by S.Patnaik,N.Jha
The Development of the Infant and Young Child: Normal and Abnormal
Developmental Psychopathology and Its Treatment. pp
JN Ball, BSG Ball, SR Berry.
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Professor R S Illingworth's Introduction, written in 1958, set the tone for the work which follows:
"A Medical Report on Health is the only thing by which most patients are really treated. A decision about the next step in the treatment of the individual patient is made by a doctor who writes a report of the patient's health or disease. This report should be a true medical report, covering, of course, all the aspects of the patient's case, but it should be in particular a report on the possible nature of the disease and of the possible outlook for it, and how this outlook is to be measured by the chances of the patient's recovery or rehabilitation.
"Such a report, when it is written by an experienced physician, is not only a valuable help to the patient and his friends, and the doctor, but it is in turn an extraordinarily valuable instrument for the further progress of medicine.
"If it is written by someone who knows about the disease, and it is written, that is, by a physician who knows the next step to be taken in the treatment of the patient, it also tells the patient what he wants to know, and, what is more, tells him the next step to be taken. It explains to him why it is being taken, what the illness means to him and how it is to be treated, and when and if he may recover.
"There is one way in which the report, if it is a true one, must be written which has often baffled or even infuriated my colleagues and me when we have given advice to patients. That is, the report must be honest, that is, honest about the patient's chances of recovery and rehabilitation, honest about the nature of the illness and the prospects of its cure, honest about the dangers of the illness, honest about the nature of the illness and honest about what we can do for the patient. To try to play these various roles with a part in mind in the patient's interest, to say nothing of speaking frankly in general to him, may be difficult for some of my colleagues and for me, but it is the only way by which a report can be an instrument of the patient's best interests.
"I believe be359ba680
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