Real-Life Decision Making
One of your favorite patients is coming into your office today. She is an incredible athlete, very competitive, and the top in a lot of her classes. She is into cycling, running, and tennis. She excels in all sports, and has an undying passion for physical fitness.
She has come in complaining about a knee injury. You know that this was slowly getting worse over the past few years, because of the amount of stress that has been placed on it by all of the three sports she likes to focus on.
The sport that is doing the most damage to her knee is running. You have talked about this with her before. In fact, you recommended that she take up cycling. However, she has never actually slowed down on her running. She just added more stress by beginning cycling, and more recently, tennis.
"You are working with healthy people who are interested in fitness, and are trying to do the best for themselves," says sports doctor Ron Reznick. He feels that's the best part of the job.
In this case, the patient needs to understand that exercise is not to her advantage. No matter how many times you talk with her, she doesn't seem to want to hear you.
In the past, you have supplied her with painkillers. You know that if she just lowered the amount of stress on this knee, she wouldn't need the painkillers.
What do you do?