The treatment of people affected by diabetic foot syndrome is at a very high level in many regions. General practitioners, specialists, hospitals and other experts take care of the affected patients. When the treatment team has done everything in its power and failure is due to the patient’s failure to comply with agreements, communication and learning from mistakes can easily stall. Agreements remote from everyday life trigger the journey into this one-way street. When a deteriorating wound indicates a failure of the process that “offends” both, the professional and the patient, things tend to become personal.
Consequences of failure
Failure and a fresh start can be a wonderful process if the right consequences are drawn. Non-compliance with agreements has the bad quality of inviting blame. This massively disturbs communication. The original prescription or instruction is not recognised as incorrect and therefore no alternatives are searched for. This harms the patient.
The therapists also forfeit, because their learning cycle does not close. “You only get wise from mistakes” – is a German saying, but this is true only if the failure is not exclusively attributed to misconduct on the part of the patients.
Illusory worlds
The easier the therapists lose their temper, the safer is the white lie. Protective shoes are only worn for visits to the doctor, traces of wear and tear are artificially produced, exploring the limits is either concealed or denied. In this way, peace is maintained. But:
If the affected person cannot discuss their compromises, they take place without the influence of the experience of the treatment team – a pity!
Research into the cause of a deterioration becomes impossible. Good shoes may be ‘worsened by refining’ if they are not worn at all, but the person concerned does not dare to say so.
Burnout
Burnout is too big a topic for this essay, but disturbed communication certainly contributes to a long-term unsatisfactory working atmosphere.
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