor-patient she sometimes also makes things quite difficult for others.
Plantinga’s book invites doctors to examine how well he or she really hears and sees the patient – especially those difficult ones. That willingness can do no harm in times when long-term covid has been added to the list of difficult diseases. The print version of Plantinga’s book has been available since last year, but the work will also be published as an audio book in March. Luistereffect.nl.
