Answer: Use a more empathic and collaborative approach than confrontational approach.

The scientific evidence

Doctors can help patients change their eating and exercise habits — if they use the right words!

Doctors were observed to spend around 15% of the patient consultation time advising their overweight patients to lose weight. However, this advice  made no difference to their patients’ weight three months later. As a group, patients who received counselling lost no more weight than patients who did not.

Digging a bit deeper,  however, the researchers found that how the doctors gave their advice did make a difference. Patients whose  doctors used a more empathic, collaborative style of counselling  had lost an average of three and a half pounds more than patients whose doctors  used a more confrontational style when assessed three months later. It seems patients prefer their doctors saying empathic statements such as “it sounds like you’re finding it hard to find time to exercise” than more confrontational statements such as “So, you can’t fit exercise into your day?”

Click here to read the full scientific journal abstract.

Answer:  Read this article: Difficult doctors, difficult patients by Dr Aaron Johnston.

It is such a good article.  I love Dr J’s list of tips at the end:

I’ve found that there are a few easy things that I can do to make almost all of my encounters with so called ‘difficult patients’ actually very pleasant.

• Let the patient have their say. If I think a patient is angry because they feel unheard I try (and it’s hard) to keep my mouth shut for 5 minutes and listen to their story. Usually the story is over in 2 minutes, and the frustration on both sides decreases.
• I give my best treatment options to the patient, but I don’t take it personally if my patients choose a different path.
• I apologize when I have inconvenienced my patients, and I empathize when my patients are inconvenienced by things beyond my control.
• When I don’t know the answer I say “I don’t know the answer”.
• I try to have a non-medical conversation with my patients on the way to and from the waiting room.

Of course, those tips would be good advice for all professionals handling difficult clients.