A simple story of my patient in clinic

I saw a patient earlier. At first, I feel weird as he came to the group education before, but he never control his food intake. He seems to have very poor understanding of the diet control on the hypercholesterolemia,

He was telling me that he takes nasi lemak and roti canai quite frequently. I was quite pissed off and disappointed at the beginning, as I felt like my advices are all down to the drain. But in the end, I'm kind of relieved and happy. Well, we cannot easily judge a book by its cover.

I ask this patient why he never follow, he said he had problem to follow, lack of discipline, perhaps. but then I found out that he had limited understanding on the diet control, which mean, he literally did not understand or perhaps remember the diet advises given to him during the group education.

Well, I need to admit that when group education is carried out, it's hard for me to target everyone's need and make sure everyone can follow the flow of it. This patient seems to come from low educational status. That's why he cannot remember or understand whether what he took currently is under controlled or not.

I'm actually happy to find out the reason as he is still coming back to me to ask further about the diet control, even though I need to repeat the whole same thing on low cholesterol diet to him. He was motivated to come back and see me, as he knew he was not doing correctly. He working as a guard in swimming pool and he seems unable to understand thing fast. He cannot recognise many high cholesterol food, not even the common one, like fried food and skin.

However, I'm proud of this patient as he is willing to come back and asked for an individualised diet advises, as he really worried about his own health. He also informed me that he did boxing as his exercise, which is his favourite thing to do whenever he's free during his working hours. Guess he had nothing to much to do while guarding the swimming pool.

Counsel patient is never an easy job, A lot of time and effort needed in order to find out patient's need. As for this patient, I need to explain in the most simplest way so that I can ensure he understands what I am talking about. But I'm proud of him, many patients out there are well educated, but when talking about diet control, they just simply ignore that. This patient can work as a role model for many people out there.